Well it’s been quite the summer here in Oregon. Record snowpack and a wet, cold spring resulted in epic water levels on the Clackamas River and an epic rafting season. We had some close calls…

And some carnage…

And we had some wonderful warm, mellow days in July and August. Overall it was an amazing year.

But all things must end and now summer rafting season is over and while I’m still doing a few trips here and there, for the most part, I’ve started to shift my attention to fall boating opportunities and projects. Traditionally, fall has been my time to do some exploring and see if there are any epic boating trips around on some obscure creek. For the last 5 years or so I’ve wondered what the SF Roaring River was all about. It enters the Upper Roaring River run just before Parrywinkle Falls and I’d hiked up it a bit a long time ago but haven’t ever gone back to give it a more thorough scout.

So after FINALLY finishing the busy part of the rafting season, I thought I’d treat myself to a long hike in the woods with a little river exploration thrown in for good measure. My planned route was to hike up 6 miles to the ridge above the SF Roaring River, bushwack almost a mile down to the SF Roaring River, hike down the last mile of the river until the confluence with Roaring River and then hike 3.75 miles back to the car down Roaring River. It was an ambitious plan considering I hadn’t done much over the summer to get in shape other than raft but I figured I could gut it out and then hurt afterwards.

View looking back down into the Clackamas River canyon

The first 6 miles gains about 3000ft. in elevation and by the end, I could feel all of it. I made it in about 2 hours which I thought was a pretty good pace and put me above the descent into the SF of Roaring River about noon. I was particularly conscientious about time on this hike as the last 2 trips into Roaring River resulted in finishing in the dark; something I didn’t want to repeat on this hike.

Pleasant hike anyone?

Bushwacking over unfamiliar terrain is always interesting. I didn’t have a map or GPS but I wasn’t too particular about where I ended up once I made it to the river. I was mainly focused on trying to find the path of least resistance down the steep slope. For the most part it was easy going with a pretty dense forest canopy that kept the shrubs down to a minimum. There is nothing worse than trying to move through dense rhododendron bushes so I was happy to only see a few patches on the way down.

My first view of the creek wasn’t too bad. Not as small as I thought it would be and I was surprised to find that it actually still had water in it. And as luck would have it, I hit the creek right above a nice waterfall! Now normally this might get my hopes up that there would be some good, runnable whitewater on the creek but the view downstream quickly quashed any hope of that. The next drop in view was created by a submerged log and then there was an impressive log gauntlet spanning the creek.

First Waterfall

After a quick lunch, some water and a quick dip in the icy water, I changed into sandals and started the slow process of wading down the creek.

Anyone for some quality boating?

Pretty much from the beginning, I’d given up hope of actually boating the SF Roaring River but I’m a “What’s around the next corner” so I figured I’d keep my eyes open and at least, maybe, get to see some more waterfalls or geology. Most of the time spent on the SF Roaring River was trying to decide whether to climb on the logs spanning the river to avoid slippery rocks, staying in the riverbed to avoid sketchy logs and brush or heading up into the woods to avoid both slippery rocks, sketchy logs and brush. It was a crapshoot at best and pretty much every time I took to the woods I’d get screwed by a cliff of some sort and have to move back down to the creek. Not too far from the confluence with Roaring River I stumbled upon this sweet, runnable 20-ft. waterfall.

Sweet, runnable 20 footer

Of course, I fell into the river for the first time trying to cross the creek right at the lip of the falls. Just a little excitement to keep things interesting!

Pretty soon I arrived at the confluence with Roaring River and was pretty happy to see a low water level. This made it pretty easy to move down along the dry rocks on either side of the river and I made good time down to Parrywinkle Falls. I was impressed to see that a huge log above Parrywinkle had moved downstream and was now perched above the falls. This river moves a lot of water in the winter!

Pretty gorge above Parrywinkle Falls

Parrywinkle Falls

From this point on I was on familiar ground. I’ve kayaked and hiked this stretch of the river many times and new about how long it would take me to get back to my car so I wasn’t particularly worried about time. I took some time to take a dip at the base of Parrywinkle and enjoy the beautiful weather and water and then headed out to see if I could find the kayak paddle that I lost in the spring. I was pretty diligent looking under every log and anywhere I thought a paddle could lodge itself but alas, no luck. By the time I got back to my car I was pretty beat and ready to be done with Roaring River for awhile.

Having said that, there is something that draws me to this river so maybe I’ll take a kayak run when the falls bring the water level back up!