EF Lewis River Falls Run - Packrafting WA - 1300cfs - Class IV скачать в хорошем качестве

EF Lewis River Falls Run - Packrafting WA - 1300cfs - Class IV

After years and years of wanting to get on this section my brother and I finally made the trip down to Battle Ground from Bellingham early one Saturday morning with ideal flows in the forecast. We arrived to set shuttle around 8:30am and after dropping Ian off at the put in to stage the boating gear, I drove down to the takeout and decided to do a quick jog up to the put in. After 35 minutes of cruising up to the put in I changed clothes and took my first peek at Sunset Falls. I had run the far left line at around 500cfs a few years back but at these flows the middle line looked prime but a tad trickier. Ian opted out of the falls but chilled in the pool below while I worked myself up to run it, tough to motivate up there by yourself on a cold morning with no warm up, but I dropped in and stayed on line. I'm honestly not sure how I managed to hold onto this one but I've seen messier lines in a few kayaking videos so I'll take it. Below Sunset Falls there was some fun class II-II+ boogie past the campground and around a few short riverbends. Hippie John's Boulder Garden was a fun intro to the rapids on this run, we stayed mostly middle and had clean lines. Sky Pilot was soon after and definitely felt like a step up, in packrafts catching the eddy on the left beforehand would've been tough so we boat scouted from river right above it and decided to drop in. The line is obviously on the left of the first big rock, the currents in there were swirly but manageable. The second step of the drop was shallow in the center and slowed me down a bit and ended up dumping my brother, luckily an easy section waited downstream for recovery. We stopped just downstream below the metal palm, staying as close to the rivers edge as possible while Ian emptied his drysuit that was full of water since he had forgotten to close his piss zip, we joked about it for a minute and then carried on. Screaming Left was soon after and at this flow it cruised into Dragon's Back pretty quickly and since it was just the two of us we opted to take the easy walk on the left. Dragon's Back you are pretty committed to running, but if you ride the rock ridge on the right you will 100% clear the hole on the left, but Ian got sent further left and didn't have any issues. A short calm section through the canyon leads to John's Swimming Hole, a short fun rapid that Ian walked and I took the river right line down skipping past the problem hole at the bottom. After chilling here for a bit we continued on, from here there was plenty of fun class II-III boogie down to Horseshoe Falls, most of the rapids are shallow boulder gardens but there are several spots where the flow channelizes and pours over bedrock ledges creating some really fun rapids and tons of surf spots. The horizon line at Horseshoe Falls is obvious and the river bends hard to the right. Easy scout or portage on river left, you could probably even throw and go or seal launch, the pool looks super deep but definitely check it out if you go for it. The river right line on Horseshoe was an obvious no go in the packraft, the river left line looked doable but a tad tricky, either skipping down a shallow slide or catching a left shooting plume halfway down and holding on, or the center line which we had absolutely ideal flows for. The center line is a tight little entry with room for a couple paddle strokes before descending over a mushroom shaped flake. I ended up going just a tad more river right off the flake than anticipated, landing me deep in the surging froth from the river right slot but it all worked out and I ripped the landing. From Horseshoe Falls down, the river seems to ease a bit featuring mostly class II rapids down to the takeout which has a fun ledgy drop right before the eddy out. This video was recorded on 11-8-2025 and there were no wood hazards on the run that obstructed any main lines but due to the everchanging nature of rivers, especially this watershed with a narrow riverbed and high flow fluctuations this video should not be used as a guide or reference to any hazards that may be present at the time you may choose to paddle this. The run took the two of us packrafters roughly 2.5 hours including scouting and stopping a handful of times where needed. This is probably one of the favorite runs I have ever paddled.