"Grand Canyon of the Mad" IV-V(P) write-up

As with all good plans, this one hatched in the midst of grand frivolities, and as such, was guaranteed to be exciting and potentially epic. The plan was formulated around bits of beta gathered a few weeks earlier from Ben Wartburg, Alex Wolfgram, and Charlie Center who had tried to run the stretch in a day, but were forced to hike out in the dark, through thickets of poison oak.  Not wanting to repeat this experience, Dustin and I planned on bringing overnight gear and doing a two day run down this same section. The plan was to put-in at the bridge in the town of Mad River on Highway 36. We would then paddle around 10 miles of flatwater and small gravel bar rapids, until the beginning of the main gorge below the confluence with Pilot Creek. Our second day would consist of paddling the middle and lower parts of the gorge and the 3-4 miles of flatwater before the take-out at the put-in for the Swinging Bridge run on the Mad. 

How it really happened:

We put on early Friday morning, sun shining and warm. Perfect, or so we thought. The flows when we checked them before leaving on Thursday afternoon had been holding around 1200 c.f.s. at Arcata, which we thought would be adequate water. By the time we put on the flow had dropped to around 900 c.f.s., which in the upper region of the watershed, meant trouble for us. instead of paddling through nice deep pools and splashing down ripples, we were dragging our boats and getting stuck on every rock in every ripple for around 8 miles and 5 hours. Finally with the confluence of Pilot Creek doubling our flow, we were able to make good time for the remainder of the day. After entering the beginning of the gorge and paddling several sweet, but sievy rapids, we came to our first big horizon line. We started to bomb this one like all the rest, but found ourselves scrambling for an eddy after making the first drop of the rapid. Downstream was a sick looking boof, followed by 90 percent of the flow slurping down one of the largest sieves I have ever seen. We decided that this one might be worth looking at. After giving her a good look, we also decided that our balls felt really small all of a sudden, and neither one of us wanted anything to do with the drop. By this point it was late in the afternoon, and feeling that we had made adequate progress for the day, we decided to camp in a nice meadow above the river. As we found out the next day, we should have kept paddling.

The next morning we were stoked heading around the corner from camp and running some fun class 3-4 boulder gardens in a beauty of a canyon. Pretty soon we started getting into some of the goods and the pace and difficulty began to pick up. Both of us were thrilled that after paddling so much flatwater and scraping the day before, we were finally getting into the shit. We expected that the main part of the gorge, with the majority of the stout rapids, would be about 4 miles with maybe another 3 miles after that of mellow class 3-4. We quickly began to realize that this was not gonna be the case as we came to successively larger horizon lines, with bigger and more numerous sieves. In some rapids the entire flow would dump under several large house sized boulders, and then pour down a jagged pile of boulders, with no real line through, unless you have a scuba tank and some hockey pads. Our takeaway thoughts from this second day in the gorge can be summarized in the list below.

1. Portages suck

2. Portaging up near vertical mudslide walls sucks even more, especially when the mud is knee deep.

3. Really big sieves, everywhere. 

4. Unfortunately placed rocks in almost every good looking boof.

5. The rapids last way longer than we expected.

By around 5:30 in the evening of the second day, with no end to the rapids in sight, and darkness closing in we decided we would have to spend an extra night. We found a nice little clearing some dry wood, and got a nice fire going to dry our sweat soaked gear after the brutal portages.

The next morning we put on the river cold and hungry, and dreading more portages. Luckily for us, we had just one more little walk, and then after a few more read-and-run rapids we came to the flats that marked our home stretch to the take-out. 

Although there are some fun rapids, and the canyon is one of the most pristine and beautiful I have ever seen, I don't think that we will be making another trip down this section. With additional flow, some of the rapids that looked unrunnable on our trip might fill in and go, but it would make most of the rapids we did run pretty sporty.

To get to this run follow Hwy. 101 the junction with Hwy. 36. Take the 36 east until the bridge in the town of Mad River. Put in next to the bridge and have fun.

Some saweet pics of the canyon coming soon...