The Art of the Creek

[skibuminwyo]

I'm quickly learning the creek is much different from the river...i can brace and hit ground in a creek . i had only done some easy II stuff until yesterday my boss told me we were going to run a top secret creek. long and short, it was the best time i've had on the water. some wood needs to be moved, as i learned, but other than that its awesome. boofing off of beaver dams, careening off of rocks, ripping HIS boat all to hell.... i loved it. today i got to run the canyon, a class IV run...all without ever doing a combat roll....god it feels good ....im hooked...sometime i'll get some pictures of this creek... i think it was only the 3rd or 2nd last night now i have something to do until the ice and snow comes

[FreakofSnow]

What creek?

Be careful mang. Don't even think about bracing off the bottom. That there is bad juju, you'll wreck your shoulder. Do you have a bomber roll? If not you might think 2x about creeking.

Stay safe

[skibuminwyo]

the guy i was with seemed to think i was capable...it wasn't big water...he wanted me to go back today since it was twice the flow with the snow up high..but i shot him down. now the class 4 river i did yesterday sucked... scared the hell out of me. i walked alot of drops, and wound up skrewing up an easy one...sent me swimming through some bad spots.

[Storm11]

I have to agree with Freak...if you're swimming though class IV stuff, you may want to reconsider doing many creeks. My suggestion is to find some easier creek style class III and IV runs that require a lot of technical manuevering around the river, but don't have any real big hazzards and make your roll bomb proof. Not too familiar with boating in Wyo, but I'm sure you can find something that's both technical and low consequence.

[skibuminwyo]

that creek was a low consequence III. you could always get out and just stand up...not more than a foot of water, unless you had the unfortunate luck to roll in a dam. the canyon is an actual honest to god river...now that i look back on it, i've come to realize it was far too much for me. the creek was awesome, and i would go back down and do it in a heart beat. the river on the other hand....it may have to wait for awhile before i do it again.

[powderfarmer]

[QUOTE=skibuminwyo]that creek was a low consequence III. you could always get out and just stand up...not more than a foot of water.[QUOTE]

More bad juju. Never stand up in moving water unless you absolutly have to. Its a foot entrapment waiting to happen. Just FYI my worst swims have been in 2 foot or less of water. Other than a hole thrasing deeper water hurts way less

[skibuminwyo]

this is true, looking back on it...i found a coupla sore spots after that

[Flaskman]

Hey Skibum, don't listen to all the poo-poo'ers...like you said, it's a "top secret creek"...all creeks are created differently. Sure, some places are not good to stand up in, some places are not good to brace off of, but some other places are excellent to do both in! We have a creek here in CA called Brush Creek, it is definitely class V at high water, but III at low water. The beautful thing about it is that you can brace off the bottom most of the way down, nice smooth rock slides with some drops and other features that can add to the fun. To say "don't brace off of the bottom" is assuming that all creeks are created equal...not so. At Brush creek I bought a special paddle because I didn't want to thrash my good paddle on all the rocks, it is one almost continuous brace off of the smooth rocks to stay upright. On a good day we don't even get our hair wet, even over some 18' drops. If I didn't brace off the bottom it would be much different. Re: standing up in the river...foot entrapments? Not here...you can stand up most places here with no worries whatsoever. It may not be advised in rocky, bouldery areas sure, but here it is no worries because it is a canyon carved into one big smooth rock. I've seen my bro go upside down in a small feature at the very edge of a 12' drop, we could see him struggle to roll but the water was only a foot or two deep and he was battling with the bottom, so he punched out and next thing we could see was him standing up and looking at us from the edge of the drop. He was frustrated, but the water was not pushy at all and he just pushed his boat over the drop and he jumped in.
Every situation is different, there can be some heinous consequences in some areas and none in others. These other guys concerns are certainly appropriate in some places and completely ridiculous in others. Use your own judgement and trust your reliable friends and go do your thing. Creeking is MUCH better in my world than the rivers because of our unique situation, yours sounds very similar.

[skibuminwyo]

the river scares me these days...but the creeks don't...they dropped the shoshone to 230 cfs....awesome, because i could do all of it, heinous because now i can see where all the high water sieves were...skeeryyyyy shit