Like almost any boater that hikes into Opal Cr., Gold Cr. has intrigued me for years. The view of the falls just upstream of the bridge over the creek and the steep gorge walls around the falls naturally begs the question, “I wonder what’s upstream?”. Over the years, I’d heard sniblets of beta about the creek which mostly boiled down to wood and no fantastic rapids. That was enough to put Gold Cr. on the back burner for a long time but with my personal list of intriguing, “need to explore” creeks getting smaller and smaller over the years, I thought it was about time to take a gander up Gold Cr. and get a sense of the place.
So after striking out trying to find a boating partner, and not seeing any obvious inescapable gorges on the topo map, I set off by myself after a big rain to do some exploring. Needless to say, Lisa has never been particularly excited when I head off by myself to kayak and this weighed a bit heavier than normal on my mind on the long drive to Gold Cr. I made sure to call Ryan and give him my plan with the expectation that I’ll be off the river by dark but might still be hiking out to the car so don’t call out the cavalry too soon. But still, I think, do I still need to keep doing this stuff? When am I too old? And the inevitable, have I learned anything over the years or is my pushing-50-year-old-brain just over-confident? Perhaps one of the best things about boating in groups is that you can hash a lot of this stuff out as a group and not just have a conversation with yourself.
But Gold Cr. is only a couple miles long, has been boated multiple times over many years, and should be pretty straightforward. Or at least that’s what I tell myself and it keeps me moving towards the creek. I should say that over the years this rationale has been combined with equally unrealistic rationalizations like "I'm sure the snow on the road won't slow our hike to the creek", "Yes the river is really high but we know the run so we should be fine", "I'm sure we'll be done before dark", "I'm sure this will be the last wood portage", and on and on. Word to the wise, if you use any of these phrases to justify an adventure, think twice. Good chance an epic debacle is on the horizon.
It was cold gearing up at the trailhead with new snow on the ridge tops and a damp mist hanging in the air. I was excited to get going as I got a late start and ALL of my misadventures in the past have started with a late start. So, gear on, check that I’ve gotten everything and off I went down the road to get my first glimpse of the water level. The rivers are a little bit higher than I was planning but Gold Cr. is a small drainage and I think will not be too unreasonable. I jog a bit in the downhill sections thinking of Jason and quickly get to the bridge over Gold Cr. which could be the take-out. Hmmm, how exactly am I going to get up to the bridge with the steep rock walls on either side of the creek? After what seems like a long time humping up and down the banks around the bridge I decided that going past the bridge to the confluence with Opal Cr. and then hiking back up to the road will be the easiest exit.
At this point I was starting to overheat and still had the uphill portion of the hike in front of me. Of course I didn't bring any water. It took me a bit of time to figure out where the trail up Gold Cr. is but I soon realize it’s a very nice old road that makes for an easy carry with my kayak despite the steep grade. As the trail starts to level off a bit I start looking for the trail that splits down into Gold Cr. canyon as I’d read that it was a bit hard to see. Sure enough I find a decent trail that seems to go in the right direction and head off through the rhododendron bushes (this trail is NOT a nice old road that is easy to carry the kayak) in a general downhill direction. After awhile there were some nice views of a rugged canyon below me and I started to get a weird feeling that I might be dropping into something a bit more serious than I thought. Further on there is the unmistakable roar of an unseen, unknown waterfall and my alert system started to really kick in.
I ditched my kayak on the trail and scouted ahead without it to try and get a sense of what I was dropping into. When I find the creek I was not super happy. It is steep, shallow and had plenty of water. This is not a good combination for an unknown creek, particularly by myself with nobody to back me up. The thought of hiking along the creek isn’t pleasant so I went back up to where I dropped my boat and start scouting out a place where I can drop into the canyon where it is bigger and hopefully downstream of that waterfall that I can’t quite get a view of from the trail. I futz and fritter away a bunch of time trying to decide whether to even drop into the canyon and commit to the river or hike back out. The deal I made in my head to appease Lisa’s worries is to err on the cautious side more than I normally would but hiking out is always a tough choice to swallow.
After too much indecisiveness I picked a really steep descent into the canyon but it was mostly clear of brush so I made it down to the creek pretty quickly and without any big embarrassing tumble. The water level looked better here but the creek is still pretty small and with what looks like a horizon line just downstream, I decided to simply wade across the creek and walk down to scout rather than get in my boat. As I climbed up high enough to get a look downstream my heart sank just a bit when I realized I dropped in immediately above the waterfall I was trying to miss. Adding insult to injury, this waterfall and gorge, although beautiful to look at, is not even marginally runnable and doesn’t immediately present any clear portage routes.
Looking downstream from the lip of the big waterfall on Gold Cr.
Going back the way I came is a very poor option as is climbing around on the left. After some looking, I find a small break in the cliff walls on the right and decided to roll the dice that there will be a way back down to the river not too much further downstream. The climb up the cliff with my boat was pretty exhausting, particularly since I was now getting a sense that another portage like this one and the race will really be on to get to the takeout before dark. So I hustled up the cliff as much as I could while being careful not to slip or drop something and was relieved to see that there is a good descent back down to the river just after the gorge. There is a nice 15’ waterfall at the end of the gorge but I passed it up just to get on the creek and see if the gorge on the next corner will need to be portaged as well.
For the first pleasant surprise of the day, the short gorge only contains easy rapids and as far as I can see downstream looks very easy and nice. This is the pattern for the rest of the run, small horizon lines or gorges that worry me and then revel themselves to be fun and straightforward. There are two more big drops that I portage (although both are very runnable under different circumstances) and a couple of easy portages around logs and then, sooner than I expect, I can see the bridge high above the gorge and the final waterfall.
Fun rapids, great scenery
Typical log portage
Once here I had plenty of time to again think about what risks I’m willing to take on the river. This is a pretty straightforward falls but there are two hazards that give me pause. Although confident in my ability to run this drop, I’ve also become keenly aware of how random kayaking can be sometimes so I gave some extra consideration to finishing the run with a portage. Fortunately or unfortunately, there isn’t a particularly easy portage route and so, with one more look, I went back up to my boat to give it a shot. The falls goes about how I thought it would although not the way I was hoping it would go as I get pushed too far left due to shallow rocks and ended up banking my boat off the rock at the bottom and jetting out into the pool at the bottom. At least I cleared the hole at the bottom which was my main concern.
The last falls on Gold Cr.
I felt great to be done with the run and so celebrated a bit before taking a quick look at the small drop downstream and then heading to the confluence to start the hike back to the car. I realized just how tired I was (not in great shape this season!) as I tried multiple times to get up the short cliff at the river and into the forest. Once past that, I assumed a slogging pace all the way to the car and started the drive home.
All in all, I was super happy to finally see Gold Cr. although next time I would put in directly below the falls and start early enough to continue down Opal Cr. at the end. That would really make for a complete trip.