Bull Lake Creek - The Full Bull

Jeff Creamer on Big Milky Lake, upper Bull Lake Creek

I never thought this would ever happen.  Not for me, at least.  I first heard about Bull Lake Creek as one of the most arduous class V+ kayak expeditions on the continent.  This is the domain of elite expedition kayakers; clearly it was way out of my wheelhouse.  Then I picked up packrafting.

John Baker training for BLC on Vallecito Creek at 1.95 ft

In the last couple of years, I've found myself paddling the 10-lb inflatable Alpackalypse on more and more challenging runs.  The capabilities of the boat continually impressed me on Vallecito, our local steep creek, and inspired me to take it for a spin in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Thor Tingey taking the torture factor out of Black Canyon of the Gunnison

When packrafting turned the famously torturous portage into a pleasant trot across a talus slope, I began to think bigger.  I'd gotten a quick taste of the Wind River Range while hiking the previous summer.  Several big missions have been calling to me, but none matched the allure of Bull Lake Creek.

Jeff already scheming his next trip to the area

All previous trips have taken various approaches from the east side, hiking up ridges adjacent to the main BLC valley, then paddling back to the east.  To add some classic scenery, a bit of un-run river, and the novelty of crossing the continental divide, we chose to formulate an original route from the west.

John and Jeff hiking in, day 1

Our first day of hiking brought us 16 miles into Titcomb Basin, one of the most popular destinations in the Winds.  We saw a few dozen groups of hikers on our approach into the basin, but wouldn't see a soul once we crossed the divide.

Early morning start up towards the divide

Hiking into Titcomb Basin had us on a well-developed trail.  The next leg was full of uncertainty.  In the morning, we started early for a 2,000 ft climb up snow and loose boulders to a saddle at 12,500 on the north side of Mt. Helen.

Climbing up the north side of Mt. Helen. Photo: Jeff Creamer

Final pitch to the saddle

The saddle marked the continental divide and the head of the Helen Glacier, one of many glaciers that feed the source of Bull Lake Creek.

Descending Helen glacier. Photo: Jeff Creamer

With Jeff picking a safe route, we descended to the toe of the glacier and found our first running water in a broad outwash valley.

Photo: Jeff Creamer

The creek quickly grew as more glacial creeks added their share and soon enough the paddling looked great.  To the best of our knowledge, the North Fork had not been paddled above Little Milky Lake, so we got to start things off with a little first descent.

 

John on one of the first few rapids

Class IV boulder gardens quickly tapered into a meandering valley and we enjoyed a mellow and spectacular float down to Little Milky.  Tom, a fourth member of the party, had hiked in from the east and joined us for the rest of the trip.

 

Through the meadows

Little Milky

Little Milky Lake gives an introduction to the unique whitewater of the Winds, where lakes are connected by short bedrock gorges and runnable whitewater.  We eagerly ran through the gorge to Big Milky Lake and paddled across to make camp for the night.

Photo: John Baker

Day 3 dished out the final complex logistic of our route.  We had hiked in to the North Fork, which was a massive portage-fest by all accounts.  We had plotted out an option to hike four miles over the divide to the South Fork, where most groups had reported as the start of good whitewater.  This involved climbing up 1,000 feet and descending 1,700, but with deflated boats and Jeff finding game trails we knocked it out in a few hours.

Top of the Panther Portage, looking down at the SF and MF canyons

By noon on day 3, we had finally made it to the standard beginning of the legendary Bull Lake Creek.  In weeks leading up to the trip, we discussed what our ideal flow range might look like.  Kayakers want 500-550 cfs and call it class V+.  Without knowing what the river would look like and how runnable it might be in packrafts, we wanted way way less.  350 sounded like a great starting point, but nature wasn't onboard with our work schedules.  Driving into the trailhead, I was disheartened to see the gage reading 485.  More than disheartened, I was scared.  It was something I hadn't felt in nearly a decade, worried that this was way over my head.

John in the first mile

The flows at the put-in looked like a good hardshell minimum.  The whitewater looked fine, but flows kept us all nervous about what might lie downstream.  We spent the next hour carefully scouting and running a mile of continuous class IV boulder gardens which were, to our delight, entirely runnable.  Soon enough we found ourselves scouting a tricky rapid right above a 20' falls into a short gorge.

Scouting the tricky twenty

The height of the falls was within our packraft comfort levels, but it was not exactly a gimme.  The ideal line was guarded by a funky hole, making it nearly impossible to get a good boof.  A narrow landing pushes into the wall, and the gorge ended with a sticky ledge.  John was willing to probe with good results, then Jeff and I followed suit.

Tom dropping into the sticky ledge

Just a few more rapids and we reached the confluence of the North Fork, water we had paddled on the previous day.  More continuous boulder gardens led us to the lakes section.  Each short lake is punctuated by a bedrock slide into the next lake.  We walked around a junky slide with wood problems and the monstrous Hagen Dazen, but otherwise were all smiles down long slides.

John below a quality slide

The lakes section ended with the Hagen Dazen portage and we knew one of the steepest sections of whitewater was right around the corner.  Forked Tongue Gorge starts with some mandatory portaging, then continues for over a mile with stacked powerful rapids.  It was getting late in the day and we didn't want to turn this into an epic, so we discussed portaging the whole gorge before we even saw it.  We parked our boats at the lip and started scouting our route.  

Entrance to Forked Tongue Gorge, still never been run

From up on the canyon rim, things below us looked full-on, but manageable.  John and I gave pretty serious thought to running through and perhaps walking a couple things at river level, but the setting sun and risk of splitting the group up in the backcountry got the better of us and we shouldered our boats.  Fortunately, we found a good social trail high on river right and walked down open granite slabs back to the river right where the gorge opened up.

Getting our money's worth from those $90 fishing permits

The following morning, we woke up right above another gorge.  A previous trip report talked about portaging the next drop, but Tom looked at it from camp and thought it might go.  Big rapid leading into a 10-footer with a boxed in hole and a cave on the left.  But luck was on our side, John and I both saw the line.  I gotta say, packrafts can boof incredibly well.

First drop of the morning. Photo: Jeff Creamer

It was still before 8 am when we scouted the next rapid, a fast 6-foot boof onto a powerful slide with a big hole at the bottom.  Furthermore, the Jim Bridger portage started shortly downstream and we didn't know what the eddy situation for it looked like.  Reluctantly, we all decided to walk this one.  As John and I were headed up to get our boats, I just couldn't take my eyes off the line.  I saw it.  I wanted it.  We talked it over and the guys set safety while I got myself prepared.  I came through right where I wanted and got buried by a big lateral right before dropping off the final ledge.  I ended up hitting the hole in a meatier spot than I wanted and my skirt imploded, but I stayed upright and scrambled into the eddy hooting loudly.

In a whiteout dropping into the final hole

John liked what he saw and followed up with a great line.  This was easily my favorite drop of the trip.  It was panning out to be a hell of a day.

John on the same slide, from the front

Just below, the canyon closed in again and we cautiously paddled the next half mile of class IV until the gradient suggested we walk.

Tom and Jeff approach the Jim Bridger Portage

This was the beginning of the Jim Bridger Portage.  With a name like that, you know it's going to leave a mark.  The first half of it was much like the big portage in Black Canyon without the poison ivy.  But this is where packrafts really shine.  With a fully loaded creekboat, I might have taken hours and several nasty falls.  Instead, I was back in my boat after 45 minutes.  Tom chose to deflate and use his backpack, so he was even faster.

Jeff shouldering his boat like a mountain man

After a short paddle, we reached another boulder blockade and hopped out on the right for the second half of the portage.  Snacks kept my energy high and we were back to running continuous class IV in no time.

Tom and John just below the JB Portage

The next section is known as "Rocky Mountain Mank, Pt. 1" but we found nothing manky about it.  In the next mile, we only portaged one short section and paddled great whitewater all the way down to Bull Lake, after which the creek is named.

The final boulder garden before Bull Lake. Photo: John Baker

We took a short lunch break and then deflated our boats at the outlet of the lake.  The creek is incredibly steep at the outlet and typically portaged.  Over the next few hundred yards it mellows out slightly, then drops off a jumbled cascade several hundred feet tall.  The risk/reward ratio had us play things safe and walk everything to the base of Bull Lake Falls.

Yet again, we were all thrilled to have packrafts instead of hardshells.  They came at the cost of slightly less performance, but were still holding up incredibly well and responding just as we wanted in every rapid we ran.  By the end of the third major portage of the day, John wanted to push their limits just a bit further.  The final tier to Bull Lake Falls is a beautiful 25-footer.

John scouting the lip

This drop had tough access with seal launch right into a big ferry in fast water to get to where you wanted to be.  We deliberated about it and I quickly decided to let this one go.  John was clearly determined and as I put my pack back on my shoulders to trudge downstream, he said nothing.  He just winked.  

Waterfall packrafting at its finest

Three of us set safety while John got his boat inflated and fired it up.  He had a great line, kept his head dry, and paddled into the eddy with a huge grin.

The falls flowed straight into another several miles of fast boulder gardens that started as class V and slowly eased up and eventually flattened out into a spectacular valley with granite walls rising thousands of feet above us.

 

Pondering the action below Bull Lake Falls

Top of the Grand Valley

Jeff herding the trout down to camp

We floated through a welcome reprieve of meadows before making an early camp for the night deep in a massive granite canyon with no one else around for miles.  We still had one more day, but the bulk of the beast was behind us.  I began to feel overwhelmed with what we were about to accomplish.

Looking down at camp 4.  Photo: Jeff Creamer

The following morning was take-out day.  Our mindsets had shifted.  We only paddled a quarter mile before encountering another set of bedrock falls, but the fire wasn't there.  Everyone walked and we put back in to paddle a short class IV limestone gorge.

Boogey water in the limestone gorge

We leapfrogged our way down and portaged one really sneaky sieved out mess.  Soon the gorge opened and we milked the last few hundred yards out of the creek before pulling over.  Kayaking crews have always continued down to Bull Lake Creek Reservoir and paddled nine miles or so across the lake.  Worried that the flat water might take us five hours or more with a headwind, we decided to park a car on the ridge and hike out instead.  It may not have been the best decision, but it's the decision we made.

I write this a month after the trip.  It is starting to set in just how powerful this trip was for me.  I had given it up as a goal before I even became a class V paddler.  It just seemed impossible.  The advent of whitewater packrafts has absolutely transformed the way I look at river objectives.  I'll never give up hardshells, but a packraft in my quiver opens so many new doors.  This expedition is a testament to decades of work by Alpacka Raft to create a packable boat that performs like a kayak.  I was a skeptic for years, but I was wrong.  The boats can surf, boof, roll, turn, and track better than you might ever expect.

For most of our trip, the gauge was reading 490 (just below the hardshell optimum).  It was a little on the high side, but only because we had a dry spring in Colorado and I lack the discipline to stay in paddling shape.  Together, John and I ran almost everything the kayakers do.  We consciously added almost 10 miles of hiking to make the trip more scenic.  We busted out the portages and could still stand up afterwards.  And we had a damn good time.