About Razor Rock
Razor Rock is more of a feature and not so much of a rapid. Above 1,000 CFS, you’ll float right over it and not even know that something significant is lurking below you. But as the water drops its significance makes for a rude awakening as it’s a tough one to read and there’s no room to run away from the feature. The common result is a slow flip into flat water. Afterward, you’ll look back upstream and wonder “what the hell was that?” as there’s no large hole and no fast current. The water simply folds into itself and with that folding, it will flip rafts consistently.
The current is strange here and it’s not suggested you swim the feature. Dillon Cole, a guide for KRO, once decided to jump into the folding current directly at the Razor Rock feature to see how deep it went. With a high float PFD he went down far enough to describe it as “dark”. He then had to swim downstream to exit the current that was pushing down. Fortunately, if you do have a flip here, you will likely be in the calm pool and not in the actual Razor Rock water feature itself.
How to run Razor Rock
Above 1,000 CFS: Nothing exists here. Simply float over the feature.
800 – 1,000 CFS: For lack of a better description, the river simply disappears leaving you with just one option, navigating a small slot between two offset rocks. This slot is barely wide enough for a raft, and because the rocks are offset, you have to go between them with left to right momentum.
Below 800 CFS: You might want to consider portaging this feature as flips will start to become frequent as the water continues to drop. Portaging is easy, fortunately. There is a flat rock just to the right of the Razor Rock feature. Nose up onto the flat rock and jump onto this rock and hold the raft. Have everyone in your raft get out and onto the rock and pull your raft up and over the rock and onto the other side. Once the raft is over the rock and into the water downstream, have your passengers jump into the raft. That’s it, you portaged it. If you know what you’re doing you can usually portage a raft in about one minute.
Below 500 CFS: Below 500 CFS, the slot between the two rocks is so narrow that even kayaks will wedge.
