Labour day long"creekend"
Norrish Creek or "Gnarr-ish Creek" as some of the locals have come to nickname it, is one of the best grade 4/4+ creeks in the Fraser Valley . . . so far. Beings that its only 20 minutes from my door and easy access, it was only a matter of time before I had to do a post on it. Norrish creek serves up a huge dose of fun drops, awesome scenery classic BC style 4/4+ creeking and some unusual obstacles like Jeeps and Fords. Beings that the creek is located in Mission its a hot spot for dumping stolen vehicles. Theres about 4 or so complete vehicles in the run but only 2 of which are in play for running the creek. All though access is easy, hiking out would not be. For most part you are in a very deep canyon with steep walls. There are one or two must run rapids, one has a possible portage on river right but the small flushy eddy you would need to grab would all but disappear at higher levels and leave you setup to run the first ledge backwards. There is a gauge on the take out bridge (Hockenpickles Road. . . seriously that's the name of the road). 3.0 on that guage is about as low as Ive run it and about as low as I would want to, I have heard other people have run it lower. 4 on the gauge is the highest Ive run and is a lot pushier making lots of the holes stickier. I'm sure it can be run higher but one drop has a log in it the you can go under at 4.0 but would get ugly any higher. 3.5 is the level we ran on Labour Day weekend and the level for most of the pics here, its a good level for a first time run or after big water to look for new wood.
James at the put in.
Dan dropping the first drop on the run. You can scout this drop before you put in.
James on the second ledge.
Dan on the second ledge.
James running some drop, anyone missing a Jeep??
James on one of the boulder gardens.
James on the slide drop.
Dan on Slip and Slide
James on another junk yard drop. There is most of the frame and suspension attached to the rim, this vehichle has moved in the last couple months and now makes running this drop a little sketchy.
James scouting one of the must run rapids, at these levels you can run down the right side but at higher levels the ledges get stickier and the under the log move closes up.
James running above the log on the must run.
James boofing one of the last big ledges.
Dan not boofing one of the last big ledges.
Dan on "Slideways", I blew this one and spun off the top of the rock and down the other side backwards so its doable there but this is the better side.
One of the many canyons.
Dan on a sneak line around something manky.
James scouting the last drop and probably one of the hardest. This rapid flipped me at the top and smeared me all the way down to the bottom, aside from the battered ego I may have broke a rib and smashed my shouldet along with removing some skin on my knuckles.
The gauge at the bottom on the bridge looking upstream river left.
I don't have any decent pictures of the other must run rapid and the hole below it but I will post some soon. I'm working on a GNARR-ish Creek video that I will post here as well. All the other hard or big drops are pictured here.
Ryan
