The OP contingent is mysterious and silent. Deep in the dank evergreen expanses, 1's and 0's cannot seem to penetrate. Thick green moss dampens soundwaves and cellular signals alike. The contradictory aspects of the Oly P's young geology and its primordial nature preserve its remoteness. As if the penninsula was not even in the state of Washington, but rather another region unto itself. Perhaps from another time. There in lies part of the allure.

 

After spending the day fishing with the author of the OP whitewater book and picking his brain about the Lyre river, I decided to solo it on Thursday. The beta I got made me comfortable with taking it on solo.

 

I used the river left road, which is gated and locked,  and started hiking my boat. The road starts out with a pretty mellow incline in the first mile or so, then it starts going up fairly steep. After another half mile, I came to a fork in the road and had to make a choice where to go. The main road, which I was on, veared off to the right away from the river, and a less traveled spur road vered off to the left. I took this less traveled road end and it brought me to a large opening where the power lines are coming through. There was T in the road and I took a left and hiked towards the river. I came upon the Lyre River ATV trail which I found out goes right along the river left side of the river. It was pretty sweet access to the river and you can see a couple rapids.

 

 I didn't know exactly where to put on and I ended up putting on just above the main canyon section of the run near three giant spruce. (I put on one rapid above the big waterfall coming into the the lyre from a small side creek) And below the sieve rock garden rapid which was described to me. I guess the entire river goes under boulders and you hike over them. I never saw that and I'm glad I didn't hike any further upstream than I was because all hell broke loose pretty much immediately.

 

The first two rapids I ran were the only rapids I was able to run cleanly in the entire canyon which took me two hours to go a quarter mile. It was a wood nightmare. On the bottom of the river, in the river, down on the river, parallel with the river, all huge trees too. There were major Log jams in all the major rapids and some really really sketchy portaging. The water look low in the campground but was stomping in that canyon with some nasty holes and the river is about 15-30 feet wide.  Some day I will write about the hell I went through in that canyon, but right now I don't even want to think about it.

 

I would not reccommend that run to no one.

Kris- did you rally for Elkhorn?

Seattle Soak: Can you do us all a huge favor?

 

1.) Take your forum post and copy it.

2.) Go to the rivers page and click on the Lyre

3.) The Lyre Description page will pop up. In the lower right hand corner you'll see a "create trip report button". Click it, then paste your T.R. into the form. It'll take you five minutes and it will add to the database. This will benifit anyone who really wants to explore the OP but doesn't want to get skunked (too bad, anyway- that's the nature of the beast w/ the OP).

 

Don't forget to include the details that will make your T.R. usefull to others, including any beta on the flow you had- there's likely no gauge for that run, so any rough visual approximates you have are vital.

 

If you want to revise it further, you can always go back and edit it -adding details, ect. That way there is some account of this obscure trip you did. (right now the Lyre Page is completely blank).

 

When people post TR's in the forum, it's helpfull because everyone sees it right away, but the problem is that after a few days it will just get lost in the graveyards of yesterdays threads, never to be seen again. A big part of what we should be doing as a "community" on this site is fortifying a database of beta for paddlers.

 

good 'ol OP!