An exploratory run down the Roaring River
By Dan Coyle, 1999

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We ran the bottom three miles of the roaring river on the 15th of May when Fish Creek and the Clackamas at Three Lynx was 320 and 2500 respectively ( Editors note: the Fish Creek gauge no longer exists, but can be estimated by subtracting the Three Lynx from Estacada gauges ). This was a good level. Rode up North Fork Clackamas road to get to the put in taking a small off road after about 10 miles to a dead end at a trail that petered out as we hiked it.

I tripped on a log and almost got knocked out by my boat falling on my head. Proceeded to crack my new paddle in half during the same fall. When trail ended we bushwhacked downhill for about forty-five minutes to the river. ( Editors note: I think these guys got lost because they missed the trailhead sign. Follow the directions in the roaring08 report to ensure you find it and avoid the bushwhacking. )

Since I broke my paddle I was using the only breakdown paddle we brought and I was flailing. It was an old worn down lightning with about 50% the blade surface I had been using. Promptly got stuck in a big hole above a sketchy limbo log backed up by a boulder and surfed it for about a minute or two before finally coming free and getting stuffed, temporarily, between the log and the boulder. Very tired.
( Editors Note: This is Head Knocker. )

One big log jam portage followed the rest of the way by continuous, super technical class 3+ to 4+/5- boulder gardens. Gradient on the map seemed about 120-150. Super fun, wished I'd had a real paddle so that I wasn't so gripped as I missed eddy after eddy with my breakdown. Aaron ran one double drop after boat scouting and exited into a river left eddy narrowly avoiding the large keeper hole that Gabe did not see til too late.

Gabe took a thorough thrashing, swimming and getting recirculated. In the end, gabe had to self rescue and said he finally got out by balling up. He threw up some water on the bank afterwards but was otherwise unharmed.
( Editors Note: This is Gabe's Hole. )

After retrieving Gabe's paddle from a downstream rootwad we continued with more class 3-4 drops and gardens. Almost everything was boat scoutable and there were no other mandatory log portages though some of the wood demanded some extra attention.

Best exploratory run I've done in a long time. Super pretty wilderness area ( Salmon-Huckleberry wilderness ) with great class four creeking. We all noted that for a creek of its size the geology was such that it formed some pretty impressive keeper holes. Most similar to Wiley creek/Blue river though quite a bit better I think.