Copper Creek Action

After our Canyon Creek adventure on Saturday, Christina and I joined forces with a few others to do a run down Copper Creek on Sunday morning. The place we camped the night before put us a quick 15 minute dive to the put in. So why wouldn’t we try and hit another great creek? When 9am rolled around the group all rallied up to the put in for a quick run down.

Christina Getting ready at the Put In
Photo: Josh McKeown

The first rapid that you come to on Copper Creek is known as Certain Death. Usually there are one or two people out of the group that will fire up this drop. Today Todd Baker was our lucky number one. Like usual, he made the drop look easy.

Looking Down the Main part of Certain Death
Photo: Christina Russell

Christina Scouting Certain Death... And taking Pictures
Photo: Josh McKeown

Todd Baker in the middle of Certain Death
Photo: Josh McKeown

Ryan Scott Putting in Below Certain Death
Photo: Christina Russell

After Certain Death the water is pretty calm for the next mile with class 2/3 rapids. This section of the creek is beautiful and is worth seeing even if you don’t run the main drops. After the mile is over you come to the next section of rapids/falls known as “The Big Falls.” This consists of a small slide into an 8 footer, then into a 18 footer. Everyone in the group fired off this drop perfectly.

Me scouting the drop with a fellow boater
Photo: Christina Russell

Christina Scouting/Filming People Running The Big Falls
Photo: Josh McKeown

Ryan Scott Boofing the 8 Footer
Photo: Josh McKeown

Christina about to Boof off the 8 footer on The Big Falls
Photo: Josh McKeown

Christina boofing off the 18 footer
Photo: Josh McKeown

The Crew Looking back upstream at The Big Falls
Photo: Conner

Once The Big Falls are done with, the next mile or so consists of some more class 2/3 rapids. All of this is fun read and run rapids that is continuous over the whole mile. This leads into the final rapids for Copper Creek known as The Final 5. It sounds exactly how it plays out with 5 different drops stacked on top of each other. The first drop is a small ledge boof that can be run in a number of different spots (Just make sure to boof, one of our crew got a nice beat down in this first drop). The second drop is a sloping hole that requires a nice delayed boof stroke to skim over the recirculation. After this you drop directly into number three which has a steep gradient into a hole backed up by a wall that turns left. Finally you get 50 feet of flat water before the last two drops. These two are pretty much one drop that has a sloping 6 footer into a 8-10 footer with a hole on the right side. Overall the drops or pretty straight forward and it is easy to scout or portage if needed. Just fyi, if portage or scout, be quiet because the side you do this on is private land. Anyway, everyone that decided to run these drops had great lines and concluded the run gracefully.

Ryan Scott on the First Drop of The Final 5
Photo: Christina Russell

Todd Baker and Ryan Scott Below Number two and in Number 3
Photo: Christina Russell

Me Dropping into Number 3
Photo: Keel Brightman

Some of the Crew below Number 4 and 5
Photo: Christina Russell

Christina and I below Number 4 and 5
Photo: Christina Russell

The Take Out for Copper Creek
Photo: Christina Russell

The Take Out!
Photo: Christina Russell

From The Final 5 you have a few hundred yards to the take out. Copper Creek runs into the East Fork of the Lewis and many people like to continue down that section to run Horseshoe Falls. On this particular day we took out at the bottom of Copper Creek due to some people wanting to get back for the Huck Fest at Sunset Falls. Christina and I decided to hit up the full run on the East Fork of the Lewis with a few other people.

So Stay tuned for the next post on the East Fork of the Lewis!