Breitenbush Creek is a well known, "Beginner creek run" all around Oregon. Everyone I talked to about this river talked about its beauty, clear water and diverse rapids. Finally when I ran this creek I found out for myself how correct they were. At the put in you push yourself off into some swift current and you have about 1/2 mile of class II-III warm up rapids before the first big one, The Slot, this is one that most consider the hardest. This is you first horizon line get out and scout it on the right, once you get out you'll be able to see everything. At around 300-350 CFS we took the line river left-center, just right of the rock showing in the pic. This is an excellent place to practice your boof, expecially at higher water it looks like it could get sticky. After you boof the water goes into a little narrows that you want to exit on river right, the only problem is that the water goes straight into a rock, so be careful.

After the slot you will have some class II-III rapids that look like this first pic. The next major rapid you come to will be the Notch. At these low levels it looked like the best line was to boof off a shallow rock on the river right side, although it looks like it can be run down some of the other chutes it looks a little sketchy. After the Notch you be back into the class II-III boulder gardens.

Then you start into the canyon where the scenery is beautiful.

Throught the whole canyon you will have some fun class III pool drops. After a while you will come to a rapid called Barbell, which can have a very sticky hole but at lower levels its not bad at all.

After that you will have some fun class III rapids until, and great scenery, until you get to the last major rapid on this river which is "Woo Man Chew." This is best run on the left with a nice boof at this low level, it looks like the hole can get extremely sticky so be careful at higher levels.