Whitewater Forum: Chetco

Chetco

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=12214
Printed Date: 25 Jun 2025 at 9:37am

Topic: Chetco

Posted By: Jed Hawkes
Subject: Chetco
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 9:04am

woah, looks rad.

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The line will become apparent
978-273-7723

Replies:

Posted By: The NZA
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 9:04am

This looks awesome. I need to get my Alpacka up in this!

Posted By: JoesKayak
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 9:07am

Don't know why you bother with this crap when you got the Duwamish in your back yard.

Posted By: James
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 10:02am

Looks amazing in there... but I bet that there was very little industrial waste in the eddies and probably no overpasses with bum camps. Brian probably just had a few extra vacation days so he tried to find another river that could compare with his backyard stretch.... While I don't think he succeeded it would appear that he still had a good time.

Any fishing done on that trip? Chetco is pretty well known for it.

Posted By: The NZA
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 10:36am

Cool bear sighting! I saw 7 the day I was up on the Queets on Memorial Day.

Posted By: James
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 10:44am

Brian if you went back would you be willing to pack no food and live off the river?

That is how I determine if the fishing is off the hook so to speak.

Posted By: James
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 11:50am

my record is a bit more than 8 beers in a day.... oh wait bears... my bad

This little chetco might have to go on the hit list for another year...

Posted By: jP
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 12:18pm

No doubt. As usual, Professor Slick brings back for us a stellar report of adventures pursued well.

Looks like an awesome trip, Brian!

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🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋

Posted By: not-very-clever
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 2:46pm

what do you get when you cross a bear with a deer?

a beer

Posted By: Jed Hawkes
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 3:16pm

Originally posted by James

my record is a bit more than 8 beers in a day.... oh wait bears... my bad

And by a bit more I assume you mean multiples of 8?

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The line will become apparent
978-273-7723

Posted By: justin
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 3:40pm

Man, I wanna retire and go boat that.

Posted By: SPerillo
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2012 at 7:01pm

Chetco....so hot right now

Posted By: The NZA
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2012 at 12:40pm

Hit me up if you ever go back there. Doing rivers/canyons like this is exactly why I bought an Alpacka!

Posted By: shap
Date Posted: 10 Jul 2012 at 2:51pm

I was on this trip, I can vouch for its badass-ness! Access is the long term problem.

Posted By: awskitc
Date Posted: 10 Jul 2012 at 8:50pm

This is something i'd love to do! And I have time now. Whats the level like, how long does it stay running, and do you need more water for a creeker rather than a ducky?

Posted By: thad2000
Date Posted: 11 Jul 2012 at 4:34am

Great pics.. fodder for fantasy. :) The hike, aside from the bush beating, sounds like it was nice too. I say sail in on an airship made of IK's filled with helium. :)
p.s. any eucalypti on the trail. (obscure joke with self regarding a glorious way to die.) the trip looked increadible... beautiful water.

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why not!

Posted By: shap
Date Posted: 11 Jul 2012 at 8:40am

Originally posted by awskitc

This is something i'd love to do! And I have time now. Whats the level like, how long does it stay running, and do you need more water for a creeker rather than a ducky?

I think you want to be in there as late as possible to minimize the risk of being hit by a big storm and being in serious peril. There really is no way out from the vast majority of this run. The river was running from 475 at put in down to about 375 cfs at takeout (lower Chetco River gage). I think this is hte lowest minimum flow for a mostly "in boat" IK trip. You would want more for a hard boat for sure, but I am not sure how much more. This year, this flow range occurred or was slightly exceeded for about the 1st two weeks in June, then for another week latter June after the river dropped and then came back up a bit, not it is too low.

Regarding the fishing, tossing a spinner or spoon, you pretty much catch a large cutthroat in very nice pool on your first cast, but only one. Then you have to move to the next pool. I caught dinner 2 nights in a row, catching a couple nice fish in about 10 minutes both days, then fished another 20 or 30 minutes for fun to see what else might be lurking.

Posted By: The NZA
Date Posted: 11 Jul 2012 at 9:52am

I will reiterate: totally hit me up if you do this again. I think this is number one on my tic list for next year, if I can find other (if not more, since I am still a greenhorn myself) competent boaters to do it with. The Alpacka defiantly does great in low water like this, so this time of year seems perfect. I may know some other packrafters who'd also be interested.

Posted By: shap
Date Posted: 11 Jul 2012 at 10:18am

Originally posted by The NZA

I will reiterate: totally hit me up if you do this again. I think this is number one on my tic list for next year, if I can find other (if not more, since I am still a greenhorn myself) competent boaters to do it with. The Alpacka defiantly does great in low water like this, so this time of year seems perfect. I may know some other packrafters who'd also be interested.

To shed a little more light on the character, this is not really a place for 2 green horns alone to go exploring whitewater:

There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 +/- rapids in the Class III to IV range, with maybe 25% Class IV, being primarily steep technical long and blind boulder garden drops. Class IV was most concentrated in the Slide Creek to Granite Creek area, but scattered thought the run in ample supply. The last rapid before our takeout at the Steel Bridge was a long Class IV. . All I will say is that there is a lot of scouting to be done of long blind drops, especially between Slide Creek to Granite Creek. Allow plenty of time for this section, but scouting will be done at many places along the entire trip. Although wood was not a problem, there are a number of nasty sieve hazards at low water in which you could kill your self. I would not want to do this trip with less than 3 (safety factor) or more than 6 people (camp size/horse pack logistics). At low water, you want top notch gear, because you will be smashing/squeezing through a lot of rocks.

Posted By: shap
Date Posted: 12 Jul 2012 at 3:33pm

Master Slickhorn at work:

Posted By: shap
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2012 at 5:42pm

a few more vids:

Slickhorns POV of the same rapid video above:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIu1deXFAKM&list=UUT3SXMZRCX6x7qvLeIgVA0Q&index=2&feature=plcp

my run of the same less cleanhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKsG_yVS_Q&list=UUT3SXMZRCX6x7qvLeIgVA0Q&index=1&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgXrk86F4jw&list=UUT3SXMZRCX6x7qvLeIgVA0Q&index=3&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffm3XHYeHJk&list=UUT3SXMZRCX6x7qvLeIgVA0Q&index=4&feature=plcp

can't figure out how to have the vid embedded in the post, but I only got my first cell phone this year, so what can you expect

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