Spuzzum Creek

Last Wed, Jamie, Brenna and I decided to go check out Spuzzum Creek which is about 20min north of Yale, BC. We also had Kerri and Matt tag alone to help with the shuttle, photos and moral support.

 To get there we pulled over onto a logging road about 200m on the left of Highway 1 once we had crossed Spuzzum Bridge (coming from Yale direction). Once on this road you really need a 4WD to get up to the top. As my little Mazda and  Matt's car had pretty low clearance we could only drive about 2km up the road. From here we hiked down from the road to Spuzzum and put in on quite a large eddy above the first rapid we run. The creek was super clean and all the rapids finished with a big pool. I would say the section we paddled was class 3+ to 4+ as there were some tight lines and must make moves. For Brenna and myself having not done much creeking before it was a perfect creek to start on.

On our last major or drop I managed to flip over towards the bottom and split just above my eyebrow open so I had to hike out and go to Hope with Kerri to get stitches put in. Jamie and Brenna walked back in and continued another 200-300m and came to a two-tiered drop which was an approx 6-7m drop followed by another small slide into a hole. This is probably a good place to take out (just above the waterfall). Below this the creek became quite boxed in with the difficulty of the rapids becoming quite intense, and the possibility of portaging or walking out becoming extremely difficult. Brenna also told me of a sieve located a few drops below the recommended take-out which would be a definate portage!

All in all it was a fantastic day on the river and we would have loved to go much higher up the creek as other people know of some white water above the section we paddled (prob 5km). Special thanks to Jamie for carrying my boat out, Brenna for keeping me smiling and Kerri for getting me to that hospital!