Pit river (III-IV)

Pit river runs (7 miles) on west slope of north Sierra Nevadas Mtns. It has not been available for summer paddling for a long time. In 2007 summer, there was dam release (~1,000 cfs) for Pit river run on Sat and Sun in two weekends. I ran this run in one of the opportunities with AlanG, his wife Lori and his youngest son Marshall, ErikN and two Alan's friends. In summer, there are almost no choices for paddling in CA and therefore many people came here. According to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) person who counted the number of paddlers at the takeout campground, there were ~100 paddlers coming here from CA and Nevada. I hope this number is enough to let PG&E do dam release next year agian. Below takeout campground, it is classII run. Some paddlers came with thier family and enjoyed lower class II with thier family after they did the upper run.

The feature of this Pit river run is the Pit falls. There were three channels, right 20 feet high easy waterfall with a portage at 10 feet drop, left channel of teacups and the middle 35 feet high classV waterfall. I did right and left on Sat and Sun for each, but quit doing the middle one. I had planned to do but finally gave up doing it because Alan told me there is a risk of dislocating shoulders when doing the middle one. Marshall broke his paddle in his trial of the middle fall and Alan saw a guy who dislocate his shoulder in another weekend. Here are more info and more pictures by someone else.

The biggest drop of teacups in left channel.


Someone running 35 feet high waterfall.


Right channel. Many paddlers watching others, shoothing videos at the bottom shore.


There was a terrible incident here while we were concentrating on watching other's running middle waterfall. Alan was stolen his dry bag in which he have his wallet and cash. I was so disapointed with this incident, as there was a thief among paddlers.