Trying to name a creek near Slippery Rock, PA

[Punkinhead]

This is a longshot, but I was going through some old photos and found one where I'm running this little drop. It would have been in the early 1980s because I remember being too young to drive and some older friends gave me a lift to Pennsylvania to run Slippery Rock Creek. After running that we found this other creek nearby but too many years have passed and I can't remember the name of it. Does anyone know of a creek in that neck of the woods that this photo might have been taken on? It might be something that's only runable in high water.

 

[Alan Gage]

Around here we call anything that size a river. It's only a creek if it takes no more than 3 stepping stones to cross.

Alan

 

[Punkinhead]

Around here we call anything that size a river. It's only a creek if it takes no more than 3 stepping stones to cross.

I suspect in low water that's about what it would take. I seem to remember the only reason we ran it is because one of the guys had wanted to do it for awhile but there was never enough water.

BTW, that's only 1 of 2 pictures I found of myself in a kayak. The other is during a roll session when I was 11 and my father is beside me in the pool teaching me. The rest are of me in canoes since I switched to paddling canoes in whitewater when I was about 16. Here's one in a tandem Mad River. I used to kneel on a thwart with a huge block of styrofoam in the bow. I couldn't afford bags or deck skirts back then. Technical paddling clothes was a pair of cutoff jeans.

 

[Gamma1214]

That's a big drop for anything near Slippery Rock. Kingston Dam on Loyalhanna Creek is only runnable at high water (and by young, bulletproof people) but it's not that high and is straight... are you sure of the location? Closer to Ohiopyle, maybe?

Technical paddling clothes was a pair of cutoff jeans.

You were wearing a helmet which was more than most of us did back then.

 

[Punkinhead]

That's a big drop for anything near Slippery Rock. Kingston Dam on Loyalhanna Creek is only runnable at high water (and by young, bulletproof people) but it's not that high and is straight... are you sure of the location? Closer to Ohiopyle, maybe?

It could be closer to Ohiopyle (the Youghiogheny is where the canoes pictures were taken), but my fuzzy memory of that day is that we drove from Cleveland to Slippery Rock in the morning, ran Slippery Rock Creek, then drove to this other creek with the drop in the picture, then drove home. It's possible that we went towards Ohiopyle, which would have been in the wrong direction, because we were young and able to operate on not much sleep. I lost touch with the two guys I was with that day but I doubt their memories are any better than mine.

 

[Gamma1214]

Muddy Creek @ high water can be class V & photo angle can be deceiving but that looks like you were shooting a natural falls... I think Muddy's all rocks & holes... I'm intrigued.