Austin Creek

You might call Austin Creek "Big Scirum's Big Brother". Austin is another minor tributary to the Locust Fork. It joins the Locust on river right just upstream of the Swann Covered Bridge. Austin has been run at least twice, and it probably has water as often as Big Scirum does right after good rain events. In fact, it's watershed is actually slightly larger than Big Scirum. The following description is from the fall of 2006 prior to any log removal efforts.

At the put-in you want to make sure the culverts are at least 1/2 full. You will slide in and fight brush and small trees in the water for about 1/4 of a mile. Then you come to a 5 ft drop (may be an old dam) with a sticky hole. Boof straight out over the drop and then drive to the right. The next drop has wood in it, so you must portage. Then you have a slide with some left to right moves for about 75 to 100 yards that ends in two small pourovers that had sticky holes when we ran it. There is a pinch drop to watch out for in this section. The first part of the rapid is straight forward, but then constricts to a 2 ft pinch with the river left side completely undercut. This part of the drop is blind from above so I suggest scouting all the rapids in this gorge unless you are boating with someone who has been there before. You have some boogey water and then you will see a overhang over the river. Go under the overhang and start out right and then turn back hard to left onto another 50 to 75 yard slide. This is followed by more boogey water. There is a larger drop with a move similar to Bow Down on Jones but bigger and is chock full of large wood, which makes it completely unrunnable. It feeds into a large two tier drop into a small pool with wood and then feeds into a couple of clean drops and slides, then you hit the Locust.

- Dalton Creech

There is a lot of Class II-III stuff with a handfull of Class IV and two Class V thrown in the mix. The slides are surprisingly long and a blast with enough water. There are numerous holes scattered throughout to keep you on your toes. There are two distinct gorges within the run and it is amazing when they appear out of nowhere. The first Class V has a sick seive that you would have to boof over to complete the entrance to the first drop and is similar to Bow-down on Jones. I think both big rapids are runnable at the right flow and with some wood removed.

- Greg Lawrence