With water levels slowly going down in January after some massive rain in December and early January, Heather, AJ, Land and I were looking for something new to run. After many discussions and checking water levels
we decided to head up to McCoy Creek. I was very skeptical about heading up there, the water level looked like it was at the higher end and it showed that is was supposed to snow at 1,000 ft the night before. Being a
little concerned I still agreed to go up there. I had been up there one other time a couple years earlier, only with low water, and it was such a fun run, big drops, all runnable. Hoping we were going to make it to the put in
I was excited to go again.
We met at 5:30 am to get an early start, everything was looking good until 15 miles into hwy 12, we hit fresh snow. Looking at the fresh snow I was already thinking we needed to head somewhere else. Finally we arrived at
Randal, got out of our cars and started discussing our plan.
AJ: "Well, looks like we started hitting snow at 600 feet."
Nate: "What's the elevation of McCoy?"
AJ: "2,600"
Nate: "Well, lets give it a shot and see if we can get up there."
We got to Yellow Jacket creek (the takeout) with no problems so Land and AJ headed up to the put in to make sure we could make it. 30 min later they came back and said it should be good.
We got to the put in and started hiking down to the creek in 4" of fresh snow. When we got to the river, as far as I could tell, the level looked good. We put on and started floating down
when Land asks me how the level was, but at that point I still wasn't sure.
"it's definitely higher then last time I was here."
"Too high?"
"I don't think so."
So we headed down stream and came to the first small canyon, I went first and once I was in it I realized the water was much higher then the last time I was here. I was a little nervous but I was pretty sure the level would
still be ok.
I'd say once we were about a quarter of the way down we all realized that the level was on the high side of high, but we were already into it and we decided it would be way harder to hike out then paddle down. We were having a great time
going down. We portaged the first double drop and reached Tom's slide. From what I remembered this slide was a ton of fun with no consequence. Heather, Land and AJ got out to take a look and looked back at me, so curiosity got the best of me and I got out
to scout. The slide looked good, but the hole at the bottom looked hidious! The biggest problem was that there was no way to hold safety for the first person to that ran it. I decided to go first and AJ was going to follow Blue Angle style right behind me. As we
were getting into our boats AJ looked at me and said, "I'm going to give you about five seconds before I go."
"Fine with me, hit me, boof off me or do whatever you need to do to get through it."
"Sounds Good, let's go!"
I headed out, got pushed slightly off line at the top, recovered quick and threw a huge boof at the bottom, I didn't even get my head wet. I turned around right away to see AJ at the top coming down, perfect line. So we set up safety for
Heather and Land, both had great lines and no safety was needed.
The next drop I was looking for was Chinook Falls, by far the hardest runnable drop on the creek. I remember at low water this drop it was hard to hit the line and had huge consequences at the bottom with a terminal hole. As soon as we got to the
top of the drop I took a quick look and decided to portage without even seeing the bottom. As AJ and Land were scouting I was starting the haneous portage up a steep embankment. Once I reached a good base point to rope boats up I looked down
and AJ and Land had decided to portage also. So we roped boat's up and finally reached the top of the ridge. Land went out to scout for a good way down, when he came back he said we could rope our way down. So we set up two ropes, one
for the boats and one for us. Land was the first one to go, we watched him disappear past the horizon line, after a minute or so we suddenly hear, "It goes vertical for about the last twenty five feet! In fact, it undercut!" AJ and I look at
each other and start laughing. After Land reached the bottom we moved the rope over a little to make it a bit easier for us. Heather, AJ and I all went that way, it was easier then Lands but still extremely sketchy. We were doing some free hand
repelling, probably the worst portage I had ever done.
So, we put back on the water with me in the lead looking for the next falls. I started to recognize some of the terraine, I hopped out of my boat and said this is it, the fun 20 footer. I had been waiting all day for this drop, I remember it being easy and so much fun.
When I got to the lip, the falls looked a lot different from the first time I had been there, after all there was probably 4 times more water. I looked at AJ who was in his boat ready to go, "You'd better take a look at it." AJ came up and looked at it with us,
I told him the hole looked stickier then last time and that it turned into a much more uniform falls. AJ looked at it a bit and decided to go. He charged up to the falls took his boof stroke, launched out and hit right at the seam, landing flat and disappearing for
a second and resurfaced right at the base of the falls. After a very small beat down he flushed free and rolled up and gave us a thumbs up. I decided to go next. Once I got in my boat, Heather yelled at me and said AJ set up safety. I took after the falls with
a bunch of speed launched off the lip with a big boof, landed flat, and resurfaced upright, but the falls still wanted to pull me back. But with a draw stroke and a few quick paddle strokes it let me free and when I finally looked up I saw AJ about two feet in
front of me, dang near scared the crap out of me. He was standing in the middle of the river, it was only about 8" deep. So he decided to hold safety for Heather and Land and I was going down stream to set up a rope for our next portage. As I pulled up to the portage
I realized that there wasn't an eddy to hit. I pulled as close to shore as possible, got out of may boat and started walking down to the portage in the water. With the snot covered rock it was tough, there is a 15 foot falls with a horrendous hydrolic at the
bottom followed by an almost unrunnable 50 footer below it (it's been run by Tao and one other person). I finally reached the portage point and started signaling up to the rest that there wasn't an eddy and I would have to grab there boats as they came by. So one by
one they came in and I grabbed them all.
We then started our last portage, this one being about a 1/4 mile long through some rought terraine. Once we reached the river we started talking about time, it was about 3:30 pm before the portage and our sunlight was quickly disappearing. AJ and I were discussing
the possibility of camping if we didn't hit the confluence to the Yellow Jacket soon. I took off down stream waiting to see what was ahead, in about a 1/4 mile I saw the confluence, I couldn't believe it, I was so relieved. At this point I knew we had about 4 miles
left, but only the first two miles had significant rapids.
So I talked to everyone and let them know, here's the deal we have four miles left and about fourty-five minutes of light left. But if we make it through the first two miles we should be able to paddle out in the dark. Everybody with such high spirits now that we reached the Yellow
Jacket said, "Let's go!"
So off we went, bombing down most all of the rapids with no scouts. They were all ledges, all you really wanted was a great boof stroke. Running the Yellow Jacket like that was so much fun, blue angle style with each boater getting passed when they would get slowed down
or stuck in a hole. At the bottom of each rapid we'd wait to make sure whoever got stuck that time made it out, and we always came out with a huge smile on our faces. After a while we started reaching some pretty mellow water, I looked at Land and said we're good from here, it's just
a mellow paddle out.
Once we got to the takeout and ran shuttle nobody wanted to drive home, thinking of how early we woke up, driving three hours, working our asses of on the creek and now it's dark and about 6:30. But we all made it, a four hour drive home and some of the best sleep I have
had in a long time.
McCoy Creek is one of my favorite creeks, just don't put on too high, You'll hate it!
Have fun, Stay safe
~Nate~