South Fork Clackamas River
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| | Raps:4, max ↨200ft
Red Tape:No permit required Shuttle:None Vehicle:Passenger Rock type:Basalt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Condition Reports: | 14 Oct 2024
"We lost a florescent orange gear perspective rope bag on R3. It was empty and was tossed off the top above the pour over. We never found it at the bot |
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| Best season: | Jul-Oct
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45.1881, -122.2300
45.1998, -122.2246
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Introduction[edit]
Now open, be mindful with the risks associated with canyoning in recent burns. The soil was scorched and the regrowth can be very overwhelming.
South Fork Clackamas River is a great canyon with high water even in the middle of summer. It is best combined with Memaloose Creek.
Please clean your shoes between each tunnel as a rare and protected species of bat has taken up residence during the winter months.[edit]
Tunnel's history: https://wyeastblog.org/2010/02/13/proposal-south-fork-water-works-trail/
Approach[edit]
The best S Fork approach is to park at the exit and walk cross the Clackamas river upstream of the gravel bar parking area. The water is chest deep.
S Fork approach you will find logs and pipes crossing a gulley. They are not super good enough and will not support your weight. Use the gulley to the right and be mindful that rockpile is supported by a logjam. Tread lightly. A headlamp is useful in the last tunnel. Do not disturb the bats!
Descent[edit]
- R1/J1: 12 feet - Use 40 feet of rope to rappel from log or jump.
- R2: 50 feet - Use 70 feet of rope to rappel from log in creek. R1 and R2 can be linked with a 215ft (65m) rope.
- R3: Dry line, 200 feet - webbing on a bolt station DCR. Careful of very sharp rocks at the edge!! Rope creeping recommended. Pull from across the pool DCL where you can see the anchor. You probably need 280 feet to pull from across the pool. There is a rebelay anchor 70 feet down. Take caution because the pull is very hard from the rappel line due to the sloping angle of the rappel start. Its best to do the full rappel and pull from across the pool.
- R3: Wet line, 205 feet - webbing on a bolt station DCL. Flow DCL is strong even in Sept and October. If you rap the edge of flow DCL you will come to a point where you have to enter the flow and you need to be ready for it. We had a guy run the flow all the way down so its possible but not recommended. Don't rappel with your pack. You will need 260 feet on the pull side to pull from the shore DCR.
Its possible to explore Memaloose Creek (http://ropewiki.com/index.php/Memaloose_Creek). Memaloose creek is relatively clear of debris and not a bad creek walk. R4 is located below the Memaloose Creek confluence.
- There's a series of short slides down a groove in the middle of the creek just above R4 tree anchor.
- R4: 60 foot waterfall. Webbing anchor on a tree DCL 50 feet back. A great line is DCR of the log at the edge. This will land you on the rocks at the base of the falls. Logs are collecting at the base of the falls, watch for strainers in the future. Slide down off the rocks and swim through the logjam DCL. Throw the pull bag far DCL, over the leaning logs, and pull from the shore DCL. You want to avoid getting the rope caught at the edge, where the logs are leaning against the rocks.
Exit[edit]
Caution: Yellow jackets live and around downed trees!! DCL: Creek walk until you find a decent place to climb up to the approach trail. Usually this is beside a fallen tree because it gives you something to hold onto. Exit the way you came in. DCR: Creek walk till you get to logjams blocking the river. Exit DCR and bushwack to the Clackamas River. Swim across upstream of the parking area gravel bar.
Red tape[edit]
None.
Beta sites[edit]
Trip reports and media[edit]
Background[edit]
Matt Moore from www.deserthighlights.com pioneered the descent of these canyons. Original tracks and waypoints provided by Evan Topinka.
In 1913, the young cities of Oregon City and West Linn suffered a serious outbreak of typhoid from an increasingly polluted Willamette River, their sole source of water at the time. The incident spurred Oregon City’s leaders to appoint a “Pure Mountain Water League” and directed it to locate a safer source of drinking water.
The League settled on the pristine South Fork of the Clackamas River in the Cascade foothills. The City of West Linn signed on with Oregon City, offering to pay for one third of the cost of a new pipeline to bring the South Fork water to the two cities. A South Fork Water Board was created to carry out this ambitious project.
By the fall of 1915, the new water district had managed to lay twenty-six miles of 18” pipe from a site at the confluence of Memaloose Creek and the South Fork Clackamas all the way to Oregon City and West Linn. The new pipeline began to carry municipal water on October 7, 1915.
In 1939 the South Fork Water Board expanded the system with the help of one of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal recovery programs, the Works Project Administration. This project extended a 24” pipeline upstream from the Memaloose Creek intake to a point upstream, above the 120-foot main falls on the South Fork. This project involved carving a series of three dramatic tunnels and a cantilevered pipeline through solid basalt cliffs.
The new intake improved water pressure downstream, and this system continued to serve as the water supply for the two cities until a new filtration plant was constructed on the lower Clackamas River, in 1958. Both systems were used until 1985, when the South Fork pipeline was decommissioned. Since then, the network of roads, tunnels, plank walkways, log bridges and old pipeline has slowly been fading into the green rainforest of the South Fork canyon.
The story might have ended there, except for the series of spectacular series of waterfalls along the South Fork and Memaloose Creek. By the late 1990s, some of the region’s more adventurous kayakers had scouted both streams, and in the early 2000s, had documented the first known descent of the South Fork by kayak.
