Chamberlain Falls Part II

Last summer I paddled the Class IV Chamberlain Falls run on the North Fork American River at a paltry flow of 300 cfs. The water was warm, the air was warm, and the low flow gave me a chance to basically preview the run without worrying too much about actually running it.

My goal this season was to run it at a higher flow, working my way up to a flow where I didn't have to walk around any rapids because there wasn't any water flowing through them. I'm glad to say that I hit that goal last Sunday!

Because of the lack of snow in the mountains this winter, many of the rivers-- including the NFA-- are drying up especially early this spring. The Friday before the run, the NFA was running around 575 cfs and dropping. We figured we'd still have at least 500 cfs by Sunday.

We arrived at the put-in around noon Sunday. The air was cool, the water was cool, and the rain that started Saturday afternoon tapered off to a drizzle. Rain? That should help the flow.

Shortly after we put on the river, the rain stopped. More threatening storm clouds moved through the bright blue sky, but none decided to open up and dump more water on us. We made our way down the run, which is a nice consistent pool-drop-pool-drop, and then we stopped at the namesake of the run, Chamberlain Falls, to scout it. Sorry to say it's not some insane 30-foot sheer drop, but rather it's a simple 6-foot ramp. The only decision is whether to run left or right of the giant rock in the middle of the rapid.

The next major rapid was Bogus Thunder (named during the Gold Rush). I decided to portage around it, along with one other person. The line was to start in the middle, head left through some rocks, and over the drop on the left on the bottom. It didn't look too difficult, but the consequences were severe if for some reason you weren't able to get over to the left.

The last rapid we scouted was Staircase. I had heard bad things about it, but the line was a simple S-turn with eddies everywhere, making it easy to jump out of the current to see what's next. The only thing is that it was a fairly long rapid with about 4 drops, hence the name.

After that, there was a mile or two of nice scenic Class III whitewater with a couple good play spots. At the takeout, we ate our lunches which we hadn't gotten to earlier, accompanied by the beer that was waiting for us in the car. Mmm mmm.

On the way home, we debated what the flow really was. Certainly the rain had contributed significantly. During the run, we heard two local boaters chatting with each other, one thinking it was 1000 cfs, the other thinking 1200. They split the difference and called it 1100. After getting home, I jumped on the net and well enough, the graph showed the flow peaking out at just over 1100 cfs. Very respectable!

More pics here.