East Fork of the Lewis River: Sunset Falls to Horseshoe Falls
East Fork of the Lewis River.
December 14th. Cold, drizzly, and gray. ~1200 cfs. A Park-N-Huck at Sunset Falls fell into place two days earlier, introducing me to this beautiful river, but with a second vehicle for shuttle, I was finally able to run it! We scraped $5 together for the day fee at Sunset Falls Park and put in just above the falls. Upstream of the falls is a nice pool to warm up in and get acclimated to the brisk water.
All three of us ran the center line over Sunset. What a cool lip! At 1200 cfs, water piles up on the center rock and banks left, dropping slightly before sending off a flake. The first time I ran that line, I was surprised how much that flake kicked my bow up! After lapping those falls a few times (hiking back up is straight-forward and a nice way to keep your legs warm), I preferred entering with a little speed to ride high on that center rock.
After Sunset, there is some class III-ish boulder garden action. Quite a few opportunities for rock spins there! The first rapids are “Hippie John’s Boulder” and “Sky Pilot.” After these, the walls close in for a short gorge section. First is “Screaming Left.” Easy to scout, we caught the eddy and portaged this one on the left. There is a tree slowly falling into the river from the right bank, and its branches hang immediately in the lead-in on river right. Getting raked in the face by a curtain of one-inch branches at the top of a rapid sounds unpleasant to me. So we seal launched just below it and ran “Dragon’s Back”, boofing off the right side into an awesome picture-taking eddy!
The gorge section opens back up after “John’s Swimming Hole”, a fun and splashy rapid that leads to boogie water before Horseshoe Falls. Hooray for Horseshoe! There are four entrances, or “doors”, that create natural lines. We ran doors 2 and 3 (counting from right to left). I have no intentions to ever run door #1 on river right, but I look forward to running door #4 on the left!
All in all, the EFL was excellent: beautiful and lots of fun. I can’t wait to go back and play! And hopefully I can check out Copper Creek soon as well!
-Andrew Romanelli