[funrivers]

Anyone know if its runnable between southpark and five mile. The footbridge at the resort looked doable yesterday. Are there other obstacles?

 

[gunnerman]

Contact the people at three rivers resort and ask,they do it commercially. Ask for Vito, he is the guy in charge of river clean-up. Be very careful going under the very low bridge, and stay right on the run thru, left side is usually not good. This is my favorite section because of all the fishing weirs with small drops. There is one real decent 5' to 6' drop in there with a big hole at the bottom of rapid, but it goes. We will be coming up Sunday for the race and running it. We usually always run from Slot to Five Mile Bridge

 

[yetigonecrazy]

Anyone know if its runnable between southpark and five mile. The footbridge at the resort looked doable yesterday. Are there other obstacles?

South BANK, south park is a geological province located a couple hours away. Its boatable but it is junky, lots of ugly fish drops. And its all private land so there's no room for error or scouting. Totally doable, just be on top of your shit
And you'll be OK.

 

[seanwkim]

I concur with yeti. I searched for previous Taylor posts, and upon further judgment (or misjudgment) and wanting to cross this stretch off the list, my better half and I exercised our right to float and ventured from Todd's slot down to Almont yesterday. The log bridge below South Bank on the Middle Taylor is super tight at current flows but doable in a smaller raft without a high profile oar frame (no oar frame is the better choice) when all sit in the very bottom of the raft. The far river right opening looks to relatively have the most clearance and you have to go that way anyways after the bridge with the river-spanning rock weir downstream (which by the way influences the backwater pool under the bridge to make clearance such an issue). I have a 13' NRS otter with low profile oar towers and a seat and we were super (uber) tight in getting under the left opening at 800 cfs reported at the Almont gage. The height of my setup from top of seat to bottom of boat on land is 30in. I attached a photo of the bridge looking downstream for reference. Ballpark guess is clearance is 24in at this flow. Again, this is ballpark dimensions and do at your own risk. Adding more weight (e.g. rocks, people) to the raft will give you more draft Also, just below the first river spanning rock structure (fish dam) below south bank near the scenic river tours shop and at the upstream end of Harmels is a near river-spanning pine tree across the channel. You have to enter left of center over the drop and then boogey way right to miss it. The downed tree should be visible from the county road looking downstream. Otherwise, we didn't encounter any big issues with access or people. There was a guy at the deck at Harmels just below said downed tree that threw us a bag of snacks and that is one of the cooler things I have ever seen happen on the water. Better than many other projectiles, at least. The Upper Taylor reminds me of a scaled-down version of the Fractions on the Arkansas at lower water. Read and run, shallow, tight, with lots of granite boulders to pick in between, but lots of fun and scenic. Have fun and be safe.