South Fork Feather

The South Fork Feather is a great piece of water that winds its way through a beautiful canyon in the foothill country of central California. There are several distinct parts to the run which starts at the base of Little Grass Valley dam. The first gorge contains several fun drops in the 10-15 foot range, as well as a shallow 30 footer and numerous other rapids.

Looking into the first gorge

Ben York on the Put-in Drop

The shallow 30

Martin Belden on a nice sloping 10 footer

Ben boofing into another fun mini-gorge

There are numerous class 4 gorges and rapids along the length of the run, interspersed with many fun class 5 drops. Towards the end of the run, the nature of the drops turns to clean bedrock, with some fun ledges and slides. This section also contains a sick looking drop that we portaged at our low flows, but looks like it would be good to go with more flow.

This run keeps up a nice pace for eight miles, and feels much longer.

Looking up one of the cruisy boulder gardens

JR soaking up some sun on the S.F. Feather

South Fork Falls. Little more water, and it's goin down.

After the bedrock section, the run turns to cruisy class 3-4 boulder gardens, and then turns into a shallow class 2 paddle to the take-out.

The shuttle for this run is somewhat complicated, so be prepared with a map and directions. The best directions we found were on Jefferson State Creeking (http://www.jscreekin.blogspot.com/). Good luck and have fun. YEEHAW!!!