Local Flavor

Moving back to Red Lodge has some definite advantages. Sunshine, old friends, mountains, skiing, and Rock Creek. Rock Creek flows right through down town and as it happens my back yard. 

It has been years since i'd been down, i was pumped to get back on the local flavor. Plus now i can take out in my yard, so that's nice.

AW lists the levels runnable as 5.7-7ft.. We put on at 6.8ft and it was way more exciting than i remember.

The put in is at the Lake Fork Road bridge. Just down stream is the staging eddy then its off to the races.

The crux of the run is S-Turn which is 2-300 yards down stream from the put in. At higher water (not sure where this begins and ends) the S-Turn is stiff class IV or -V. Its not so much the size of the holes or the hazards to avoid; the difficulty lies in the push and the lack of eddys. A swim would be long and painful.

I have since run it at much lower levels, somewhere in the 6.65ft area the push slackens and your left with a fun class III-IV. Lets just say that Rock Creek changes character dramatically with just a little more or less water.

Over analyzing level aside this is a sweet run in the Beartooths. The take out at point of rocks is easy to miss, if you want to extend your run you can go all the way into town and take out at the 6th St pier. This adds several miles of fast moving class II. If your around when its running its definitely worth it.

Here is just a little clip.