Sweet Creek, OR.

Martin Beldin Looking longingly at the upper falls

After Loading all our gear and 5 Kayaks onto Dustin Stoners Subaru, Crisler Torrence, Martin Beldin, Chris Shehab , and myself were on our way to huck ourselves off some of Oregon’s finest waterfalls for our 2009 spring break!

Sweet Creek was the first stop of our paddling extravaganza. Our day started out with a 65 mph I-5 accident that left our car unharmed and the other on its side adjacent to the freeway. As we left the accident unscathed all we could think about was getting off the road and into our boats.

During our drive up Sweet Creek road we noticed fields of standing water, which we all took to be a good sign since we knew that sweet creek only flowed after a significant rain event. With that being said we were in for a surprise!

As we rolled up to the put-in the team began to realize that this manageable class 4/5 creek would likely be a torrent on eddy-less class 5 whitewater.

After giving a quick look at the brown flowing mass in front of the take-out everyone suited up and walked the wonderfully built trail system that consists of metal bridges anchored to the gorge wall.

Now, usually sweet Creek is known as a short but “Sweet” chunk of steep creek with dozens of clean ledges and ample sized eddies. Not for this trip however! Due to heavy rains there wasn’t an eddy in sight and the upper gorge was completely out of the question since it would lead directly into an unfriendly ledge hole in the beginning of the bottom gorge.

This made for an easy team decision to run only the lower gorge which still had many fun fast drops. Martin in true character wanted to get every last vertical foot possible and decided on the tricky seal-launch half way down the bottom gorge. Once safety was set I let go of Martins stern and anxiously watched him pencil-in. After fighting with the wall and a funny boil for a minute, Martin made his way down through a series of holes and stout slides to arrive happily at the bottom.

Crisler went next from a lower spot and managed to get strong surf in a nasty retentive hole giving way to his first swim in close to a year!

Matin Beldin about to get the seal-launch of his life!

Martin Beldin in the Top drop of the bottom gorge

Chris Shehab in the middle drop of the bottom gorge

Once all the gear was picked up, Dusty, Chris and I decided on only running the last three drops which had plenty to offer with easier access and slightly less consequence. Because the access is so easy and the run short but action packed, we all ran the creek three times before downing a booty beer and hitting the road in search of our next waterfall destination, Silver Creek


Crisler Torrence and his first delicious booty-beer in over a year!

-Photos and write-up by Orion Meredith