Clear Creek Darrington
Printed From: ProfessorPaddle.com
Category: General
Forum Name: Whitewater Forum
Forum Discription: Open Discussion Forum. Whitewater related subjects only
URL: http://www.professorpaddle.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8988
Printed Date: 17 Sep 2025 at 3:43am
Topic: Clear Creek Darrington
Posted By: JayB
Subject: Clear Creek Darrington
Date Posted: 05 Dec 2009 at 5:25pm
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Anyone ever run it? I get out there at least 2-4 times a summer for climbing, and the AW, the rating, and the small bits I've seen make it an intriguing prospect - but would love to hear any first hand info, thoughts on flow correlations with the Sauk, or any other info beyond what's on the AW page. Many Thanks, ------------- -Jay |
Replies:
Posted By: JoesKayak
Date Posted: 05 Dec 2009 at 6:07pm
| I've gone up to scout it out a couple times the last 2 summers but both times the road was blocked by an avalanche. |
Posted By: SOPBOATER
Date Posted: 05 Dec 2009 at 6:53pm
| I have run it years ago. It has some quality water on it, I recall that I was impressed with the quality. As far as levels I have no recollection on #'s. I believe everything else in the area was on the medium high to high side. As of late I have heard through the grapevine that the road was in fairly bad shape and the creek may not be accesible. |
Posted By: JayB
Date Posted: 05 Dec 2009 at 9:39pm
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Thanks all for the info and keep it coming if there's more out there. I was out there climbing this summer, and can vouch for the fact that the road is in good shape (or was), and easily passable for most vehicles all the way to the road end where most folks park to climb Green Giant Buttress. However - there's some pretty signficant slide paths that cross the road - so it's anyone's guess what kind of shape the road will be in each spring - which of course is when it counts for boating purposes. The AW blip mentions a run from Eightmile Creek to Asbestos Falls, but as far as I know there's no Eightmile Creek in the drainage (Copper creek and Clear Creek have a confluence up higher in the valley) . Since Asbestos Creek comes in about ~2 miles from the turnoff, it sounds like what they might mean is most peopel put in below the Falls and run down to the Sauk? ------------- -Jay |
Posted By: Wiggins
Date Posted: 05 Dec 2009 at 10:03pm
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I went up and scouted it a couple years ago. It looked like there was some decent water above what I believe was the lead in to the falls, but it needed more water (I think the Sauk was around 4500 cfs).
I have seen the last two rapids before the Sauk, and from 50 or so feet above the river they look pretty good, but I don't know how you would put in below the falls. It is pretty steep and unstable in there.
Kyle ------------- I smell bacon |
Posted By: SOPBOATER
Date Posted: 05 Dec 2009 at 11:40pm
| You definitely want to run above the falls. The run was like two miles or more in length. Also make sure you get out above the falls. It gets harder to get back to the road the closer you take out to the falls. |
Posted By: JoesKayak
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2010 at 10:14am
| I finally got a look at this run last weekend. The road is now clear up to the put-in. The bad news is the one section I walked in to, which looked to be some really fun stuff had at least 3 log portages and a couple more logs looked to be in play. The portages didn't look too bad, but took some otherwise fun looking drops out of play. |
Posted By: JoesKayak
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2010 at 11:27am
| I guess I should mention the good news... It does look like a fun low-volume run. The road is fairly close on the whole run, although there's enough forest in the way you have to walk in a bit to scout. I didn't scout out the whole thing, but most of what I saw looked good. The upper part looked like alot of 2/3 busy water and then some good class 4 later on with long boulder gardens with some medium sized ledges. |
Posted By: JayB
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2010 at 3:26pm
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Hey Joe: Great info - thanks so much for posting it. Would you say that it was approaching boatable flows while you were there or did it still have a ways to go? ------------- -Jay |
Posted By: JoesKayak
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2010 at 4:29pm
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"Approaching" boatable flows would be about right. it was pretty low. It's a small creek though, so I don't think it would have taken too much more. Really about 200 cfs is probably all you need to make it go, and it was probably more like 150. The section of good stuff is pretty continuous so until you know the run you wouldn't want too much water either, as you'd want to be able to eddy hop and scout/portage easily. |
Posted By: JoesKayak
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2010 at 4:30pm
| Sauk was about 4000-4500 or so.... not that it's going to be any perfect correlation. |
Posted By: water wacko
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2010 at 8:25pm
That would follow what SOPBOATER said, too. Cool. Have to check it out. Creeks. Who knew? 
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