Hoffstadt Creek, Washington

I was among 5 lucky paddlers that explored Hoffstadt Creek on Saturday, January 12, 2008. Jesse, Heather, Lana, Jason, and I had 6,300cfs on the Toutle gage and an almost perfect flow on Hoffstadt. The day went very smooth for an exporatory run. We hiked in with a few inches of snow on the ground, scouted and ran many quality rapids, had our fair share of portages, and made the grueling hike out before dark.

Split Falls at a great flow

Gnargasm in full effect

According those who had been there before the crux move on this run was suppost to be getting into the eddy above Gnargasm and on this day it was sketchy at best! We all took out way above this drop and portaged down to it on river left to avoid the must make or get mangled line to reach the eddy. The eddy was a one boat moving eddy with a guardian rock just behind the eddy line, so even if you did make it to the eddy, you still might get rejected by the guardian rock. Needless to say, check out your next move carefully before proceeding downstream on this creek until you get past Gnargasm.
I only took these two photos from our trip, but there were many many more rapids in there. Video Trip Report coming in Disc VI.

you can also check out more photos from this trip on Jesse Becker's blog click here.