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James
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  Quote James Replybullet Topic: East Clear Creek
    Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 12:54pm
Another epic adventure , Man thanks for sharing , I am jealous, looks pretty amazing in there, was it pretty cold in the evenings?
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smcboating
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  Quote smcboating Replybullet Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 1:30pm
Hey Brian,
 
I ran East Clear Creek in early march of 08 or 09 in a combination of running Chevalon, East Clear Creek, and the Little Colo from Grand Falls down. All AMAZING runs. East Clear Creek is a spectacular place. Ive been in a lot of canyons in the Southwest but Ive never seen pictographs basically at river level like in East Clear. I believe we had 400 for the flow and the run cleaned up a lot. We ran all but the sieved out rapid.  The Narrows at the end of East Clear is unreal coconino sandstone. Much of the second half of Chevalon is similar and even tighter in places. I have a lot of pics of Chevalon but only one of East Clear. We sayed at the same beach you did as in your picture. As you know not a warm place!!!! Im suprised more people havent run this stretch is a awesome class 4 multiday in a specatular place!!! Kudos to you!!
 


Edited by smcboating - 01 Apr 2013 at 1:33pm
If 6 Was 9
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  Quote smcboating Replybullet Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 2:48pm

I should clarify that on EF Clear we hiked in on river left instead of going to Macks crossing. This put us in the canyon and gave us a 40 mile stretch to the lake. We did in two days with one night spent on the river.

 

I would say Chevalon is a slight step up but only on a few drops which can be portaged. I've done Chevalon twice, the first time was probably in 06. We ran down through the full extent of the narrows. Here we took out at a bridge.

 

The narrows from the ranch down to the take out are the tightest in the canyon

The second time we took out at a ranch(we asked permission) where there is a steel ladder into the canyon.

 

On the first trip we heard there was 3 massive wood log jam portages but we could portage over. We actually put on on a snow storm at 250 cfs. The snow was quickly turning to melt and we took off at about 700+ cfs. There where small waterfalls pouring in all over the canyon-super cool. The log jams were similar to the pic of your log jam portage except they where in complete narrows, semi floating because of the increased flow and covered in about 4 inches of snow. Each was probably 50 to 100 meters long and a total bitch to navigate. Think belly crawl over your kayak, find a safe place to stand slide your kayak forward and then do it again.

I have heard that the wood was blown out and the lower narrows was clear but that beta is a few years old so maybe you have more current info.

 

Taking out at the ranch cuts off like 6-8 miles i think.

 

On the second run we had like 400-500 which was a great flow and not to pushy. Id say the EF Clear and Chevalon correlate as far as flow. We had a catarafter with us on that trip.

 

On the LC Ive done from Grand Falls to a random river crossing in the reservation. We did this stretch last on that trip in which it was snowing on Chevalon, and by the time we got to it it had 2000cfs going over the falls which is about 150-200ft high. The run is basically class 2 but amazing artwork and ruin sights-some still had potshards. Grand falls would be a cool place to camp for this run.

 

I've also done from Cameron to the confluence of the Colo in the Grand on a August monsoon. We then hiked out the Walter Powell route-about 3500ft straight up!. We were able to leave out kayaks at the confluence because one of the guys on the trip was a GC guide and picked them up later.

 

Those canyons are unreal. The first three were from Chevalon and the last two from the LC into the grand.

 
 
 
If 6 Was 9
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1150lbsofaire
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  Quote 1150lbsofaire Replybullet Posted: 04 Apr 2013 at 10:06am
very cool! i used to go deep water soloing on the flat water part back when i lived in flagstaff and have always wondered if there was rapids up stream
lookin for a bow cap for a storm
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