Left Fork of Huntington Beta?

I drove up over skyline on June 17th and talked to a ranger who was fixing the access gate to the put in road. He told me he thought the road would be open in a couple of days and within a week max (he was about to drive the road and assess the conditions).

So it should be open by now. Has anyone run it yet this year? How was it? I am thinking about giving it a shot this weekend and any information would be appreciated.

Thanks

Brett

I haven't run it this year. On my way back from Joe's Saturday, I did see that the road to Miller Flat was open. I'm planning on running LFH this weekend, also.

a boater from compton and his hood rats ran it saturday.

Anybody able to do a weekday run. I'm new to the SLC area, and am usually more busy on the weekends, but am down during the week for the rest of the summer.

Ill let you know if I'm "sick" and cant make it into work. PM me your number.

Indeed, Compton area paddlers had a Left Hand Thugdown Session on Saturday. Best level any of us had seen it at before. Probably 150% of the standard flow it is done at, I have never seen a TR from this level. The rapids are juicy and there are some large holes to avoid at the bottom of slides but it maintained a Class IV+ feel in all the drops. We did not have to portage anything except 3 short log portages. It entailed intensive eddy hopping and scouting where it was necessary to have a Class V team. It is by no means the fun, relaxing Class IV-IV+ of Cottonwood at 1,000 or LFH at the usual flows. It was full Class V teamwork of eddy hopping to the lip, one person jumping out to scout and routing the crew through the rapid. If you do not have a team that is skilled and that you can trust, it could turn into an epic quickly. We were an experienced, efficient team and moved quick but it still took 5 hours to complete and was mentally and physically taxing. A swim at this level would be a very bad situation anywhere on the run. All in all, a definite notch up in intensity from the normal level, but a great adventure for a good team. Good training for wilderness class V rivers where you have to eddy hop as low as possible, jump out, scout real quick and keep moving. We may not see it at this level again for a decade. Definitely one of the best days I have ever had on the river in Utah. If you have a solid team, you will absolutely love it, if you have a bunch of class IV boaters it will be a long, dangerous day. It may drop back down as well, which makes it much less intensive, I have no idea how to check. And as always, remember the golden rule of creeking: Always bring your throwbag with you, every time you scout.

Awesome. Great info. Thank you very much.

Brett

Good info to have, thanks. Reminds me of doing the full Huntington. 12 miles of great creek but more wood to stress about.

Here is a link to the emery water website that monitors outflows of the reservoirs that feed the creek:

http://ewcd.org/reservoirs/upper-huntington-drainage-reservoirs/

According to the graphs from Saturday, Miller was releasing approx 60cfs, Cleveland was releasing approx 60cfs and Rolfson was releasing approx 60cfs. There are two streams (Lake Canyon and Staker Canyon) that come into the Left Fork above the outflow from Miller (which is where we put in) that must add some flow because it felt like more than 180cfs once we were past the confluence. Maybe not though, I'm a lousy judge of water levels...

-Randolph

Hi Randolph- I think it would be more than 180, you need to add Huntington Res as well, to estimate the upper flows in LFH.
Here is the Huntington Drainage Teacups, which has the Main Huntington below the power plant as well:
http://ewcd.org/canals/huntington-drainage-teacups/

At the moment, Miller + Rolfson + Huntington + Cleveland is ~205. I am not familiar with Lake Canyon and Staker Canyon, but I do see a couple creeks on Google Maps that come in above Miller, in addition to the reservoirs. Maybe another 75? Then some more tribs along the way; something like 280-300 in the upper half, to 400 cfs near the bottom of LFH I would guess.
Main Huntington flows:
The confluence with Main Huntington adds the Electric Lake outflow, which was 170 this weekend; now its dropped to 115 for some reason (plus little tribs coming into the Main below Electric Lake). So that puts 570-600 in the Main Huntington, Top Slides section; then 9 miles downstream at the power plant gauge (adding little tribs along the way; every creek is going), was 700-740 yesterday. (I'm ignoring the power plant diversion, which totals around 17 cfs).

Also, there is a riverwide log on LFH just above the confluence with Main Huntington. If that log was pulled out or portaged, then it could be possible to run from LFH into the Main Huntington-"Top Slides" section (1.5 miles with some exciting IV+ slides; scout your takeout eddy).

To get the flow use this page.
http://ewcd.org/reservoirs/upper-huntington-drainage-teacups/
Subtract Electric lake from huntington powerplant to get the best rough guess(what flow rate in most descriptions is based on). So today it is roughly 500.

Nice TR BTW.