Gold Creek

This last week I had a look at Gold Creek in the town of Blairmore. It was just over 3.0cms. Pretty low. Rob King and Aaron Hemphill ran it the previous week at 4.5cms and they said it was hard to get out in front of obstacles. It had about a half dozen logs I had to get out for. A couple of them could get harder to avoid as the river gets high. Aaron and Rob should know more on that though! The run seemed all right. I don't think I would head back again unlesss I lived in the area, or wanted to try the top two drops. The scenery through out is gorgeous, but there weren't too many good rapids; perhpas 3 or 4. Anyway here are my two cents.



Gold Creek is a small volume creek that flows from north of the town of Blairmore. The creek ends near the A&W / Gas station on Highway #3. The put in lies up the road toward the Frank Slide interpretive center.



To get to the put in drive up the paved road for about 1km. At a sharp right, a dirt road continues straight. Go straight on the dirt road, heading up a large hill. Eventually the road goes east toward Tornado Ridge. Take a reasonably good spur road left (north west). Follow this for a couple of km. It will head down a rocky hill down to the river. It is about 6.8km to the put in from Highway #3.



Low flow is about 3.0cms, medium probably under 4.0 and high around 4.5. At flows above 4.5 things get continuous and logs become a serious hazard (well unless someone cuts them out). The run was first done by Rob King and Aaron Hemphill the other week.





The first drop about 0.5km into things, and after about 3 river wide logs.





Same drop. This is by far the funnest thing on the run. The rooster tail is a good launch. (~10ft + 4ft)





A fun chute. (8-10ft)





The old dam. This is just below a beautiful canyon that ends with two gas pipes crossing far above the river. You can take out here and hike about 100m up to a meadow and side road. Unfortunately there are some spikes underwater on river right, and some shallow bedrock on river left. (10-15ft)





The drop immediately below the dam. The right side is not very pretty, the left side has a very shallow entrance, but the pool seemed fine. (~10ft)



I took out here instead of continuing down to the town.