While many will travel alongside the South Fork of the Eagle River in the summer months, you do not hear of too many people floating down it anymore. Most are heading up to fish or camp at Eagle or Symphony lakes, and plenty are just enjoying an easy trail through a beautiful valley. While these are great reasons to go up the South Fork valley, I think it is a shame there isn’t more interest in boating down from near the lakes nowadays. From my research, the creek had higher interest in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, but uninviting landowners along the creek and a lack of modern literature has led to a decline in its popularity.
There are three distinct sections of the creek that increase in difficulty as you descend. The upper stretch is class II+/III and it resides between Eagle Lake and the pedestrian bridge 2.25 miles from the South Fork Trailhead. The middle stretch increases in difficulty to III+/IV- and introduces wood into the equation; this portion is between the pedestrian bridge and the road culvert on South Creek Drive. The lower section is between the South Creek Drive culvert and the Hiland Road culvert, and while I have never descended this stretch, I’m told it paddles similar to the middle section, however it holds more wood.
Upper (II+/III-):
After parking at the South Fork Trailhead just off of Hiland Road, head up towards Eagle Lake. After hiking about 4.5 miles, leave the trail and head down towards the creek. There is a large pool (61.18646, -149.39565) that serves as a good starting point; if flows are on the lower side you may want to put in just beneath the pool to avoid a thin exit from the pool.
This entire section is read-and-run with consistent class 2 water with the occasional class 3 feature. There are a lack of large eddies and the shores are lined with willows that make stopping a challenge, but the depth of the creek allows for relatively safe hot-exits in calmer portions of the river. As a consequence of the depth, you will often find yourself butt-scooting at marginal flows, but if you can make it out of the pool cleanly that should indicate you’ll make it down to the pedestrian bridge cleanly. Enjoy the tight slots of willow tunnels and unexpected drops around blind corners, because due to it being in the alpine, the concern of wood other than willows is non-existent until just before the take-out.
If you choose to just run the upper portion, be sure to catch an eddy near the pedestrian bridge as the creek diverts from the trail soon after. There have been stories of angry homeowners dealing with paddlers exiting on their property after realizing they bit off more than they could chew.
Middle (III+/IV-):
The middle portion of the South Fork of Eagle River begins 2.25 miles up the South Fork trail at the pedestrian bridge. You are no longer in the alpine for this stretch, meaning wood hazards become very real on the tight, winding creek. My understanding is there used to be a good community of people who would clean up the creek and clear wood, but after some of the main advocates moved out of the valley, an anti-boater culture now prevails amongst homeowners along the river. This means any attempt to clean the river is met with hostility and the creek has been accumulating wood in recent years.
This stretch consists of a class 2 warm-up stretch that may hold wood on blind corners before going underneath a low, red driveway bridge that marks the start of the whitewater. Immediately after the bridge, be ready for wood on a slow s-bend; then be ready for non-stop action with short warnings before rapids. Since the creek is so narrow, most of the rapids are straightforward; stay upright and carry momentum to succeed. The width also means there are no sneaks to any of the rapids, you must either run the gut or portage, so if any rapid feels on the cusp of your abilities just take the high and dry line.
Lower (III+/IV-):
I have not run this stretch, so I will update after doing it. It is worth noting a friend had a bad pin in the summer of 2025 on a strainer in this section.
9/6/25:
To celebrate a few recent birthdays, Olga, Jake, Kelli, Ben, and I headed up the South Fork trail to paddle a river that was new to most of us (Jake had run all three sections before). We had a fun time butt-scooting down the upper portion, taken aback by the fall colors beginning to descend on the valley. Tight willow slots and boney drops proved enough for most of the crew, so once we reached the bridge everyone but Kelli and I (with the motivation to not hike on our birthday paddle) packed up their boats and began towards the car. Jake had given a fair warning as to what we were getting into, but we each felt strong that day and continued into the middle portion of the river.
We enjoyed the first small drops, and portaged a couple of logjams with minimal excitement before reaching the longest and steepest rapid on the middle, which we found to be fully chocked full of wood. 200 feet of river must have held 3 riverwide strainers with countless logs between them. Defeated, we portaged the rapid and launched back into the class 4- onslaught that seemed to never let up. Another big rapid seemed to be full of wood, but upon inspection only the entrance was clogged up. Assuming a clean entrance, the rest of the rapid seemed straightforward. We chose to run the rapid and we each reached the bottom ledge cleanly, but as I turned to watch Kelli go over the ledge, I saw her swimming. I turned to find an eddy to catch and there were none around, so I executed a hot exit by grabbing a branch and jumping out mid-current. I was able to throw my boat and paddle to shore and crawl up myself. When I turned back around I could hardly see Kelli’s boat anymore; it had lost all of the air inside it. As Kelli and her boat came barreling at me, I was able to assess that Kelli would be able to make it to the shore without my help so I shifted my focus towards catching her delated boat before it was pulled underneath the water.
As the flaccid boat went past, I was able to get a hand on the stern handle. The weight of the boat with tubes full of water proved to be as heavy as any hard shell kayak–I lost my initial footing and was pulled partially into the current before I found a large rock to brace my feet on. I could tell Kelli needed a moment to find her composure, but before too long she recognized I needed help extracting the boat from the current. She quickly grabbed my PFD and gave me the extra strength to get the boat out of the current and onto land. As we pulled the boat out, we realized there was no tear in her boat. Instead, the TiZip had blown open on the final drop which led to the catastrophic failure.
After we collected ourselves and drained the inside of Kelli’s boat, we deemed the best option to be continuing downstream to our takeout which was not too much further. We found one more big rapid before we reached the takeout, but we made it through with far less drama than the previous one. At the culvert near the South Fork trailhead, we exited the river and walked back up to our car with a little more experience and wisdom to take with us.
Kip Sprout 
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