Fall Creek of South Sister: exploratory boating

Luke Spencer, Chuck Taylor, Johnny Ott, and I had a blast exploring a steep, Class V, micro-creek in the Bend area over the holiday weekend. There are several gorgeous drops that made all the hiking and scouting worth it. For example:


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After the run, asking around on BENDkayaker if this was a first descent yielded a response from James Fredericks to the contrary:

It's really cool you guys did the run! Unfortunately, you don't have the first descent. In June of 1995, my friends Kent Koeller, Chip Hogan, and I first ran the stretch from the upper footbridge (about two miles up from the parking lot) on down. All the falls except the big one were run. So, one of you guys ran the 35 footer? I personally waded out and it was waist-chest deep at the bottom!

I went back again that July with Jayson Bowerman and did the run again.

I do believe that the one who ran the 35 footer has the first on that falls. Thanks for the report, and stop in at Alder Creek in Bend-I work there Mon-Thurs.

Waist/chest-deep is enough to boof into, so I nabbed a first known descent of this chunky 35-footish waterfall (officially named Fall Creek Falls):

Chuck and I in silhouette
As the first person stupid enough to run this waterfall, I dub it Confusion Falls. Reason being, when I was standing atop the falls and preparing to fire it up, Luke (a.k.a. Mr. Magoo) thought I made the sign for "I'm calling it off" when I had actually made the sign for "inner calm". Luke called off the troops, and when I gave a long "I'm firing it up now" blast on my whistle, I took Chuck's "I'm over here, Willie" whistle blast as a "you're good to go". Lesson learned: don't oversign. I almost named it Placebo Falls, since the safety was purely imaginary.

me and my line on Confusion Falls
It's good that I greased my line, as none of my crew were there to provide safety or document my run. I landed in the foam pile a couple feet from the maul, 30 degrees from sideways, and 30 degrees off the horizontal. Immediately upon contact, I lifted my bow to make sure my scoop was shallow. I may have just grazed the bottom. I surfaced without flipping, noticed one of my paddle blades missing (landing in a low brace seemed prudent for this drop), and looked up to see a rather astonished-looking European tourist staring at me with his mouth hanging open. Looking to the other side of the pool, I saw a disbelieving Chuck Taylor sitting in his boat, waiting for me to hike down. I feel lucky that nothing bad happened when I took the quick way down, considering the major miscommunication.

As a bonus, I got to work on my C-1 skills on the Class II runout. It was interesting and fun, but I'll stick to two blades for now, I think.

Here is a short video clip of the falls:


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I'm sure I'm going to be hearing "pictures or it didn't happen" about this one! I'm tempted to go back and fire it up again to get some photos for posterity. This run has enough quality that we'd like to go back and do some wood removal, so I'll probably get the chance. I doubt I'll take that chance, though. In hindsight, it only happened the first time due to a perfect storm of a great water year, a solid crew, and my own lack of experienced judgment. I'm aiming to be a little wiser in my second year of boating. :)

You can check out Luke's scouting report from when he checked this run out last summer. Luke has a full trip report up, as well.