Trip Report: Whitewater Kayaking Five Falls on Lower Cooper Creek
When: 02/20/2019
Location: Lower Copper Creek, of the Lewis River (Five falls)
Conditions: Low flows, sunny, snow on riverbanks.
Duration: 2 hours
Difficulty: Class 5 for normal flows, possibly 4+ at low flow
Kid Freindly: No
Pet Freindly: No
Usefull links: americanwhitewater.org
The Full Report:
Mid-February myself and a friend went out to explore the Five Falls section of Copper Creek. This dumps into the East Fork of the Lewis River right after these falls. So, when you are just looking to run the Five Falls section, you’ll need to begin your run with the East Fork of the Lewis (starting at sunset falls) and then take out on river left before (or after) johns swimming hole. Here you will see a small trail that leads you up to a perfect view of the "Five Falls". As you guessed, there are five drops all in a row. At higher water, this can be a very pushy section and the last fall has a very gnarly hole that has been known to hold a swimmer or two for a bit.
Once you are up along the trail you will see different spots to set up for safety along the river right bank for the top three drops. After that, the best place to be for safety is river left. Which means in an ideal world you've just had a buddy follow right behind you. For those going up to run the rapid, continue up the bank until the trail stops in a pool at the top of the drop. All in all, this stretch is for the boater who is used to running class 4 and 5 whitewater and can read and understand the hazards by looking at it. That being said, this is an absolute gem of whitewater and even if you aren't going to run it, it’s totally worth getting out for a look. Be safe!
low=900cfs high=4,000cfs . (East Fork of the Lewis gauge) This trip was at 900cfs.
The Full Report:
Mid-February myself and a friend went out to explore the Five Falls section of Copper Creek. This dumps into the East Fork of the Lewis River right after these falls. So, when you are just looking to run the Five Falls section, you’ll need to begin your run with the East Fork of the Lewis (starting at sunset falls) and then take out on river left before (or after) johns swimming hole. Here you will see a small trail that leads you up to a perfect view of the "Five Falls". As you guessed, there are five drops all in a row. At higher water, this can be a very pushy section and the last fall has a very gnarly hole that has been known to hold a swimmer or two for a bit.
Once you are up along the trail you will see different spots to set up for safety along the river right bank for the top three drops. After that, the best place to be for safety is river left. Which means in an ideal world you've just had a buddy follow right behind you. For those going up to run the rapid, continue up the bank until the trail stops in a pool at the top of the drop. All in all, this stretch is for the boater who is used to running class 4 and 5 whitewater and can read and understand the hazards by looking at it. That being said, this is an absolute gem of whitewater and even if you aren't going to run it, it’s totally worth getting out for a look. Be safe!
low=900cfs high=4,000cfs . (East Fork of the Lewis gauge) This trip was at 900cfs.