NF Mokelumne

I've been wanting to get this one for a while and the chance came up this year. Myself, Dan, Gerald and Margerite met on a sunny June morning at the takeout by Tiger Creek dam with no idea what we were about to commit to. Class III/IV with one V at the end did not do this run justice. The water was on the high side, but I'd have to say I'd prefer that flow, it made it way fun the whole way. The start was spicey from the get go, with one long class IV finishing in a suprisingly big drop that got everyones attention, setting the tone for the day. I felt that we were making excellenet time, the river was continious in nature, always fast moving water normally with rapids. One or two big ledges could have been very exciting if you blundered into them but it was all good. However as the day wore on it seem like we should be about done and we started kidding ourselves that ever big drop we found was Mokelumne falls, the elusive last class V rapid. Meanwhile the grade gradually kept ratcheting up until it was continious big water IV with enough pushiness and stuff to avoid that it had our 100% attention. Early in the evening, starting to feel tired and with Margerite starting to look a little pushed we finally knew that we had encountered the real Mokelumne Falls. From the last scout, river left we could see vertical rock walls on both sides of the river and big horizon line with mist 100 yards downstream. Between there and us lay solid IV+ big water pepered with holes and no way to scout without a death defying eddy catch on the opposite shore. Knowing that the move to make the scout was both beyond Margerites safe boating level and that we would be commiting to the falls (which is unportageable) we faced the unthinkable...a portage in poison oak hell. We had to drag the boats back upstream 100 yards and ferry to the otherside then commenced to haul the boats up through the vertical jungle on the other side with the throw ropes. It took us most of the remain daylight hours to even get them an estimated 300 feet above the river without an inch of downstream progress. Faced with benightment we made the obvious choice, swallowed our pride, tied the boats off to tree's and traversed above the cliffs bush wackiing through the Oak. We made it down a steep slope to river level as the last light faded and immediately drank more water and tried to do some washing to minimise the inevitable Oak rash that was comming. Then we made our ways down the rocky river shore, comming on a good trail within a 1/4 mile and the power house and road another 1.4 mile further. One botle of Technu later we unran shuttle and formed a plan to find a motel quickly as we were beat. However the day hadn't done with us yet, and not a single motel vacancy could be found. Faced with no where to stay and the desperate need for a hot shower to ditch more poison oak we headed home arriving after 3am....just another day of adventure in the Sierra foothills.