[rsmiller]

Made a mistake in my other post and figured I'd try again.

How is the class IV section of the salt for a 16' raft? Technical IV or just big water?

Any info is appreciated....

 

[scooby450]

Technical, can be a IV depending on water level but I do not consider it a true class IV. 16's can and do run it....

 

[Doubledown]

The larger the raft, the harder it is. I personally leave my 15 foot raft at home for this stretch and use my 9 foot mini me. You need a fat flow (2000 plus) to not trash your larger rig on the mid stream boulders. ...just my opinion.

 

[wildh2onriver]

Made a mistake in my other post and figured I'd try again.

How is the class IV section of the salt for a 16' raft? Technical IV or just big water?

Any info is appreciated....

Depends on the flow. Low flows can be technical--1200 cfs is my personal minimum for a 14' boat, at this flow Gleason Flats has braided gravel bar shallows, and rapids such as Eye of the Needle are much tighter. 2-4K cfs are the g-spot levels, big but not scary big. Very fun levels. At 10-25K cfs the river changes dramatically--the closer to 20K, the higher potential for flipping at Quartzite. At those levels I brought my 18' cat and had no problems, though others did flip and/or swim.

A 16' raft will be no problem for flows above 1600. Below that and you will drag and possibly hang up at times. Go light if you run this at lower flows. at high flows, you can very easily flip a 16' boat, seen it plenty of times.

Ken

 

[rsmiller]

Thanks that was the information I was looking for....

 

[raftus]

At 3k I would call it a class III run with one or two IV's or IV's-. Not very technical at 3k, but you could see the gravel bars below the water and understand how it would be a lot more technical at lower flows. I ran a wide 14' boat w/o any sort of issues.