Summer of Lars, Part III

Fordyce Creek

May 23, 2009

Fordyce hike-in
After Canyon Creek we had plans to run Fordyce Creek the next day. I'm not sure if I'd say Fordyce is an all out classic, but it's pretty damn close. I only say it's not a total classic because there is definitely some mank in there that alot of people don't like the looks of. With that said, while on the river I met up with an old timer who informed me that "everything on Fordyce is runnable", so there's that. I think what he meant was everything has been run and I believe him but there's one or two in there that are really manky.

The length of the hike-in on Fordyce depends on the condition of Fordyce Lake Rd. Traditionally, Fordyce releases in late summer when the road is free (or almost) of snow and you can drive directly to the dam with a 4WD. This year, Fordyce released a good flow the entire month of May which meant we were goin' in, snowed out road or not. We made it to within about four miles to the lake before the snowbanks began. Luckily, only the first mile is uphill and then you start descending down to the lake which makes for some fun kayak sledding.

Portage #1. It's overexposed and hard to see, but it's manky. Not to mention all the flow slams into the rocks I'm standing on.

Jordan at the top of a cool drop early on. The scenery up there is beautiful high sierra country. Lars was right when he wrote that it's a must-do for anyone with aspirations of paddling the harder high-sierra stuff.

You wanna boof this one for sure.

Speaking of boof..

Shortly downstream we came to this beauty of a boof. It reminded me of the flying squirrel move at the pencil sharpner just bigger and better. That's John-boy finding the sweet spot.

Steve in a cool walled-out rapid.

More scenery

There were some big boys in there that I don't have pics of mainly because of the need to set good safety. One rapid, I think it was rotatercuff, took Jordan for a lengthy underwater geology lesson. He was under for so long he actually pulled his skirt and began swimming before him or his boat resurfaced. Scary.

When things start to get really manky on Fordyce you know the lake is near. At this point, you can either shoulder you boat and take the trail to the lake, or just bomb down that shit. Whatever you do, don't bomb into a sieve cuz there's a couple of those.

Here's an entertaining little clip of East meets West falls on the S. fork of the Yuba. I don't recommend running it backwards, but that's exactly what I did.

Getting ready to throw up some S. Yuba 49 to Bridgeport pics and then it's on with Royal and West Cherry, I swear they're comin'.

Keep it downstream upright.