Looks like the river is dropping fast. At these flows the biggest rapid is Blacks Creek and it's pretty straight forward. Whiplash is nothing really and so is Chittam. Big Mallard will have a large hole in the bottom, you can do the tight run left of it, or sneak it right. I've done lots of Main salmon trips over the years and never had any issues with bears but I could see if you left a sloppy camp you'd be asking for it.
We were on it 2 weeks ago at 2.2' and dropping. Black Creeks was straightforward. We all started left of center and moved to the center to avoid the big laterals on the left.
Whiplash, Chittam, Ruby, Lake Creek were all straightforward.
Elkhorn felt like a Class II.
Definitely that big rock/hole in the left of Big Mallard. We threaded it down the right.
Ranger said they are starting to see more bear sign. Keep a clean camp, having bears around would change things for everyone.
Just called into the North fork ranger district. The water level is 1.35 feet and the water temp is 65 degrees.. we launch on Sunday, I have run it at 1' before and everything is very straight forward.
here is some old videos I took of mallard and blacks creek at 1 foot.. they are the bigger ones you will see at that level. that and maybe vinegar. whiplash is non existent, chittam is an easy move right. elkhorn is class 2 long slow rapid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltDB6MUYij4
I took off yesterday. No sign of bears on the river- but there was a posted sighting of one at corn creek. The rapids were all pretty straight forward but big and the river maps descriptions were very accurate- the Newell book was helpful on it’s Chittam description. Watch out for Five Mile. That one had more kick than expected! That’s probably the rapid we were surprised by. The waves were big enough that 16’ rafts totally disappeared between them in the photo sequence taken from the bottom.
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