Stix and Stones – Coldfear

Just in case you wondered why they called it Stix and Stones!

Boof the log, rail slide the right wall, 2 quick strokes away from the sieve, and split the two logs and tuck. Ahh yes, Stix and Stones was holding to its name of sketchy class 5 drops with marginal lines.

Its a good thing I didnt have this view before probing it for the young lads. I told them after I ran it “nice and clean” and that it would be tuff to hit the log and they both followed with some type of log interaction of various degrees.

Stix and Stones lies high in the upper Clarks Fork River a little over an hour from Cody, Wyoming, and has been on my list of runs to get on for quite sometime. This section of water lied untouched for quite some time after a group of Jackson paddlers reported horror stories of numerous portages and drop after drop filled with wood.

About 5-6 years ago kayakers began to wander into its depths again with only curiosity guiding them. Some found the drops and crystal blue waters inviting, and others found numerous portages and swarms of mosquitos. We found that the portages weren’t that bad, eight in all, and for the most part the mosquitos were the worst part of portaging.

When we put on, the Clarks Fork gauge was reading about 1100cfs and we found the flows to be at a minimum flow. I really do believe you could get in there at some pretty high flows, maybe 3000 on the Clarks Fork gauge and will hopefully get a chance to test that theory next season.

You better come to Stix and stones ready to fire up some marginaly runable drops and get comfortable with wood. It sucks when you factor in dealing with the blood sucking mosqutios to run a drop. I took two young guns with me Tom Sunderland and Randy Binder, both having a great year firing it up in their first class 5 season.