LiquidLore

Preserve Navigation on Big Silver (and friends)

2012-01-23T00:34:00.001-08:00

Don't want to read the report below? Send in your comments about preserving navigation on Big Silver Creek, and others in the area at the following links:

Big Silver Creek

Shovel Creek

Tretheway Creek

Once again, a new cohort of creeks in BC are under direct and immediate threat of small hydro development. The three creeks I'm talking about are Big Silver Creek, Shovel Creek and Tretheway Creek.

The original proponent, Cloudworks, was acquired by Innergex (the owners of the Ashlu and Rutherford hydro sites) to form an entity that currently owns, operates or is currently developing about 15 small hydro projects in southwest BC.

On Thursday January 19th, Innergex, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Office and the BC Environmental Assessment Office hosted a public hearing in Chilliwack which included a question and answer period with these organizations. To sum up the evening, the proponent Innergex genuinely recognizes the recreational value of these places and they seem eager to appropriately mitigate the loss to the kayaking community in the event the projects go ahead.

Herein lies the problem:

Innergex base their proposed mitigation measures on a report prepared by a subcontractor called TyPlan. They don't have time to do everything in-house and their proposals come from these reports. This information is included in a navigational assessment for each creek. You can find these documents here:

Big Silver Navigation Assessment

Shovel Navigation Assessment

Tretheway Navigation Assessment

It is concluded for Big Siver Creek that "The Project is expected to have a positive effect on recreational navigation on Big Silver Creek. No specific measures are required to mitigate any adverse effect on navigation." Similar conclusions are reached for Shovel and Tretheway.

I think it goes without saying that the whitewater boating community generally does not agree with this statement.

After a thorough review, myself, the team at Fraser Valley Whitewater, the CKBC River Access Coordinator Curtis McHale and others all feel that the navigation assessments are full of errors and inaccuracies, hence the proposed mitigation measures are not valid because this is the information they are based on. For example, the altered flow regime is represented in this graph:

Source: Big Silver Navigation Assessment

As confirmed at the open house, the Big Silver project will divert everything and anything up to 42 cms - the graph should look more like the following modified graph. If you think I'm out to lunch in my analysis, please speak up in the comments. This is just one example of the inaccuracies in the reports.

Source: Big Silver Navigation Assessment. Modified by LiquidLore.

The above graph is a more realistic representation of what the flow should be in the diversion reach after the dam is put in place. Look only to the Ashlu for a real-life example - outside of spikes due to intense snowmelt or heavy rain, there is usually just a base flow of a few cms present in the river for the majority of the year. There is no reason to assume why Big Silver would be any different.

The dewatering of a creek or river with recreational value can only be mitigated by providing whitewater releases. If you feel the same way, now is the time for you to comment on the BC EAO website. Please note that this is not the time to put out all encompassing statements about the evils of IPPs - it is the time for people with an interest in preserving navigation to make their voices heard, especially in light of the inadequate mitigation measures proposed. Innergex are interested in our opinions and I feel they will seriously consider everything we say. They have been professional and courteous to us, I recommend responding in kind.

Things to include in your comments:

The proposed mitigation measures are inadequate and are not in line with the mitigation measures provided on other creeks in southewest BC (even creeks with no access and/or no history of navigation have multiple releases each year. See this link for more).
These creeks have recreational value.
Whitewater releases are the only true way to mitigate the dewatering of a creek. The amount of releases should be proportional to level of use.
Releases should happen in the traditional period of use.
Gauges are a welcome mitigation measure.
Whatever else you feel is important.

If we are granted releases that we sign up to use, we still have the option to paddle on these runs. If nobody uses them, at least the option is there, and the proponent doesn't lose any money. A win-win situation.

From Fraser Valley Whitewater:

For those unfamiliar with these creeks Big Silver Creek has several runs on it, one of which will fall in the diversion reach of this project. It is a newer run only being explored in recent years and is seeing a large increase in use every year. This is one of the most scenic and diverse streams I have ever paddled on, it has something to offer everyone and the scenery is second to none. Tretheway Creek is listed in the latest guide-book, “River Gypsies Guide to 294 of the Contents BEST Rivers”, its referred to as one of the most special places you can visit in a kayak. Shovel Creek is the lesser known creek and has yet to be fully explored by paddlers.

Here are the links for you to send in your comments. You have until Feb 9 to help make a difference.

Big Silver Creek

Shovel Creek

Tretheway Creek

For more information check out River Access (CKBC Rivers Access site) and Fraser Valley Whitewater.

Big Silver scene.

Such an awesome place.

Stein Multiday

2012-01-20T21:19:00.002-08:00

The Stein is one of the rare runs in SW BC that has relatively moderate whitewater for almost 50 km - long river sections are a rarity around here! While the bottom few km is a popular hike in day trip, you can also fly in to Stein Lake and make a multiday trip by paddling the whole river. Depending on the group, this can take anywhere from 2 to 4 days.

The Stein is good, but I'm not sure if I'd give it the 'classic' stamp of approval. It's not that the whitewater isn't fun, it's the fact that there is an abnormally large amount of portaging because of wood that take away a bit from the run. I'd say all told over a standard 3 day trip a normal group will spend at a minimum 4 hours portaging. The final 15 km of the run is head and shoulders above the rest of the run in terms of quality - it's a super classic section of solid grade IVish read and run - motivated people might find it more rewarding to simply hike up from the bottom!

Despite some quality issues, the Stein is worth the trip. It ends with a bang, and it does give up an enjoyable wilderness experience with wild forests and impressive mountain scenery. The Clendinning is a worthy alternative, but it's a bit harder. Check out the beta and scope the photos to see what it's all about...

PS It's the comment period for the Big Silver/Tretheway/Shovel IPPs - speak out and help make a difference in preserving recreation!

Whistler Air's DHC-3 Turbo Otter - it carries around a lot of kayakers.

Otter dashboard - this definitely isn't a new plane...

The crew - James, Sandra, Sacha, Jen, Toni, Ryan.

Tundra Lake - an unusually blue lake en route to the Stein.

A wicked scene at Stein Lake.

The dirty hike at the start of the trip. At least there's a trail.

Ryan Bayes routing the one of the first slides.

Sandra on a random ledge - the water at the start is super clear. It doesn't last long.

Scenic forest floating.

First rapid with any major consequence.

Hey Don Barrie, we found your paddle! Don't ask how we found it....

Toni routing a nice drop in the most canyon-like part of the run.

Random low water boogie.

The start of the massive 2nd log jam portage. On all the rivers I've done, I've never seen such a terrible thing to portage where there are absolutely no canyon walls.

In the thick of it. This is one of the good parts.

The good stuff on our third day.

A big boulder rapid. This might be Devils Escalator - not to be confused for Devils Staircase

Group shot at the end of the river where it is swallowed by the Fraser.

Pamela Creek - Vancouver Island

2011-12-23T01:21:00.000-08:00

Pamela Creek is one of those tiny creeks that turns out to be really fun. It's in the Gold River zone on Vancouver Island - the Gold and its tributaries represent an unusually concentrated region of whitewater with good varitey and varying difficulties - nothing there is too crazy either. The Pamela is one of the more challenging creek runs out there. It has wicked clear water, nice bedrock and classic V.I. mank. It ends on the Ucona River, where there are two really nice small waterfalls to end on a high note.

Here's the beta for Pamela, and of course some photos.

Ryan Bayes in the midst of a sweet two set.

Island master Vollmers dropping hot in a slot.

Stacked bedrock.

The first gimme waterfall once out on the Ucona.

Dan Bentley fires up drop #2 on the Ucona - best of the whole run. An awesome corner perfect for laying out a fat draw-to-boof.

Dipper Creek 2011

2011-11-12T12:55:00.001-08:00

Dipper Creek beta can be found here.

In the aftermath of the huge runoff year that was 2011, we were all speculating that many of the late season classics might not come in because of persistent high flows - for some runs that was true. For example, I don't think anybody got down the Stikine this year, and the Homathko had just a week long window when the weather was still decent. It got run by a few groups, which is cool because it seems to have fallen out of the limelight in recent years - maybe it was popular this season because no Stikine crews had the chance to fire that one up.

Dipper Creek is another of those runs that needs really low flows, and after not coming in to low levels before the fall rains began many of us thought it just wouldn't happen before it got too cold. Well, turns out it dropped down to low enough flows in early November. In retrospect, that's probably the latest in the year it's still reasonable - we put on to run just Vertigo Gorge through the upper Squamish in sub-zero temps with some ice on the rocks down by the river. It was still a wicked day - in fact, running the lower reaches of Dipper makes for a pretty classic day of kayaking with some fantastic canyons, good whitewater and waterfalls and a lot less stress than trying to run the uber-canyoned out middle stretch of the run. Not a bad way to bring the season to a close.

Here are some shots from the day. Thanks to Maxi and Sandy for lending the great images for us to use!

The massive Doug Fir that stands watch over the Dipper Camp clear cut. There are several of these massive trees left standing in the area. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

Todd Wells rolling over the lip of the entrance waterfall to Vertigo gorge.

Hanging out in the Vertigo Gorge teacup - a large mob descended Dipper this year. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

Said mob. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

The rapid that exits the teacup perfectly fits a modern creek boat. There were some short but inconsequential beatings there. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

Me and Fred, in the heart of Vertigo. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

A perfect beam of light at the exit of the gorge. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

The 20 footer just above the confluence - BC Groove Tube? Sandy Macewan photo.

Squamish confluence falls. Sandy Macewan photo.

Rob Murphy heading down the rapids of the upper Squamish below the Dipper confluence. There aren't many canyons like this one. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

Just above the take out. Maxi Kniewasser photo.

Hurley Canyon

2011-10-23T11:30:00.002-07:00

The Hurley River near the town of Bralorne is a cool river on the very edge of the Coast Mountains in southwest BC - I guess you could even argue that it is actually in the Chilcotins. It's worth reading the beta out it to find out some more about what the river is like. There's a big canyon, some big rapids and a ton of old mining debris hanging out by the edge of the water. The whole area is famous for gold mining - Bralorne still sports an active gold mine.

One of the most striking features of this area are the massive reserviors made by the Bridge River Hydro Project; the Hurley is a trib of the Bridge. This is one of the biggest hydro complexes in British Columbia, and it's obvious that a project of such scale has a huge environmental impact. This whole thing was built before environmental assessments were required of such things.

If you've ever heard of or paddled the lower Bridge Canyon, you might have wondered why such a huge riverbed has so little water - it's because this hydro project diverts the whole river - several hundred cms during snowmelt - into another drainage. If the full flow of the Bridge were allowed to flow back through the lower Bridge Canyon, it would certainly be one of the best big water runs in BC. It's likely that will never happen on a predictable basis though. C'mon BC Hydro, will you provide full flow releases for us one day?

Anyways, whatever you think of this hydro project, here are some photos of the Hurley itself to get you fired up.

Near the top of Hurley pass in early fall.

Ali and Steve trying to sort out where to go.

Downton Lake.

Heavy frost after a night camped out in Bralorne. Hurley is a late season run!

On the river, just below the Cadwallader.

A sick boof near the start.

Scouting the first class V stretch - the wall on river left is huge.

A typical rapid made by gnarly boulders.

The end of another gnarly section.

Orange cliff mean you're nearing the end.

The clear water of the Hurley, consumed by the heavily silted Bridge River.

Tatlow Creek Photo Dump

2011-10-16T10:39:00.001-07:00

All the words you'd want to read are here. Enjoy the photos. It's hard to capture the essences of this run in photos - if you haven't done it, it's really as good as you think it might be. Excuse the quality of the photos, some of them are pretty old!

Rotting bridge over the Ashlu.

Maybe one of the last vehicles to make it up to the top of the hill.

Adin Richardson enjoys the views at the top of the hill.

Fletcher and Howard skidding down the hill.

A wrecked boat at the put in. Bbring a piece out if you can.

Entrance sequence, low water.

Kristof Stursa and the clear water of Tatlow.

Sam Ricketts, 2nd waterfall.

Ryan Bayes, 2nd waterfall.

Steve Rogers, double drop.

Ben Hawthorne, Wall Drug.

Hector DarbyMaclellan (Bubbles) on some Tatlow boogie.

Christy Thompson in an old, vintage photo. Very old.

Ali Marshall, log waterfall. The gnarliest drop on the run probably.

Take out ledge.

Take out pool.

And some photos from years gone by. I first did Tatlow in 2006 with a crew of friend from Ottawa. Matt Kompass showed us the lines, and it was sweet.

A photo of me.

Another photo of me. Oh the shame.

This happened at Wall Drug.

Mike Shook.

Gillian Wright - perhaps the 2nd or 3rd woman to run Tatlow.

Jason Porteous.

Matt Kompass, log drop.

Adin, Steve, Dan, Sept 2007.

Matt and Christy (and me taking the picture), Aug 2006.

reIMAGINED

2011-10-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

A new movie from our buddies at Five2Nine Productions. Looks good. Get ready for the full movie in November.

reIMAGINED - Teaser from Five2Nine Productions on Vimeo.

Keep your eyes on this space for some fall season updates. LiquidLore has seen few updates in the last few months - now that the boating season is slowing down we'll have more time to feed the internet with kayak porn. Stay tuned!

West Kootenays: St. Leon Creek

2011-08-13T05:30:00.002-07:00

A photo tour of St. Leon Creek in the West Kootenays.

Click this link if you want to read the beta.

Galena Bay ferry. The boat you need to get from Revelstoke to the river.

The mountains in the Monashees are just as big as anywhere else in BC.

The ferry crossing Upper Arrow Lake.

Local Hayden fires up the first bedrock rapid.

Harsh lighting on the first triple set. Ryan Bayes avoids a big hole.

Mark Basso came all the way over from Norway to run this big slide.

Close up of the entrance.

The sick waterfall near the end of the run.

River right line.

Level reference - downstream, river left of the bridge. Medium-high.

2011 Callaghan Race Recap

2011-07-25T20:06:00.004-07:00

Wednesday, July 20. The Callaghan was too high to paddle. With the massive snowpack that fell during the winter of 2010/2011 and the dismal summer that we've been having in southwest BC it really looked like the Callaghan Race would have to diverted to a race on the upper Cheak because of high water - a bit of a bummer after all the training runs and the stoke that had been building for the few weeks prior to the event.

Just 2 days later the rain stopped, it stayed cloudy and it got very cool - Mother Nature realized how nice it would be to have a race on the Callaghan and basically turned off the taps, dropping the Callaghan down every day thereafter. While we were still uncertain what to do on Friday night, we got there on Saturday morning to see the level had dropped out to almost the same level as the race in 2010 - game on!

The morning started out with one of the best parts of the weekend - a massive group paddle down the river, with about 20-25 bodies on the water checking out the lower water level and cheering each other on.

Once 4pm rolled around, 8 teams decided to challenge the river and each other, with participants from all over BC and Alberta. This year we were graced with no carnage during the race with clean runs all around (well, clean runs were had by the racers....). Maxi and Ric, two summertime Whister locals, walked away with the win, absolutely smashing the winning time from the year before by about 30 seconds. Perhaps most impressive is the short time span between the winners and everyone who came after - some of these guys only ran the Callaghan 2 or 3 times prior to firing up the race. Congratulations to everyone who participated!

Here are the full results:

Maxi Kniewasser/Ric Moxon - 15:43
Sam Ricketts/Greg Dashper - 16:09
Mark Basso/Mikkel St. Jean-Duncan - 16:13
Matt Kompass/Andrew Slater - 17:07
Ali Marshall/Steve Arns - 18:00
Hector Darby Maclellan/Chris Ryman - 18:36
Adrian Kiernan/Jared Taylor - 18:37
Shane Kroeger/Paul Harwood - 19:19

I think it's fair to say the 2nd Callaghan Race was a great success. Perfect weather, good flows, an excellent crew of participants, volunteers and spectators and of course a great after party made for a one hell of a day. What next year will hold in terms of weather and water is always a question (maybe it will be a bit lower for a change!), but there's no doubt that the Callaghan Race is here to stay.

See you next July!

A special thanks goes out to the safety crew who paddled down the river to set up at the waterfalls, to Steve Rogers for the awesome photos, to Dave Sitar for running the finish line timing and to Western Canoe and Kayak for the generous donation of a gift certificate which was given to Dave as a thank-you for missing out on the action on the river.

Sam Ricketts leads the first team in the race over the falls.

Hector and Chris keeping it tight.

Mikkel and Mark rolling in to the rapid after the falls - this one has a huge hole at the bottom!

Safety man James Mole takes it a little more down the gut than ideal...

Ric Moxon.

Greg Dashper with a lofty boof over the falls.

Adrian and Jared.

Ric.

Maxi and Ric en route to a win.

Maxi and Ric, fired up with the winners ribbons, and the winners whiskey shot.

The times were good after the race - everyone checking their times.

Callaghan Creek Race 2011

2011-06-22T13:33:00.008-07:00

It's coming again to Whistler, BC on July 23.

Come to post a time, paddle the run or just hang out along the river and at the after party - it's going to be a good day.

Southwest BC is currently sitting on an enormous snowpack that has yet to really start to melt so it's very likely that the water will be high (as in higher then last year) on race day. We intend to run the race as long as we feel we can safely do so. We have a backup plan if the water is absolutely raging, so there is a 100 % chance something will happen on July 23rd to see how fast you can paddle.

Here's the details and the plan so far:

Racers:
•The race will be in teams of 2 from top to bottom.
•First racers push off at 4 pm.
•Official sign up will happen between 1:30 pm and 2:30 pm at the Cal-Cheak campsite. Competitors meeting at 3:00 pm.
•Short boats only.

Spectators and Post-Race Party:
•Non-racing boaters are encouraged to come and paddle and/or help with safety.
•The more spectators the better. There is a well marked trail from the put in parking to the waterfalls section of the race course.
•The party starts right after the race at the Cal-Cheak campsite/take out.
•We have the Cal-Cheak campsite booked up for kayaking that weekend so feel free to party hard.

Stay tuned for updates as the date gets closer.

Greg Dashper on the first waterfall during the 2010 race.

Cameron: Another Classic

2011-06-01T23:57:00.003-07:00

It's seems like a long time since I've posted anything on the LL blog - I guess we can blame it on the winter doldrums - there's only so much blogging that can go on about kayaking when there isn't a lot of kayaking to blog about. Anyways, it's spring now and we're just getting set to unleash a new slew of content in the guidebook, and lots of spring trips have produced plenty of images to share.

A while back I posted about the Cameron River on VI, sans photos. I don't think mention of that run even made it up here - it quietly slipped into place in the guide. Anyways, after a Cameron feeding frenzy last weekend while out on the Island to hit the Puntledge festival I captured a slew of decent photos, and I remembered just how cool this great class IV run is. There must be 50 rapids in the 5 km of river, and most of them are pretty fun. In SW BC, especially on the mainland, where rivers are often class II gravel bars or pushy grade IV+ and up, the Cameron is a relatively rare example of a perfectly constructed, lengthy class IV river.

Check out the beta in the link above, and check out these photos.

Scouting the first scout-worth rapid.

The run out of the S-Turn micro canyon.

"The Waterfall". Maybe not a true stout but it's one of the standout rapids on the Cameron.

Typical Cameron style.

In the heart of the run the walls close in a bit, providing some classic VI atmosphere.

Sam Tregenza runs the log limbo rapid.

High water logs.

A 5 foot money boof.

Last rapid - Final Exam. It shares a name with the last rapid on Seymour Canyon.

And some parting shots in of the end of Final.

Upper Pet

2011-05-03T22:52:00.005-07:00

Upper Petawawa river beta - this is in Algonquin Park.

* * *

This weekend is the long-anticipated Hell or High Water Race in Petawawa, Ontario organized by one of our principal contributors Philip Kompass. Like we mentioned in the last post, the Petawawa is currently under direct threat of small run-of-river hydro development and this event will in part show everyone that the Petawawa River is not appropriate for any type of industrial development like this.

Go there and show your support, if you can.

The Upper Petawawa is a section upstream of the town, in Algonquin Park, that makes for a fun one day wilderness hike in trip that is an excellent run for intermediate level boaters. If you haven't run it, go fire it up with the huge crowd that's going to check it out on the day after the HOHW race.

Here's a random collection of photos from the Upper Pet.

Glenn Wallace on the Upper Pet.

Some dude fires up a ledge.

Glenn Wallace.

Running a rapid on the Upper Pet.

Alex Sauve pilots the Canyoneero to the Petawawa early in the spring.

Hmmm.

This is the easy trail you hike on. Drybags are awesome.

Ray Canton.

Some rapids.

More rapids.

A gauge?

Ray Canton, ready to fire it up.

Hell Or High Water 3

2011-04-13T23:48:00.003-07:00

HOHW3 is coming. Want to learn about the Petawawa? Here is the beta.

Hell or High Water is the largest whitewater race in Canada -- May 7, 2011

On Saturday, May 7, 2011 the first boat of many will launch into the waters of the Petawawa River, marking the official start of third annual Hell or High Water weekend in Petawawa. The event celebrates the wild rivers of the Ottawa Valley, while supporting the tourism and recreation branding of Renfrew County. As well, we continue to build momentum here in the community and beyond as we demonstrate that this section of river is worth far, far more than 5 MW of electricity!

This year has seen an unprecedented show of support, making HOHW the largest whitewater race in the country, if not the continent. There are already more than 300racers registered, and registrations keep pouring in.

The 2011 event will serve as a fundraiser for Soldier On, an organization which works to get wounded or disabled Canadian Forces members back into sports and recreation; Whitewater Ontario Advocacy Committee's efforts to keep our rivers running accessible; and, the Petawawa Military Family Resource Centre, providing support for the families of deployed soldiers.

Although the commercial raft spaces are sold out; beg borrow or steal some rubber and get a raft in. There is plenty of time to race in both categories, so get on it! As well, you really should stay the night in Petawawa. There is free camping in an actual campground, with firewood with a quick walk from the bar. Get up early and do a lap on the Upper Petawawa (class IV) , the Town Run or head to the Ottawa for big water fun.

Or, if you are a kayaker or canoeist enter the race, and see how your times compares against your friends, or even some of Canada’s top paddlers.

Please take a look through the details provided on the website and feel free to contact us with any questions. We want to make this event a positive and successful experience.

Sincerely,

Kim Barrington, Philip Kompass, Brad Wipp, Mike Crouzat
hohwpetawawa@hotmail.com

Winter's Over! Copper Canyon

2011-03-24T01:08:00.003-07:00

This is it - the time of year when North America is right on the brink of a new kayaking season - I bet there aren't many boaters out there who aren't fired up right now. For us in BC it's particuarly exciting as there is a huge snowpack in a lot of the province.

Vancouver Island is a place that doesn't need to wait for spring for the kayaking season to start. It's basically opposite to the normal season out there with things just getting underway once the rain starts in October, running through to April/May/June, depending on the part of the Island in question.

The Chemainus River is in the southwest corner of the Island. Copper Canyon is a stretch of river renowned for the copper color of the rock walls in its canyons. The whitewater is ok too... Not a bad river on which to spend the first day of spring.

Beta is at this link. Check it out - let us know what you think of the new format too.

Joe Box floating along on the Chemainus - Powerhouse coming up.

Random slide. There's currently a gaper of a sieve on the right side of this drop. Don't go right.

A tall cliff on the Copper - a great scene.

Deep in the second canyon.

Eagle Falls

2011-03-02T23:07:00.004-08:00

The Beaver. It's a long way from BC. Bloggin's about New York are the best way to tell we are running out of fresh stuff from BC. Even though we get a lot of rain all winter, it's still winter and the kayaking is often on the same few rivers near enough to the coast to not freeze over. The Island and WA are close at hand but oh so far away when motivation is low.

Anyways, the Beaver is one of the New York rivers that gets negotiated recreational releases in September of each year. There are three sections - the Taylorville and Moshier sections are decent river runs - the Eagle section is a short, steep novelty run that you'd never drive far for but it fits nicely in with the other releases, especially when it's the Labour Day weekend/unofficial Beaver Fest when there are loads of people firing it up all together.

The Eagle would be an awesome section for a race - unlike most other NY runs there is no flat water - the Moose Race and even the Raquette Race to some extent have significant bits of flat water so you can argue that speed doesn't happen 'cause you clean the rapids, it happens if you have a lot of gas in the tank across the lakes.

Turns out there is will be a whole series of races in NY this year - the King of New York series. It will be awesome. The Eagle will be one of the best ones - spectator access is easy, it's happening on a busy weekend, it's all whitewater and there is a hole that can dish out good carnage that you have to punch. There's no doubt that the title will be brought back to Canada.

Check out this video by Five2Nine of the Eagle, and the other parts of the Beaver - Mike and the lads are helping to organize and promote the whole King of New York series. If you're around there is September don't miss it!

Liquid Lore - Beaver River Video Guide from Five2Nine Productions.

The big one on the Eagle. I ran this whole thing upside down once and wore about half an inch off my paddle trying to save my face. Drop 3 on a busy Labour Day weekend.

Statlu Canyon

2011-02-10T22:44:00.005-08:00

The beta for Statlu Canyon

* * *

One of the best things about southwest BC - at least for kayakers - is that it rains all winter. Most people cringe and whine when the skies get grey, but for boating it's a blessing. On top of that, rain in the lowlands usually means snow in the mountains - the best of both worlds.

After a good month of skiing in January including an awesome day at Sun Peaks we had a good rain event late in the week, getting all the rivers up and running. I have had the Statlu in the back of my mind after hearing a couple of good reports from my friends Ben and Corey who ran it in May 2009 but I couldn't convince anyone to go earlier in the fall. Finally, Joe Box from the Island was on the mainland and agreed to go check it out - this despite not really knowing what it would be like, what the level would be or if we would even be able to drive the shuttle because of the threat of a locked gate.

Turns out the Statlu is awesome. We did have to walk because the gate was closed, but it was no big deal and well worth the effort. It's hard to believe this section isn't a raging classic - it's no further from Vancouver than going to Squamish to paddle on the Ashlu and the quality of the rapids is as good as most of the other class V around here. The Bellingham crew could get here just as quickly. It doesn't have an online gauge but then again neither does the Norrish and that run is a very well travelled Fraser Valley staple.

Like so many runs in SW BC, this section of whitewater is under direct, immediate threat of hydro development - it is currently undergoing the permitting process and it is likely that it will be dewatered in the next few years. It's being assessed concurrently with projects on Big Silver, Tretheway and Shovel Creek. It will not be long before all the rivers in the Fraser Valley and up Harrison Lake/River and the Lillooet valley are all diverted.

Because the Statlu has remained out of the spotlight for so long, there is very little record of navigation there and it's unlikely it will receive the extensive mitigation measures that have been enacted on the Ashlu if the project gets the go ahead (when a project goes ahead, my opinion is the Ashlu system should be seen as the gold standard for appropriate mitigation). It was even stated in the most recent applications that the proposed diversion reach did not get navigated, and that it wasn't navigable. This is false. Just look at the pictures below - it's obviously great, fully runnable whitewater.

All is not lost though. There is still plenty of time to paddle the Statlu as a free-flowing river. It's also possible that the project will not go ahead - as of yet no approvals have been given. Go up there, check it out and when the second comment period happens go online and post up your thoughts. It's well worth the short drive and every voice counts.

The road up the Statlu is usually gated - if this is due to logging acvitity it's a little foolish as there is tons of unprotected equipment sitting on the side of the road on the Chehalis main. The road above the gate was in good condition, and it was plowed.

Visual gauge at the first Statly bridge - upstream river left. 5.5 units = perfect.

Joe Box at the put in.

Canyon entrance - that's a log spanning the river, not a bridge.

The first big one - it had a big hole at the bottom. It was a dreary wet day for taking photos.

This is what it's like - short but really good.

Trying to scout the second last drop - best on the run? Reminded me of the portage on Bald Rock Canyon, but runnable.

One of the impressive log jams at the end of the canyon - there were huge piles of logs stacked 50 feet off the water in places.

The last rapid - we portaged this one on the left - it's probably runnable though.

Currents 10

2011-01-21T10:39:00.003-08:00

Our compadres over at Five2Nine recently put out episode 10 of Currents - if you haven't seen any of them have a look through their website for the first episodes of the series. Episode 10 is perhaps the best one yet, highlighting the story of how the ultra classic Moose River in New York came to be one of the first rivers in the US to have mandated recreational whitewater releases. It also explains how this process acted as a launch pad for American Whitewater's involvement in river access, and it focuses on how this success has been realized in part by the immense popularity of Moosefest held each fall.

Sadly, this video stands as a reminder to Canadians that we do not have a national body whose mandate is to protect recreational river value like AW does. We are 30 years behind the US on this front. Sure, there are individuals, local clubs and even some provincial/national level organizations who try their best and do have success, but we would have a much stronger voice were we nationally organized with a view for protecting these valuable resources. And I don't mean something like Paddle Canada or Canoe Kayak Canada taking up this role - I mean a whitewater organization whose primary mandate is to preserve rivers, not a coaching or racing mandate with river preservation as a secondary focus. It's time for this to happen.

And with that (and on a happier note) this link is where you can find river beta for the Moose - check out episode 10 below.

Class IV Classics: Lynn Creek

2011-01-17T23:50:00.003-08:00

Check out the beta for Lynn Creek at this link.

* * *

It was a long time living in Vancouver before I actually got on Lynn Creek, one of the very popular urban North Shore runs. Following a small disaster (snowfall in the city, it's a big deal when the snowplows are pickup trucks) the Lynn filled with logs and other forest debris and for almost a year this was the way it was. There had to have been enough wood in there to build several log houses, not including a massive log jam at perhaps the most inconvenient spot on the whole run that essentially rendered the whole thing unrunnable. I guess there was an excuse.

It turns out the wood and even the log jam eventually washed away with some encouragement from high water and the local beaver population; the Lynn was re-opened for buisness. It's a great local river with a good mix of whitewater that sits somewhere between the Cap and Seymour in difficulty - crystal clear water, good rapids and a cool canyon conspire to make it a worthwhile run to paddle when it has water. It's a small drainage that drops out all to quickly when the rain stops.

Standing head and shoulders above the rest of the run in both difficulty and intimidation factor is the optional waterfall at the put in called Twin Falls. A popular swimming hole in the summer, this drop transforms into a frothing monster when the water rises that will freeze the blood of anyone who seriously considers paddling over the edge, especially at high levels. The nasty rapid in the run out doesn't help the situation.

Maybe someone will go run the waterfalls found above Twin Falls one of these days - they are definitely stout.

Here are just a few snapshots of the Lynn at a solid level in the low 30's - click the link at the top of the post to get all the beta.

Twin Falls at a solid flow - Matt Mackinnon. The spectators on the bridge were fired up.

Sky High Log Drop - named after a log that has since washed away.

A fun canyon at the end of the Lynn.

Class IV Classics: Upper Gordon

2011-01-06T14:26:00.005-08:00

We're back after a long holiday break to spread the whitewater love! After a tough deliberation we sent the LL staff home for a month to enjoy the festive season and recuperate from a hard year of bloggin' and paddling all kinds of sweet whitewater. Yeah right.... in reality, winter makes for slow kayak blog writing and although we are sitting on a fair number of new runs to scribble about, they usually just get posted up without a .blogspot companion lately.

You can find LiquidLore on Facebook – when you do, you can easily follow all the guidebook updates – they all get posted there.

* * *

The latest update is from a great class IV section of the Gordon River on Vancouver Island. Good pool-drop whitewater with a long window of runnability make it a great resource. Lots of different people will enjoy this one - at lower levels it's good for intermediates, or it is a sweet warm up for the Middle Gordon. If you need to run gnar go at high water - it's probably a handfull.

Unfortunately the weather on the Island is often wet and grey, making for gloomy photos - check em out.

Tranquil put in on the Upper.

Maybe you can use this as a gauge rock. The metal thing is a paddler memorial.

One of the first notable rapids - good river running.

Triple Drop. This photo clearly shows the limitations of shooting with a D40 in very low light - the high ISO performance (1600 here) is not great. Most of these photos are shot with a Sigma 10-20 which is decently sharp when shot wide open, as all except one of these photos were.

Triple drop a few days later. The rain on the first day brought the river way up - this is on the downward trend. Notice the water color difference?

The Terminator. The last optional rapid. It's not big but the hole at the bottome looks terrible. Joe Box skirts the beast.

Save Navigation on Skookum Creek

2010-12-08T11:59:00.002-08:00

On December 4 it was announced that Skookum Creek is being assessed under the Navigable Waters Protection Program in the permitting process for the construction of an IPP. We can have a say in maintaining the recreational value of this creek if the project goes ahead, but you have to write an email with your comments. This isn’t the forum to stop the project, it’s the forum to help keep the river navigable. If you don’t comment there’s the real possibility of losing Skookum as a kayaking resource for ever if the project happens.

Here’s what to do:

Send your email to Brent Magee - brent.magee@tc.gc.ca – he’s the NWP Officer handling the file.

Here’s what I recommend to say:

1. Building a dam does not create better kayaking conditions – the river and flow will be permanently altered to the point that it will be unnavigable for most of the year.
2.There must be recreational whitewater releases provided by the company to account for the dewatering of the creek during its historical season of navigation.
3.There must be real time gauge information publically available to account for the drastic change in the season when the creek will flow.
4.Access to the creek via the existing and to-be-constructed roads must stay open during and after the construction period.
5.“Enhancements” to the Mamquam River do not mitigate the loss of recreational use on Skookum Creek itself.

At the very least, copy and paste that list with a sentence or two and email it to the address above and if you’ve run it, say the dates you did so. Elaborate and add more if you can. It will go a long way towards keeping Skookum Creek runnable. The deadline in January 4, 2011.

* * *

If you want some more details, keep reading.

The IPP on Skookum Creek is under the threshold for undergoing a BC Environmental Assessment, but it still has to be granted permits to go ahead. As there’s a record of recreational use, Navigable Waters have to issue a permit ensuring the dewatering of the creek will be appropriately mitigated. They are the people that dictate things like gauges and recreational releases to the company, which are legally binding once in the permit but they have an incomplete picture of use and what mitigation factors will really make a difference. Comments will make a difference.

I think we all agree that damming rivers rarely has a positive effect on river use. This IPP proposes to divert 10 cms from Skookum Creek – Skookum is a small creek and it is likely for the majority of the summer it will be left dry. Runnable flows will be reduced to times of peak snowmelt or rain events, making it much more difficult to guess levels, something that is already hard to do. I would imagine the situation on Skookum will be similar to Rutherford (it’s never runnable any more) once a dam is in place.

I feel, short of stopping the project from going ahead, releases and gauges are the only way to mitigate this loss. In a conversation with the power company it was made clear these things will never be handed over voluntarily as they both cost money, hence having it engrained in the NWPP permit is the only way they’re going to happen.

The second major issue is access. Vastly improved roads are going to open up access far up the Skookum valley (the intake is proposed to be at least 5 km above the confluence with the Mamquam). As the project butts up against the boundary of Garibaldi Park I was told, again by the power company, that access via the new roads will be limited to keep motorized vehicles from gaining easy access to the park. I think this means there will be a gate at the bottom of the road, and despite new roads we are no further ahead in having better access – in fact, what we can drive now with a 4x4 we probably won’t be able to use at all.

Simply put, the power company seeks to take away everything and leave nothing for recreational use.

If you send in your comments, you’re helping to stop this from happening.

One of the iconic waterfalls on Skookum Creek.

Callaghan Race 2011

2010-12-05T23:10:00.003-08:00

Saturday, July 23 will be the day of the second annual Callaghan Creek Race. Similar to last year, the main event will be a timed 2 man team race down the length of the entire creek. Raising awareness and celebrating this whitewater classic, this years event promises to build on the success of the first race on the Callaghan since the Whistler Creek Cup series with more competitors, more spectators and an even bigger party to cap it all off.

In addition to the classic race we will also be hosting events to encourage paddlers of all stripes to come out and paddle this great creek. Keep your eye on this webpage for details of the race, other Callaghan events and of course the evening party - it promises to be a good one.

If you'd like to get involved, click this link and get in touch.

LL Updates - Quebec

2010-11-23T22:10:00.002-08:00

As of late the bulk of our content has been coming out of SW BC - some of the sections in our guidebook are starting to get a little dusty and needed some attention. Turns out lots of people thought the same thing.

What started the whole process was an email out of Quebec pointing out that the access situation to the 7 Chutes outside of Quebec City had changed and the guide needed to be changed too. The 7 Chutes is a semi park and huck waterfall run that shares an access point with an easier section downstream. Poaching the falls could screw it up for the whole gang, so don't go poach the 7 Chutes. By chance I also got a submission from Gabriel Cote-Valiquette with a great photo of the last drops on the 7 Chutes. Check it out.

Rafael Boudreau-Simard fires it up.

There's some fresh beta for the Neilson posted up too. There's tons of info around about this one - it's one of my all time favorite rivers. One of my most memorable days of boating ever was with Bob Butler and Philip Kompass in early May 2008 starting out on the Blanche and heading over to the Neilson in the afternoon to ride the freight train that is the Neilson at super high water. You'd be hard pressed to find a river anywhere that is as good as this one was that day.

Here's Bob running the double drop one week later at lower water.

Impressive ender - it worked out fine.

Finally, Five2Nine have been producing video guides to compliment the photos and words in the guidebook, mostly for rivers on the east side. Check this one out of the 7 Sisters on the Rouge.

Liquid Lore - 7 Sisters Video Guide from Five 2 Nine Productions on Vimeo.

Daisy Lake Canyon

2010-11-08T00:23:00.003-08:00

Click here: Daisy Lake Canyon

Here's some beta for the Daisy Lake Canyon on the Cheakamus - that section below the Cal-Cheak where lost boats go to die and where enough boaters don't go and paddle. It's a fairly stout canyon section that runs when a lot of stuff is getting low. There are definitely some spots that are pretty nasty but for the most part it's all good, quality whitewater. Check it out - I always heard it was good but a little dirty. I found it to be a surprisingly good section with some wicked rapids and a good atmosphere that is more challenging than the majority of the stuff immediate to Whistler. I don't know why it isn't as famous as all the other Whistler runs - go check it out.

Bungee bridge rapid.

Some of the fun warm up whitewater near the top of the canyon.

What it's like in the heart of the canyon.

One of the best rapids on the run.

The Coming Storm - Have Your Say Against IPPs

2010-11-02T23:53:00.005-07:00

It was only a matter of time. The clouds have been brewing on the horizon for a long time, and finally we're starting to see the first drops of rain in a coming storm of IPPs in southwest BC.

Equally applicable is the gold rush analogy. Whatever way it's expressed it doesn't change the fact that there is a fresh slate of potential IPP's to be built in BC and if we want to have any free flowing rivers left your voice needs to be heard in opposition to these projects during the multiple public comment periods that will happen or are occurring.

Many of these projects are the result of the latest BC Hydro Clean Power Call and they include rivers from all over BC. Of the 27 selected proposals, 19 of them are run-of-river hydro power projects. While the loss of any waterway is tragic, it is of particular interest to whitewater boaters that streams like Skookum Creek, Big Silver and the Kokish River are in immediate danger. Many of the other rivers represent untouched wilderness areas that see little traffic and have untold potential or they encroach on incredible scenic areas like the Upper Lillooet project which is probably based around the awe-inspiring Keyhole Falls on the Lillooet River itself.

Most projects have to go through a lengthy application and permitting process where the public is given the chance, on the record, to oppose these projects: for several of the successful Clean Power Call projects that time is now. Go to these links below and speak up - the BC Environmental Assessment Office now requires you to submit comments via an online form system - it's quite simple really. These comments are in theory considered when the time comes to decide if a project should go ahead. Meaning, it's not too late to stop these things from happening. The more we shout "no!" the more likely they are to listen to our concerns.

Here are the current projects you can comment on. The Statlu/Shovel/Big Silver/Tretheway projects are being assessed as a single project - the impact of this development will not be trivial.

Kokish River - Vancouver Island. The Kokish is much further along in the permitting process than the others. Comments close on Nov 18.

Statlu Creek. Comments for these four projects close on November 25.

Tretheway Creek

Shovel Creek

Big Silver Creek

If you'd like a little more information about the kayaking on these rivers check out TRL's report about the Kokish or go buy LVM 19. Big Silver is a classic whitewater run - you can find information about it in the LL guidebook or at Bellingham Whitewater. Shovel Creek is a Big Silver tributary that probably has good whitewater as well. The sections of Statlu and Tretheway to be diverted are lesser known kayak runs but also offer good whitewater.

Spread the word and send your letters - every voice will count.

This is one of the many places that may never be the same - Skookum Creek, Squamish. Don't let them slip away.

Clendinning

2010-10-15T20:07:00.002-07:00

* * * Clendinning River Beta * * *

Today is a photo dump from the Clendinning, one of the popular multi day trips in southwest BC. It's a lot more user friendly than the Stave and it is shorter than the Stein - I haven't done the Stein but I would imagine the scenery on the Clendinning outclasses that one by far. If you want to paddle it, click the link at the top for beta.

The Clendinning is an awesome trip - it's all about the scenery and the good kayaking on day 2. If you've never done a harder overnight this is a good one to start on - all in all it's a friendly river with challenging but not over the top whitewater. Go check it out.

The best shuttle vehicle.

The 2010 crew - Steve, Ali, Matt, Rob, Burt, Niall.

Headwaters of the Soo? Cool lakes on the flight.

Clendinning Lake - an awesome mountain scene.

Paddling over to the Clendinning Glacier for a look-see.

Absurd. The backdrop of your campsite if you chill at the lake for a day.

Steve Rogers hard at work.

Clendinning Glacier.

Easy paddling at the start of the trip.

Scouting the boulder GNAR - this is the worst rapid of the whole 2 days.

Adin and Dan circa 2007.

Ali and Steve about to smash some boulders.

More wicked camping.

Date: August 29, 2010. 15 feet of snow.

The second day is basically one endless rapid.

The big one of the trip - not that you can tell the rapids apart in photos.

The long shuttle out = creative boat loading.

A take out favorite - ginger hunting.

Weekend Warrior

2010-10-01T19:16:00.002-07:00

From the creative desk of Ali Marshall and Steve Rogers is a sick video taken fully on a GoPro camera right here in southwest BC. Good boating, good comedy, what more can you ask for? Check it out.

The Daydreams of a Weekend Warrior from Steve Rogers Photography on Vimeo.

This video is basically the chronicle of Ali's summer based out of Squamish, and most of the rivers in the movie are also featured in the LiquidLore guidebook. Click any of the links here to get the beta about the runs - maybe you'll be able to get some awesome footage too, just like in the movie.

Furry Creek

Callaghan Creek

Ashlu Box Canyon and Mine Run

Upper Cheak and Balls to the Wall

Seymour River

Homathko River

There's no beta for Tatlow or the Clendinning yet - keep your eyes here for those runs coming up soon.

Fear Canyon

2010-09-26T23:12:00.005-07:00

River beta for Fear Canyon

Here's a quick post about Fear Canyon of the Elaho, probably the best hard big water run in the southwest corner of BC - there is some other stuff around but it's far out in the bush and I don't think it has really been explored yet. Click the link above for info you need to go paddle there.

Fear Canyon is a great run - it's a little far off the beaten path but it's well worth the long drive up a bumpy logging road. It's hard to articulate who will enjoy this run the most - at low levels it's a good early/late season run in the class III-IV range. At high levels in the summer it will challenge and frighten anyone willing to put on - at these levels you'll find out why it's called Fear Canyon. There is something for everyone up there.

Here are some photos of a trip this fall to give you an idea of what it's all about.

One of the bigger rapids on Fear Canyon at a medium level.

Matt Kompass, heading for a big hole in the last rapid.

The pinch. This is fierce at high water.

Raquette Race Recap

2010-09-14T13:10:00.004-07:00

Steve sez: Last weekend was a race on the Raquette River - an eastern summer and fall dam-release class IV-V classic. By all accounts it was a success and there'll be a repeat next Labour Day weekend.

Here's the full story from Philip Kompass:

Tell me again, why am I racing this river? I’m content just getting down it without bleeding, but here I sit waiting for the whistle. Damn. And Matt Young is right after me. I hope to hell he doesn’t pass me; that’s just embarrassing. That dude is probably wicked quick. I heard he bikes. A lot. Maybe even road bikes.

Tell me again, why am I racing this river?

There’s the whistle. Two minutes after Boydo, but only two minutes until Matt tears down after me. Not sure that’s enough margin really, but it’s too late now.

Gotta be clean through Colton. Watch your breathing. Roll the crest of the horizon line and follow with a hard right turn towards the slot. Hold. Smooth quick leftie off the boof and dig to fight the currents onto the slide. You can catch you breath when you’re sliding, right? Line it up below the boof flag and let’er roll; knowing I’m on line. A couple wiggles and I’m into the pool above Tannery.

I know my line through this – a little dry, but safe, and fast – staying right, then left, then right again and grind the rocks into the exit of the pool. Is Matt on me yet? A quick shoulder check and it looks like clear sailing till Mushroom. Clear sailing till the Narrows really. Clear sailing till The Tub actually.

What was I so worried about at the top?

Can’t remember what Clay Wright said while we were gearing up. He likely knows what he’s talking about. I’m pretty sure he’s been on whitewater longer that I’ve been alive. Too late now, I’m breathing hard, and trying to make time moving to the Narrows. Sticking right, coming in hot… maybe too hot. Nope, just right. Cleanly through with a smooth left; plugging just a little. Probably because I’m tired.

Damn. Didn’t want to be tired for The Tub. That rapid is scary enough on a good day, with good scout, good safety and someone else probing it.

Was that Hendry taking a leak? I thought he was supposed to be doing safety? Thanks for that. And what the hell is Kobzik doing over there? And where is his boat? Team Canada is looking sharp at this point, lads.

Eff it. I’m grabbing that eddy just for a split second to get my line right. Being a big man in the parking lot, I was thinking of doing it direct, but I’d rather be slow, clean and in my boat at the bottom than fast and swimming.

Slide behind the hole. Drive to the centre. Ahh hell, too far right. No. Now just right. Slide, pull the knees on the flake and I’m good. A couple of stabbing braces and I’m through; thank god!

Who is calling my name? What? Forget it. Focus. Focus. Paddle. Maybe 80%. Don’t want to be too spent for Particle.

Wow, that hole in the lead in seems really sticky; now I’m off line and losing speed to correct it. Sliding, paddling hard left to get over that curler. Ok, maybe hard is not the right adjective. Meekly flailing would be better, but I can hope, right?

Crap. I have no hope. Its over. My bow swings hard right and smashes my 190 lbs and 7 minutes of muscle and gravity into the granite wall. I hate Particle Accelerator.

Tell me again, why am I racing this river?

+ + + +

The inaugural Raquette River Pan American Whitewater Boat Riding Championships of Upstate New York went down as a resounding success this past Labour Day weekend, bring an exciting close to an exciting weekend of whitewater releases across the northeastern corner of NY.

Through the efforts of American Whitewater for more than two decades paddlers have spent the long weekend slipping and sliding down the Taylorville, Moshier and Eagle sections of the Beaver River near Lowville and capping it off with the class V steeps of the Stone Valley Section of the Raquette River in Colton.

In 2010, a few Canadian paddlers decided that the 1 mile steeps of the Raquette have the potential to make a real proving ground for experienced boaters to go fast. Like the Green Race of the North only more dangerous, longer, faster and steeper. No crowds, no glory and no Gorilla.

With a reputation for carnage, the field was kept tight – invitees only this round to test the format and the safety plan. An even split between Team Canada and Team America, the ten boats took their spots and the safety boats were in place. Starting at the dam, racers head through the entire section (six major drops) and finish up at the bottom of Particle Accelerator, about 7 or 8 minutes later.

When the dust settled Team America claiming the top prize, with Clay Wright proving age and experience trumps youthful exuberance coming in hot with a startling time of 6 minutes and 30 seconds; followed closely by Geoff Calhoun at 6 minutes, 39 seconds. A healthy margin over Matt Young in third with 6 minutes 52 seconds.

Congratulations to all the racers for making it respectable, keeping it fun, friendly and safe. And for the safety teams and media; I hope we kept it exciting for you. Thanks for keeping us out of trouble.

Keep your eyes on this blog, or www.five2nine.ca for details on the next event.

FINAL RESULTS:

1. Clay Wright 6:30
2. Geoff Calhoun 6:39
3. Matt Young 6:52
4. Adam Herzog 7:03
5. Phillip Kompass 7:15
6. Alan Panebaker 7:27
7. Geoff Boyd 7:34
8. Christy Thompson 7:41
9. Nick Gottlieb 7:49
10. Mike McKay 8:57*
11. Mike Kobzik 16:49*

* Swim

* * * *

All in all, a great event on a great river. Here are a short video and some photos of the big race.

Five2Nine Productions - Events - The Raquette Race 2010 from Five 2 Nine Productions on Vimeo.

The critical boof in the middle of Colton Falls - training runs.

Entering the bottom half of Colton Falls.

The Tub.

Focused.

Diligent safety to save the day.

P-Kom brings it home.

Winner Clay Wright at the finish.

"Look at these, they're HUGE."

Paying the price for pulling the cord!

Ashlu Season

2010-09-07T23:27:00.004-07:00

Have you ever wondered why the Ashlu Mine Run is called the Mine Run? Well, it's neither a witty nor a spectacular explanation - there is an old gold mine right next to the river at the start of the run. It's actually pretty cool - on the way to the put in you pass right by the entrance to the mine shaft that was left wide open so you can just walk right in. The only other abandoned mines I've seen (in Newfoundland and West Virginia) were both closed off with permanent steel gates. Maybe there are a few gold nuggets still floating around down there.

Greg, bummed that his gold digging was unsuccessful.

The Mine section of the Ashlu is in my books one of the most underrated sections around - it's probably because it has a a few portages - one of them can be sketchy if you use the shorter portage option - I don't know why you'd do that though - there is a no-stress option just a bit upstream. Discounting this portage (you can put in below the other one) the whitewater is top quality bedrock boating in a small canyon and it never fails to impress every time I go there. At high water this is a fierce section of class V that sends a lot of people running.

While the local lads might revel in torturing visiting kayakers by dragging them down the Mine at high water in July it remains a top quality section of whitewater even a lower levels when the Box Canyon is running (or these days when there is a whitewater release on the Box Canyon). One of the best, proper days of boating around here is to run the two sections together all as one long river - a rarity in the Squamish/Whistler zone where most sections are just a few km long. For a few weeks in late summer and early fall this is easy to do, and it's great fun.

Of course it's also possible to ride the lightning down a high water Mine and paddle the Box Canyon on dam overflow earlier in the summer - I'm not sure if anyone has done this yet. Either way, that would be one hell of a day of class V boating. Hell, someone should go ahead and run the Squamish Triple Crown - Tatlow into the Mine into the Box. The race is on.

Would you too like to run the Mine? Here is all the beta you need - including the critical information about the portage half way down the run:

Ashlu Mine Run beta page

Check it out. Here's some photos of the Mine, and some more shots of what to expect if you mix it up with a run down the Box afterwards - it's that time of year, get it if you can!

Matt Kompass's favorite river: dropping into the bottom half of the Mine Rapid.

The Mine sports a few humongous holes - Fred and Leif look on as Matt gets ready to smash his way through one.

Greg, not so bummed out any more.

Running the Mine into Box pretty much invalidates the excuse "I'm not warmed up enough to paddle 50/50 today". Greg hits send.

Putting in the less stressful way on the Box.

The first rapid on the Box, much like the Mine, is not trivial. Things only get better.

Soo River

2010-08-25T00:46:00.002-07:00

A quick post about the Soo River, one of the three Whistler bread and butter runs. Find the river beta at this link.

The Soo is the lowest quality run of the local Whistler runs, largely because it's relatively far out of town. It's still a great run though, and it's good to go at rocking levels. Do it as an add-on river or get out there just to do the Soo, it's no doubt worth the extra bit of driving. Check the photos for a teaser of what's down in the valley.

Typical action on the Soo, with some holes to bash through.

Matt Mackinnon and Linda Lovelace - a match made in heaven.

Southern Ontario Classic

2010-08-17T01:35:00.003-07:00

Probably not where you expect to find whitewater kayaking:

While Toronto doesn't have any whitewater - well it doesn't have any that's yet been found - southern Ontario suprisingly has a pretty decent array of rivers for boating. There's river running, play boating and even some nice big park n huck waterfalls - remarkable really for a zone that's flat as a pancake when you drive through. The only downside is the cold weather - things often run during big thaws in the middle of the winter, and it goes right back to cold after the rains have fallen - the hearty lads down there don't seem to mind though!

About an hour west of Toronto lies the hamlet of Dundas - home to southern Ontario's #1 creek - Spencer Creek. Check out the beta courtesy of Geoff Boyd, as well as these photos captured from video to learn what it's all about.

Spencer Creek put in.

Scouting the unrunnable Webster's Falls.

The Gorge put in.

Spencer Creek put in.

The Gauntlet.

Callaghan Race Recap

2010-07-26T19:15:00.005-07:00

The Callaghan race this past Saturday was a resounding success! Despite some worries about water levels and an organizational hiccup days before the race the local community came together to throw a fantastic grass-roots event with beautiful summer weather, a perfect water level and a great turnout of both competitors and spectators.

Probably the best part about the whole day was the huge turnout - it was fantastic to see so many people around who were fired up about the Callaghan - aside from the 18 boaters who entered the race there were 8 or 10 others who paddled down, a handful of guys ran the Cal-Cheak and probably 20 people made the walk in to watch the action at the waterfalls section of the river. It was really fun to boof over the first drop with people cheering while rolling towards the big one.

The race itself went really well - when the dust settled the team of Kurt Braunlich and Fred Norquist took the title down to Bellingham until next year - great work guys! The top three teams all finished within 30 seconds of one another. Also notable is Mark Basso's finish with a broken and sinking boat from a small piton while still coming in third place and Maxi Kniewasser and Ric Moxon racing without posting a time after putting in a valiant effort to get to the start line in time but just coming in 5 minutes to late (we were all relieved that we didn't have to compete against these monsters...).

And of course no whitewater race is complete without carnage. I'm sure everyone had a flap here and there at some point - I certainly did. I fell victim (much to Ali's chagrin) when my deck popped after blowing the line above and gutting the big waterfall - embarrassing to say the least, especially since this was my second swim on the Callaghan in just a week - the first being out of the hole 50 feet above the falls on a training lap. Our friend Leif also got eaten by the Callaghan and after a heroic surf in a huge hole he had to swim for shore too. Cold beers and good company that night helped heal the damage to our pride..

From then on in it was good times - Jakub Drnec of the BC Creek Protection Society gave an informative presentation about our rivers at risk and what they're doing to help - this was quickly followed by the awards and the start of a long, fun party complete with flood lights and kayak videos courtesy of Western Canoe and Kayak.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who turned out for the race be it to spectate, participate or help out in other ways - it was awesome to see the community all come out to have some fun and it was great meet all the guys who came in from out of town for the race and party - it would be great to see everyone out again next year.

Here's the full results from the race - congratulations to all the racers for a job well done.

Fred Norquist - Kurt Braunlich - 16:55
Matt Kompass - Ben Hawthorne - 17:09
Mark Basso - Benjamin Hjørt - 17:23
Greg Dashper - Mikael Aubin - 17:29
Jakub Drnec - Matt Mackinnon - 18:17
Jordie Mackenzie - Bryce Shaw - 18:31
Spencer Cox - Sean Allen - 20:05
Ali Marshall - Steve Arns - 23:40
Jonas Grünewald - Leif Embertson - DNF

Mark off your calendars for another race on the Callaghan to celebrate this creek next July - expect a locally organized grass-roots event that will aim to bring in paddlers and spectators of all types - the more the merrier.

Finally, to finish off we have some great photos from the race day - thanks again to Steve Rogers for providing all the photos of both the action on the river and the social scene before and after.

The competitors meeting before the race.

Tim and Joe on the way to the put in.

Leif and Kurt enjoying the beautiful day.

The crowd ready to drop in.

Fred Norquist.

Benjamin Hjørt - representing for Norway.

Ben Hawthorne, ready for business.

Jonas, trying to bring the title home to Germany.

Jonas vs. Ali - smack talk abound.

Jordie and Bryce.

Mark Basso, all smiles.

Greg Dashper - that black strip on the ground is an oil slick from destroyed oil pan.

Action! Jordie lines up for the big one.

Greg, monkey man.

Jonas and Leif - synchronized racing.

A sweet sequence of the winning team routing through the big falls.

Matt Kompass on home turf.

Jonas brings it home.

Matt and Jakub keeping it tight between the waterfalls.

Spencer Cox about to take flight.

Spence and Sean rolling in to the big one.

Mikael.

Racing isn't easy and the Callaghan can have a mean streak.

Surveying the damage.

Third place: Mark and Ben.

Second place: Ben and Matt.

And in first place: Fred and Kurt - congrats lads!

Party time - that's one sweet gap.

Callaghan Race Update

2010-07-22T12:38:00.003-07:00

Everything is still a go!

Come on up this weekend to enjoy the goings-on at the Callaghan Race - register in the morning and race or come check out the action at the big falls at 2 pm as everyone paddles through - it's going to be fun. Afterwards stick around for the party and social event at the Cal-Cheak campsite.

Water levels on the Callaghan are persisting at medium-high to high levels - it's not for the weak of heart but it does make for an exciting race course. Depending on the flow of the day we may have to shorten the course to allow for extra safety. For those who don't want to paddle the Callaghan itself all the other rivers in the area are at really nice flows including the Upper Cheakamus (at 2.8) and the Soo River (medium high). The Cal-Cheak section from the campsite down also offers up a fun class III-IV run with some great on-the-fly surfing. Of course there are many more options outside of the immediate Whistler zone. There'll be plenty of people around on Sunday to meet up with to sample the local runs.

We hope to see you there!

The big falls - spectators should hang out around here.

The Callaghan Creek Race

2010-07-12T22:28:00.008-07:00

By now it's not hot off the press news, at least if you follow the internet kayak chat board world - the Callaghan Creek Race will be held at the crack of 2 pm on Saturday, July 24th.

A couple of us local BC lads this past winter talked a bit about trying to revive the Whistler Creek Cup of years gone by - I wasn't living here when they went down but rumour has it they were a great time. Not wanting to organize essentially three different races we planned on having a low-key race and party only on the Callaghan - initially slated for the second weekend of July. However, after being in touch with Leland Davis (via Steve Rogers) about a full-blown Callaghan Festival we all agreed to combine forces and have the race on the same day. In retrospect if we did try and race last weekend it would have been a no-go because of massive flows from a heatwave on top of a still heavy snowpack.

The race will be held in conjunction with the Callaghan Fest on July 24th to spread the good word about the Callaghan, to get loads of people on the river and to highlight what might be lost if this awesome stream were to be turned into a run-of-the-river power project. This is a whitewater recreational resource that can't be lost, but there needs to be a record of our use to show how important it is.

The short details: you need to sign up between 10 and 12 the morning of the race, you need a partner and we're going to race the whole river. Spectators are encouraged to come watch - the trail to the falls will be well marked - there's undoubtedly going to be some action there. And afterwards there going to be the big party at the Callaghan Fest! Post up if you're coming to race or want to help out with timing or safety too.

* * *

Here's the important info:

Callaghan Race Details

Callaghan Fest Website

* Note there isn't a fee to enter the race, but we will accept donations in lieu of a registration fee with proceeds going to BCCPS and AW. If you have any questions about the race, send me an email or post in the comments.

The race details are also posted after the photos - thanks to Steve Rogers for the awesome images.

First falls.

The big falls - spectators should hang out around here.

The Old Dirty Bastard.

There'll probably be a bit of this - get your cameras ready.

Vintage Callaghan - a photo of my first run on the Callaghan back in 2005.

* * *

Race Details

For Racers

The race starts at 2:00pm sharp – you are responsible for being at the start line at your start time.

The race will be from the first ledge (by seal launch or from the eddy below, to be determined) to the Cal-Cheak festival site.

Competitors will race in teams of two.

This is a long race and safety will be minimal – teams of two allow for immediate safety should it be needed.

Sign up will be from 10:00am until 12:00pm at the Cal-Cheak campsite (takeout). Competitors meeting will be held at 12:15pm.

We will cancel the race if less than 5 competitors enter the competition (for example, if nobody wants to race because of high water).

There is a small cash prize for the winners.

Short boats/modern creek boats under 9 feet are allowed.

For Spectators

The most exciting place to watch the action is at the waterfall section of the creek near the start of the race.

The race starts at 2:00pm sharp. The first racers should arrive here within minutes and will start reaching the finish line somewhere between 2:20pm and 2:30pm.

Kayakers not wanting to race are welcome to observe from anywhere along the creek, but we ask that you stay out of the way when the racers are passing through and that you be prepared to assist racers should they run into trouble.

If you don’t want to kayak or are not a kayaker you can access the waterfall section along a distinct, mildly strenuous hiking trail. This trail will be well marked the day of the race. We recommend starting to hike at 1:15pm so you have time to walk in and find a good spot to watch.

Raquette Releases - Summer Action

2010-07-06T22:15:00.013-07:00

....currently the only action in the Ottawa/NY/QC zone if you want to paddle a creek.

The Raquette is classic NY boating that runs reliably every summer on scheduled release days. The weather is always hot, the water is always warm and the rapids are always amazing. It's also a real resource for kayaking that doesn't see the use that it should.

The Raquette is good stuff - it's hard kayaking for the area - certainly one of the harder stretches in the north Adirondack zone (if you run everything). That being said it's quite accessible due to the short length of the hard stuff, it's usually warm during the release days and scouting/portaging is a piece of cake. I have seen many strong class IV boaters paddle the Raquette safely while having fun by going with a strong crew and partaking in judicious scouting.

A lot of capable boaters who are probably gone for another day on the crowded Ottawa or Black or Rouge or Gatineau are really missing out by not heading there. Grab a creekboat and fire it up!

The current process on the Raquette is easy - you show up and the river starts pumping 720 cfs through the dam at 10am - this hasn't always been the case and may not stay that way. Here's why, as explained by Chris Koll on NPMB:

"According to the license agreement, in order for a release to take place, a minimum of three boaters must notify the utility 48 hours before the release date. However, because of the consistent activity shown during the early years of the release program, the utility graciously simplified the procedure: on a release day it simply turns on the water and requests that paddlers register at the sign-in log found at the put-in.

Unfortunately, for some of the release dates during the past two years, there has been either little interest shown or paddlers have failed to sign-in. Consequently, there has been days when the water has been turned on with little or no documentation of recreational use. If the simplified—and much preferable—version of the release procedure is to be continued in the future, boaters need to better demonstrate that Stone Valley is a valuable whitewater resource by visiting the section (or making sure you sign-in when you do)."

I think this clearly says what the issue is here. Chris is a well respected member of the NY boating community who has been involved in all kinds of these issues over the years - what he says is the truth. Aside from it being fun, you'll be helping out the boating community out by going down to paddle a few laps on the Raquette - be sure to sign the register!

If you want to know more, click this link for the river beta and check out the Raquette video guide, put together by our co-conspirators over at Five2Nine. The first release is this Saturday, July 10 so break your plans and head for the Raquette. The five other releases are July 24, August 7 and 21 and September 4 and 6.

Liquid Lore - Raquette Video Guide from Five 2 Nine Productions on Vimeo.

Furry Creek

2010-06-29T22:26:00.008-07:00

My first Furry Creek experience came one winter day last January or February after a big rain storm rolled through the city - after wimping out of running the Seymour at high water we decided to drive out the Sea to Sky and see what was up at Furry and Britannia. Furry was off the charts that day - but the seed was planted - it's a spectacular piece of river that needed to be ran once we could hit a good flow.

And that's the tough part - water levels are touchy - Steve and Ali had been looking at it for a few weeks every other day trying to find out when it would be good. Before last weekend it's consistently been too high.

After a high water bail out of Skookum and a decent scouting session up the Mamquam drainage we thought it might be another weekend with no boating - not cool since the weekend previous we also spent thrashing around in the woods out Lilooet Lake way without actually getting on a river. Then the idea of Furry came up.

After a quick pit stop to refuel on poutine (and good poutine at that) at the Mountain Woman in Britannia we rolled up to the links to find the creek at an ideal level. We got geared up and off we went. It's kind of strange going up there - nobody really knows what the golf people think of kayakers raiding the course to paddle the river - we got a few weird looks but the place was fairly empty - it was late in the day so everyone must have been on the back nine or well settled in at the bar.

Ben and Ali went first while the rest of us ran media or set safety at the terrible sieve in the immediate run out of the last drop. It went well, for the most part. Ali flipped in the problematic hole in the Crack Drop lead in and a few minutes later got beaten at the bottom of the last drop and lost his paddle - despite the moment of panic on our part he deftly hand-paddled into the take out eddy no sweat. Performance under pressure no doubt - it was impressive dealing.

After that it took me a few minutes to muster the courage to walk up and run the thing, especially after the excitement and the report it was way juicier than it looked. I honestly haven't been that nervous is a long time, perhaps compounded by the fact I had to run it alone except for the on-shore safety. While it was a really fun run through I'm not going to rush back to fire it up again...

* * *

If you're up for a challenge and you can get a good flow this is certainly worth considering. The biggest issue is being out of control coming out of the last falls and going into the wood sieve. Initially I wasn't even going to post this to the LL guide book because of the sensitive access at the golf course and the seriousness of the whitewater. However, it's already in a guidebook (the River Gypsies guide) so I thought I'd add my 2 cents and I'd reinforce the idea that you should tread lightly here or access to this park n huck could go away.

And that's it - click here for some beta on the run. There's also a few photos of this cool place - this is one of my first attempts at trying to develop RAW files. I thought I'd try and get the Tantalus in the background but I just couldn't get the angle so these'll have to do....

Drop 2 - the straightforward one.

Ali Marshall braves the Crack.

Ben Hawthorne brings it home on the last drop of Furry.

Homathko River

2010-06-17T22:32:00.010-07:00

Just the name "Homathko" sounds both appealing and stout at the same time. For some reason this particular river trip has held my interest for quite a while - I'm not sure why - it's one that you don't hear a lot about, one you don't see many pictures of. I guess the fact that everyone who you do talk to about it raves on and on about how good it is is the reason. One problem in planning a trip here from outside of the province is hitting a good flow window, so after moving to BC a while back getting on a trip down this river moved to the top of my list of things to get done.

After a failed attempt in the fall of 2009 due to no real weather window and a lack interest we rallied a crew of 6 - Max, Ali, Steve, Matt, Rob and myself - to try and get down the river in the spring. We knew it would be a bit of a gamble to find a good flow window with decent weather - the threat of a massive spike in flows was a major concern considering almost all of the snowpack was still sitting in the mountains.

Based on historical flows we penciled in the second week of May as our time to drop in - typically the river has come up from winter lows but it hasn't had a flow explosion from hot summer weather. Days before our departure we got just what we didn't want - a quick rise in flows to the upper limit of what we wanted to take on. After a thousand phone calls, meetings and general waffling everyone bailed except Max and Ali - the river was at 370 and rising but they had the time off and were going down that river high levels be dammed.

Everyone that bailed knew it was the right decision for us, but we knew if the weather turned and flows dropped it would be one bitter pill to swallow to know we missed a window and the lads were on the river not portaging everything - as you can guess, that's exactly what happened.

That next day I got a text at about 1230 from Rob - "I don't know if you've checked the Homathko gauge but it's at a perfect flow (note: it kept dropping for 3 days after the peak at 370) and the weather looks good." This led to a mad flurry of calls, pissing off wives and girlfriends by changing plans yet again and racing to pick up the last odds and ends before shops closed down for the weekend - we gave the go-ahead at 3 pm and I was en route to Squamish at 6 pm to start the rest of the drive. We were stoked - the Homathko was on!

The long drive north to Williams Lake was spent stoking the Homathko fire, chatting about what to expect and praying the weather would stay cool and flows would hold at good levels. Spirits were high when we set up camp on the side of the highway, until we woke up in the morning - greeted by fresh snow. Despite the heavy dent in our morale we didn't break, went for a greasy feed in Williams Lake and kept driving. Almost as if something was trying to scare us off the wet snow persisted right up until we reached the put in - much to our delight the skies lifted and it dried out when we got there just in time to get changed and shove off on the trip.

The next four days of kayaking amount to one of, if not the best multiday trips that I've done. By the first campsite the skies cleared and generally stayed clear right through our trip - sunny but cool weather kept flows at perfect levels. There was a ton of snow in mountains but none a river level, except for some 30-foot deep snow piles at several slide paths.

The Homathko starts off as a tiny river out of Tatlayoko Lake with clear water and a lot of wood in the river - much of it was cut down by beavers! The volume quickly doubles, and doubles again - one of the hardest parts of this trip is constantly adjusting to the growing volume - it seems around every other corner another sizable tributary joins the main river.

The second day brings you through the Great Canyon - this is the most continuous zone on the run and while it lacks the vertical walls you find on the big water day the valley walls rise out of the river and don't stop until they reach the tops of the mountains - extensive portaging here would be a nightmare. For the most part it's all good to go and after a long day we reached the spectacular confluence of the Homathko, Mosley and Teidemann.

The rest of the trip went really well with amazing whitewater in an incredibly wild setting - after the long paddle out we were fired up to meet the hospitable folks that live permanently at Homathko Camp - fresh, hot coffee never tasted so good! If you're ever there, consider staying at the camp for a night before you fly out. All too soon the roar of the arriving float plane signaled the end of our trip and the sad journey back to civilization.

And that's the Homathko story - I can't recommend this trip enough. If you want to know all the intimate details you need to go see it yourself - in the meantime, clicking this link will point you to the info to start planning your trip. Enjoy the few photos!

Thankfully this buzz-kill did little to stop our momentum to put on.

Ready to launch onto Tatlayoko Lake.

Right out of the gate you're met with absurd scenery - heading for the start of the river.

After rain and snow the skies cleared by the first camp at Nude Creek - sweet fire, sweet campsite.

Day 2, just about at the Great Canyon. And yes, that's a 30 foot deep snowbank at the rivers edge.

Great Canyon whitewater.

Contemplating fate at Birthday Canyon.

Starting the portage at Doran Creek.

Fired up about The Bet.

Classic scouting on Day 3.

Steve Arns, Rob Murphy and Steve Rogers at the take out.

The best shuttle rig.

Ashlu Box Canyon

2010-05-13T00:13:00.005-07:00

If you're following along you'll remember a week or two ago the information was posted for what you need to do to go kayaking on the Ashlu in the new recreational whitewater release environment. Well, they went down and things went really well!

Here's the stuff you need to check out to go kayaking on the Box Canyon yourself:

Box Canyon River Guide

Innergex Website - Registration For Releases

Important Details About Ashlu Releases

* * *

The lead up towards the first release was a little stressful - nobody was sure just how things were going to work out, and on top of it all was the fact the weather had been cool and cloudy all week and we didn't know if there would even be any water in the river for the operators to release. A solid crew of 9 boaters living in Squamish and Vancouver made the trek up anyways to find the river at a low but very fun level!

Turns out the water was on before anyone got there, and the level didn't change much through the day. As always in the spring time it's funny to see the Ashlu with crystal clear water rather than the signature murky, brilliant blue color you find in the summer and fall.

On Sunday we came back later in the day to run the river again with the water just a shade higher. We spent quite a bit of time hanging around 50/50 before heading down to finish off the run. By the time we got done it was 630 and the river was just being shut off. Sunday even saw a small crew paddle the mini-Mine - they said the water was a little low but were happy to check it out and enjoy the valley.

So that's the update today - I suspect this weekend, with a lot of rivers up here still just starting to trickle to life that there will be a ton of people rallying to boat on the Box. See you there!

The first eddy during the first release.

Sunday - Kurt Braunlich firing off 50/50 - one of 5 clean runs that day.

BC Whitewater Release: Ashlu

2010-04-29T22:46:00.005-07:00

Before I get started - essential information:

The first whitewater release is Saturday May 8th, 2010.

Innergex Website - Registration For Releases

Important Details About Ashlu Releases

Transport Canada Approval Document

* * * *

Yes, it's for real - recreational whitewater releases are coming to the Ashlu.

Like it or not, whitewater releases are going to be something kayakers will have to deal with in the future in BC. We should all be thankful that someone - whoever was involved, either government dudes or concerned kayakers - had the foresight to see that releases should be included in the licensing agreement for the Ashlu diversion and that they didn't just roll over and die when it was confirmed the dam was going to be built. I haven't been around long enough to know the details of what went down to make it happen, but I have to say thanks for getting it done.

The funny thing is, nobody knew about these releases. I think it's safe to say that most people wrote the Ashlu off once they started pumping water through the pipe. That's what the hype seemed to suggest.

I wasn't satisfied with that, particularly when considering the system that exists in the US for recreational releases on dammed rivers. So, a few months ago I wanted to learn more about the Ashlu project and I quickly came across an older version of this document. It's the offical approval document that says what the proponent (Ledcor, and now Innergex) had to do to be allowed to build the dam. The immediate thing that stood out to me was the requirement of up to 24 days of recreational whitewater release each year.

Woah. That meant the Ashlu wasn't going to be dewatered 100 % of the time. I'd never heard that was supposed to happen before. Was it because Innergex didn't want anyone to know so they didn't have to release water and therefore not make money? I naievely assumed this was the case. Was it going to mean a fight to get the water to be released?

To make a long story short, the project manager at Innergex immediately got in touch after my inital query and actually seemed stoked that someone had finally asked about what's going on. Turns out they had been working on a system - without consulting the boating community, for better or for worse - to help facilitate releases, including the online booking system linked above. I think they were expecting a nightmare. I think it goes without saying that they would prefer to not have to stop power production to give water, however it was made clear they will honour the release requirement and they desire a positive relationship with the boating community.

Say what you want about the whole thing - I think it's a good thing the releases are happening. It's time to get over the fact there is a dam on the Ashlu - it ain't going anywhere - and get on with enjoying the fact that the river, from a whitewater recreational users perspective, is alive and well (just maybe not as we're used to). They're probably right that there will be more boatable days on the Box than before the dam was built.

There is a prevalent sentiment that any dam on any river is no good. I don't necessarily agree with this stance. There are a lot of passoniate organizations that fight aganist developments - they will win some fights and they will help encourage responsible development - but battles will be lost and more dams are going to be built. What is also needed are people that will put in the effort to ensure that recreational value is fairly maintained when these projects do go ahead, just as there are up to 24 days of release on the Ashlu despite the fact the river is now an operational hydro project. Just some food for thought.

* * * *

What's next? We need to take advantage of these releases to show ensure they don't do away. The contract is not permanent and if they aren't taken advantage of we can lose the 24 days of release. Use will be monitored, so it's no good to sign up and not show up to paddle.

Everything you need to know to get boating is clearly spelled out in the links above. There will be up to 24 days of kayaking depending on the availability of water in the river in May, August and September. You should sign in to ensure water will be released - you even get to vote for a flow. How the specifics of the releases will work is still an unknown. If it doesn't work out this licensce is up for renegotiation to suit our interests just as it can be renegotiated to suit the interests of the power company, making it more important to get out there and take advantage.

The first release is Saturday May 8th 2010. I hope you'll be there!

And finally, a few images to remind you just how great the Ashlu is, even before you run any rapids..

Yeah, it's nice there.

The awesome eddy before the first corner rapid in Commitment Canyon. Is there any reason not to come? Photos by Toni Stanojevic.

Currents Web TV Project

2010-04-21T22:31:00.003-07:00

From the desk of Mike McKay at Five2Nine comes Currents. Here's the info:

Currents is a river stewardship focused WebTV program (online video documentary) which uses white water kayaking as a means to educate a broader audience about the risks threatening the world’s rivers and to help highlight the intrinsic value of preserving rivers in their natural state. The project is first being released online in 12 + installments covering a different location and river network in each segment. The videos are distinguished by a positive and fun approach, focusing on the actions of the people devoting their lives to protecting our water resources, and showing the rivers from the eyes of white water kayakers (both tame to class V action).

The project trailer as well as further information about us can be found here. Our goal is to educate paddlers and the general public on the issues facing our waterways and the actions that people can take to help address them.

It is our belief that greater recreational use of rivers promotes a stronger recognition of their importance and a greater dedication for the broader public to protecting them.

Filming has already been completed in 6 locations, namely: Ecuador, North Carolina, Australia, Quebec, New York, and New Zealand.

We have gone straight to the experts to speak to the issues. Among others, the film will highlight individuals from:

• American Whitewater

• The Freshwater Trust

• Riverkeeper Alliance

Currents is produced by Five 2 Nine Productions, a group of paddlers who have decided to use their passion for white water as a platform to promote awareness about water issues to the broader public. Five2Nine's first project, Just Like You Imagined, was featured in the 2009 Reel Paddling Film Festival. The film and trailer can both be viewed on Vimeo.

Upper Squamish And More

2010-04-17T00:06:00.005-07:00

April in BC, if it's not raining, can be a little grim for people who like to enjoy whitewater kayaking on a regular basis. While much of the country is experiencing the full force of the spring freshet most of the rivers in the mountain time zones are still dried up. The weather may be nice but where all the snow lives up in the mountains it's still cold enough to keep everything on lock-down.

Nonetheless even if it's dry and cold and the water is low there's always something to do, like going skiing - or if you can't wait to go kayaking, just going kayaking. Last weekend we went to check out the Upper Squamish river, above the rafting run. There's not a lot out there on this one aside from a quick note on TRL. Canyons looked good. Dipper Creek is a tributary - very good. Sunny, beautiful day - even better.

What's in there isn't classic kayaking, but the scene will blow your mind. It's Dipper lite - it's got the canyons and none of the waterfalls. Bring along your granny and the family cat, they'll love it in there.

In all seriousness, the Upper Squamish is worth a visit once to see the river corridor - you could do this by using the take out below the third canyon as your Dipper Creek take out, if that's what you're up there to do. If not it's a great trip for people who don't want to paddle Dipper to be able to experience the same kind of geology, just on a little smaller scale. The whitewater that is runnable isn't too hard and the portaging isn't too bad for what it is. This link will tell you everything you need to know - and enjoy the photos.

It's still winter in dem mountains.

Just at the put in we reached the snow. There was a suprising amount of rockfall on the road on the drive in.

Rob Murphy heads in for the first Irish descent of the Upper Squamish.

The entrance to canyon #1.

A walled in mank fest - it's not often you see waterfalls made only of old growth logs.

Open valley between canyons.

The suprisingly mellow whitewater of the suprisingly tight third canyon.

Come to the light.

That's some serious erosion - smooth right to the top.

The best rapid of the trip, below Dipper Creek.

-----

A quick update about Norrish Creek out in Mission. New photos from a trip back in March, and a light upgrade to the beta page. Norrish is super fun - check it out some time. Try it out at high water and let me know how it goes - it's always the same lowish but good fun level every time I go.

The second rapid on the Norrish.

Phil Morley sliding the slide.

The much anticipated "Must Run". Paddle under the waterfall for the full effect.

The hole at the end of the Must Run - it has a well-deserved reputation for handing out significant beatings, not unlike the one in this videoat that very spot.

Stoked to make it through beating-free. The Norrish canyon is remarkable.

Further along the run, another great scene.

Dipper Creek

2010-03-26T12:44:00.005-07:00

LiquidLore definitely doesn't operate in real time. Only 5 months after the fact have I finally gotten around to getting up a short story and some beta for this monster creek that was discovered just a few years ago. It's just in time though for you to try and get in a run before the taps turn on and it gets too high for the upcoming summer season (that can't come quick enough!). There isn't a lot of low elevation snow this year, and it might just be possible to squeak up there this spring. Some folks reached as high as Fear Canyon on the Elaho road back in early March and it's only been getting warmer.

There's not a lot to say - our journey was already plastered on the interweb back in October. Dipper was on my mind after seeing photos of the first trip, and it came together the first weekend of October. Without a lot of beta we started on a small tributary of Dipper called Carnival Creek that ended up having a lot of shyte but also some great bedrock stuff.

Once to Dipper the volume grows but the creek is horribly manky. It doesn't last long though, and you quickly get to the huge entrance waterfalls to the Dipper canyon proper. By the time we scouted, set safety, took lots of photo and video and rallied everyone through the first two waterfalls it was getting late in the day so we bushwhacked out to the road. It actually wasn't too steep once out of the river canyon, but the woods was wicked thick. The alder patch at the edge of the logging road was one of the thickest, most tangled patch of trees I've ever seen - the only way through was to push your boat and then crawl through the hole. Hard, sweaty work indeed.

The next day we didn't walk back in to where we took out - it was decided that to make the most of the weekend we would tackle the lower section of the run including Vertigo Gorge, skipping the middle canyon and a stretch of it that had yet to be run. It was a good decision - everything went smoothly in Vertigo despite the fact there are a couple of places that are pretty heavy duty. It's hard to articulate just how awesome it is in the canyon. At the end we walked back up the animal trail along the rim of the gorge where we parked our cars - that might not have been a good decision...

Over the course of the next few days some of the guys went back in from the top to continue down through the upper and middle canyons. After some solid problem solving it was sorted that you can run the whole creek without having to hike all the way out of the canyon (to portage the unrunnable), and on the Thanksgiving weekend Fred and Ben returned to run Dipper Creek in its entirety from top to bottom. Unfortunately, I don't think that a crew who shows up at Dipper without having scouted extensively or without a guide would be able do this on their first try, at least safely. Work that week and other commitments the next weekend kept me away from the rest of the adventures - it just means I have to go back...

If you want to go run Dipper, here's the beta you'll need. Be careful in there!

One more note before the photos - if you would like to get some information about whitewater releases on some of the dammed river reaches in southwest BC click back to the previous post about Fire, Tipella, Douglas, the Stave and the Ashlu. Enjoy.

Gearing up on a very crisp morning back in the mountains. I'm not sure what Cody is doing in the background...

The approach to the creek just below the Carnival Creek bridge. The woods is thick here and the terrain is very steep all along the canyon.

On the water, Carnival Creek is tiny and is almost too small to kayak on. It pinches down into some very tight canyons though and is difficult to scout from river level.

The reason why starting above the confluence with Dipper Creek was a good idea.

After some horrible mank on Dipper below the confluence with Carnival things quickly and abruptly get big time. This is the first waterfall of the Dipper canyon.

Over the shoulder between the two drops of the double falls - Cody as Fred and Steve look on.

And the second waterfall/slide - Big Dipper. Things start stout once you get to the Dipper canyon.

I don't have any pictures of the middle part of the run because I didn't paddle it - work and other commitments called. This is below the entrance falls to Vertigo Gorge, heading into the heart.

Vertigo Gorge, from the rim.

Running the hallway drops out of the teacup.

After the first wave ran through Vertigo, AJ and I went up and dropped in - scouting the narrow drop at the exit of the Vertigo teacup.

Freedom! The exit drop to Vertigo gorge. The scale of this place is huge.

Below Vertigo Gorge there are a few more waterfalls, including the Squamish confluence falls.

A parting shot, not really showing any of the whitewater but just a great photo. This is me running the first drop of Double Dip at the start of the Dipper canyon. Photo Ali Marshall.

Harrison Lake Whitewater Releases

2010-03-12T13:14:00.003-08:00

Information about whitewater releases in the Harrison Lake zone recently became available.

Click this link if you want to read the details, courtesy of Cloudworks Energy.

It looks like there will be releases for kayaking in May, June and July for Fire Creek, Douglas Creek and Tipella Creek. This is good news for kayaking. I'm not certain on the difficutly or what kind of whitewater is found on these sections - to be honest I've only seen sporadic reports of any of these creeks.

Here's what I know about these runs: Tipella Creek has a waterfall - it is also reported to be very steep above the falls. I know that Douglas Creek was scoped by Leland Davis and crew in 2009 and was ran by Ian and David Collings later in the fall season. I can't tell you much about Fire Creek, but if there's a diversion there it has to have gradient.

The Stave River will also have releases and it's definitely runnable - 18 cms should be a great level on the diversion reach. If access to the dewatered stretch was easy it would make a great day trip for one or several laps. Unfortunately access isn't easy, and the waterlevels in late May were you to consider the 3 day trip from the lake at Stave Glacier would likely be much too high to be reasonable. Maybe the kayaking community can combine to rent a barge to sail across Stave Lake for the May long weekend this year...

I can only encourage you to take advantage of these releases - I will definitely be making the journey out there to check things out. It is inevitable that rivers in southwest BC will be damed and the greater the presence we have on these release runs can only re-inforce the need for releases (and many releases) on anything that will be damed. While not ideal, it is the reality of the current situation.

This of course comes on the heels of the announcement of the granting of several power purchasing agreements to several developers. I'm not sure if it is too late in the process to stop development or to have a say in the decision making for releases on these runs. The rivers affected are a cluster around Harrison Lake including the spectacular Big Silver Creek and another cluster in the upper Lillooet River zone.

Finally, the biggest news in the world of whitewater releases is the confirmation of up to 24 whitewater releases per year on the Ashlu. Read this document for the specifics, from Transport Canada. More details are forthcoming from Innergex with online gauges and more details on the release process.

Kayaking through the first canyon on the upper Stave.

Serious whitewater (and a huge portage) on the upper Stave.

Welcome To Van Island: Granite Creek

2010-03-03T22:03:00.003-08:00

It was a long time coming, but this past weekend I finally managed to get on the ferry to Vancouver Island to do some paddleboating. Despite the rain - or perhaps because of the rain - it was pretty fun.

I remember on my first visit to the Island (attempting to surf, not boat) how surprised I was to see mountains that rival the ones on the mainland - it's incredibly beautiful there and somehow it just has a different feel than hanging around back in Vancouver. Maybe it's my Newfoundland roots that make a big island feel like home. Whatever it is, I like it out there.

Anyways, Vancouver Island motivator Shayne Vollmers was key to our visit. After relaying his tales of a creek called Granite that was infested with top quality waterfalls to Ali and Matt we were quickly a crew of three joining an already big group of dudes that live over there. I think it's safe to say we all came home fully impressed after logging a run down Granite Creek, a tributary of the Harris, and a short but fun run called the Cameron near Port Alberni. We took a peek at Little Qualicum Falls but were too scared to give it a serious look - the water was quite high.

We rolled up to Granite early in the morning ready for a long day - the level was perfect but it was raining. We knew it was going to be good when we looked over the bridge and saw the first waterfall nearly within spitting distance. Sweet. That's pretty much how it goes - it has a lot of waterfalls, and some good whitewater in between as well. The only downside was the HUGE load of wood in the river - apparently it's always an issue there and unfortunately on this trip it kept us from running 3 of the 4 biggest waterfalls. Part of the problem is probably the heavy logging around there. I don't know what the other part of the problem is, but dynamite would go a long way towards solving it... If only eh?

I took some photos at the start but my poor camera succumbed quickly to the damp conditions and basically stopped working 1/4 of the way through the trip. It's always a problem when it's raining like it was that day. Someone needs to make a waterproof SLR. Photos from the last half of our trip are courtesy of Shayne. Enjoy - Granite Creek is one not to be missed and was a perfect introduction to the boating on Vancouver Island. Don't forget to read the beta so you can go check it out too.

The view from the put in bridge.

Sweet slot to late boof.

Matt sliding to the edge of one of the big ones that was clogged with logs.

More wood.

Dropping.

Ali Marshall on the same clean drop as in the photo above.

Random boulder rapid. The whole right side was full of trees behind that big rock.

This was a really fun rapid - a fast lead in to this boof.

The start of the last big 20/40 combo.

That last waterfall is stacked right on top of this one. Granite saves the best for last!

Classic Upper Cheak

2010-02-25T23:37:00.004-08:00

You know the one. It's classic. If you've been to Whistler to kayak you know what it's like and if you're thinking of going to Whistler you should run it. More than once perhaps. Click here for the beta page at LL central.

Not a lot to report. There are some upgrades to LL home - you can now subscribe via RSS to the river updates, and there's going to be a Share This button at the end of every guide just in case you want to share ground breaking news from the world of kayaking with someone out there. Check it out - LiquidLore is going Web 2.0

Matt Kompass at the put in falls on the Cheak. It can't be beat.

Cruising through Triple Drop - Shaun as Max looks on.

Middle Kings In February

2010-02-14T11:39:00.005-08:00

Middle Kings in February? I wish. I'm confident you'd need a snowmobile to get in there and a sleigh to get down the river at this time of year - not a kayak. So no, this isn't a very up to date report - in fact, I ran the Kings in 2008, about one and a half years ago. Behind the times, I think so.

It's good though, very good. If you put "Middle Kings" into Google you'll get a virtual treasure trove of trip reports, photos, videos and horror stories to either get you real fired up or too scared to go (or both). I thought I'd add my 2 cents anyways, even though all the information in the LL guide is readily available at a number of places - there is a short Cali section in the guidebook, so might as well make it as thorough as possible right?

My friend Bob and I had set our sights on the Kings to top off our visit to California that summer, and in the end we managed to combine forces with some acquaintances from New York whom we knew from boating down there but hadn't paddled a lot with before. This trip is a great way to get to know someone that you didn't really know before. After finishing up at Upper Cherry it looked like levels were going to cooperate to hit the Kings right away - after some boat repair in Groveland and some good food we set off to run the huge shuttle.

Our sweet shuttle rig somewhere on the east side of the Sierras.

By the time we got food together, dealt with the cars and got in and out from the take out is was a few days before we got to Bishop. We started hiking on July 5th late in the evening, finishing up the hike the next day.

The hike is a bitch - hard work up over (as I'm sure you've heard) a big mountain pass and back down the other side. It's awesome up there and it would be worth it just to go hiking up that way some time. With a hurting knee I ate a lot of Advil on the hike in - we pre-emptively bought a 500 pill bottle before the trip, just in case. In retrospect it was lucky I could make it in - on Upper Cherry the week before on the second day I couldn't portage my own boat, or barely walk for that matter. I sat out on the second lap to Cherry - had I not I don't think the Kings would have happened.

Early on in the early morning.

Approaching the bottom of Bishop Pass.

At the top - Steve Arns, Bob Butler, Matt Young, Jeff Hazboun and Phil LaMarche.

A cool tree at the top of LeConte Canyon.

Make sure you bring good footwear....

Half way through the switchbacks down to the river - despite the knee-busting that goes on the scene there is amazing.

Even in mid-July it was suprisingly cold at the put in, and the mosquitos were horrible. I wish I'd brought a bug jacket - some of the other guys wish they'd brought more than a bivy and a layer of fleece... I awoke on the first night to the sound of unfurling space blankets as some of the lads tried to keep warm. It's a weird trip like that - you need something proper to keep warm the first night, but by the last night way down in the valley I think I slept on my sleeping pad with nothing on top at all.

The river itself is awesome. It's a hard trip with endless whitewater - it is sustained all the way through with the last day being the toughest. I think a lot of the difficulty in this trip comes from the fact that even on the first day of boating you're already exhausted from the huge hike the day before.

You get the full spectrum of whitewater here. There are plenty of granite slides and gorges through the first two days with a good dose of bombing and a few portages. Some of the run is suprisingly manky, especially at the start before the tributaries start coming in. This combined with heavy boats might explain why we broke 3 or 5 kayaks on our trip...

The last two days of the Middle Fork are different - the granite all but disappears and you're faced with mile upon mile of boulder gardens. On the last day - the infamous Bottom 9 - the boulders get way bigger and the river steeper. This stuff is hard - blind, huge rapids and some spots that if you don't have to portage you probably will anyways. Horrible poison oak appears at the top of the Bottom 9, just to make the portaging that much more fun.

Low voluming sliding early in day one.

More sliding on day one.

Day 2 breakfast whitewater.

Phil LaMarche about the tear through the hole at the bottom of the biggest slide on the run.

An atypical view of Tehipite Dome.

The easiest rapid on the bottom nine?

When we reached the confluence of the Middle and South Forks it was pretty exciting - like everyone says, we'd make it down the Middle Fork... It was a truly amazing trip, testing us all to our limits while providing some of the best whitewater any of us had paddled. If you are up for it, this is a trip that cannot be missed. This is the beta you need to get it done.

All smiles at the confluence of the South Fork and the Middle Fork.

The Kings is a river I'll certainly be returning too, especially considering the upfortunate luck I had with gear on this trip - in a way I feel like I didn't finish the run in it's entirety. We had three broken boats - two were repaired with bituthane without too much trouble. The same went for me, at least on the second day. However, my 35 day old boat didn't break once, or twice. By the end of the trip the boat developed no less than nine cracks in the hull. Nine! By the time the final, huge crack opened in the stern we had run out of bituthane, duct tape and gorilla tape and I was officially the owner of a submarine, not a kayak. At least we were half way through the bottom nine at that point. After a very scary swim while trying to run a rapid I had no business running with a boat that instantly filled with water I portaged pretty much the last half of the bottom 9, hiking out at Yucca Point as everyone else paddled down to the car at Pine Flat. It sucked.

The hike out was hard, but nothing compared to the hike in. I did carry my boat out - there are several other busted boats left in there that don't belong left in there. Figuring I had a long wait at the top of the trail I hitched a ways out the road to the Kings Canyon Lodge where I spent the day eating good food and hamming it up with the people who own the place - if you're ever in the area be sure to stop in. I was picked up by the guys 8 or 9 hours later, and back to Bishop we went to get the van at the put in.

And that's my Middle Kings story. It is a fantastic trip. It is a tough trip. I can't wait to go back, and you should go too.

Yes, there are five cracks in this boat under the seat.

And the one that ended my kayaking on the Kings.

Quebec Update

2010-01-14T22:02:00.003-08:00

I have little motivation these days to write elongated blog posts about rivers I've just spent time putting together the beta for - today is just a quick update with beta for some sweet runs in Quebec.

The first two are well known runs that are mentioned in several in-print guidebooks - the Doncaster and the Du Nord are Laurentian classics that can't be missed. You could probably get a dual sport day on one of these in the spring by starting out and Mont Tremblant and finishing with some sweet spring boating.

The third is the Mastigouche - not the one that's been posted about all over the place, but another branch right next door. It's super short and really only has one rapid, but it's a very good one. A must-do if you're in the zone running the other branch of this run. There's a great poutine stand in Mandeville you can stuff yourself at on the way out too.

The last river is the Des Iles, an obscure run north of the highway about half way between Montreal to Trois Rivieres. This one is off the beaten path by a long way, but might be of interest if you want something different, and if you can catch it at high water it would make for a very exciting day of boating.

And some photos of these runs - when I ran the Des Iles I didn't take the camera out once - you'll have to go check it out to see the sights.

Sweet lines on the Doncaster.

Dan Drost charges into a good one the Du Nord.

Christy, probing a big twisting slide on the unknown Mastigouche.

Seymour Canyon

2010-01-05T17:05:00.002-08:00

Just a quick note with the beta for the Seymour Canyon in North Vancouver, a definite contender in the "best local run" category. Click that link for the beta, and check out some photos of the run - it's a dark place, and runs most often when it's raining.

Pleasant hiking up the Seymour trail.

Floating in the canyon, above the first big rapid.

Entance to Mosh Pit, the first big one that doesn't look at all big in this photo.

High water bird's eye view.

Steve and Matt in the canyon - photo by Ali Marshall of the Fat Cats.

The seam drop. See the cave?

The last and darkest of the canyon.

Making it out alive at high water.

Fantasy Falls 2009

2009-12-25T00:39:00.001-08:00

This past June I took my second trip to California - living on the west coast, within driving distance, makes it pretty easy to get there. Leaving in early June and just having a week, the main event of the trip was Fantasy Falls on the NF Mokelume. This is the second time I've been down this great run - an updated beta section can be found here. To break up the drive we made a quick stop at the Little White in Hood River - always a treat.

Boulder Sluice.

This year was assembled a solid crew - last year it was just the two of us running the river with little beta and no shuttle - a good adventure. Two from Vancouver, one from Whistler, friends from Montreal and Petawawa and finally my southern compadre Ben from Chattanooga whom I'd met on a trip to the Green last year made up our crew.

Right from the get-go the epics started. The plan was to leave two vehicles at Salt Springs, loading my truck to the brim with 6 dudes and all our kit. Obviously we'd have to take it slow, but it would save having to drive back to the take out after getting the put in car - the shuttle is long. The plan however was short lived - within five minutes of leaving the parking lot I drove over a bump and all six boats flew off the roof, with the rack still attached. Damn. After some serious swearing and picking up the pieces of the rack we rallied the other vehicles to run shuttle - we'd just have to come back at the end. We had hoped to put on that afternoon and we were already late having had to pick up a boat in Sacramento (we lost a boat on the Little White below Spirit the day before).

Loading my truck with too much stuff.

The final nail in the coffin to not paddle that day was the 2 inches of snow on the ground when we finally got to Ebbets Pass on the shuttle. Even though there wasn't snow at the put in bridge, there was some serious thunder and lightning - it was an easy decision to hold off until the next morning to get better weather. We drove down to Bear Valley and feasted on pizza and beer in instead - good thing too because on the way down we drove through a huge! hailstorm. We saw a healthy bear along the road as well.

Just below Ebbets Pass.

Steve and Matt, no pleased with the wintery weather.

The next morning the weather was much better, and being well rested and under sunny skies we set off on the river. Being the only one to have already run the river I tried my best to remember everything down there. Day 1 starts off with some pretty manky stuff, then it slowly turns to better and better bedrock rapids. Here's a few shots of our first day. We paddled to the typical campsite below the first gorge.

Phil, Matt and Ben.

Steep mank early on.

Some of the first bedrock.

Easy stuff at the start of the first gorge.

Something not appealing that we walked.

Scouting one of the last rapids on day 1.

Ben Davis. The last, and my favorite rapid, of the first day. You can see the campsite downstream on the right.

Matt Kompass, the same.

I had an exciting line in the last rapid, breaking off my paddle after flipping in the entrance slot. I didn't realize it had happend until I tried to take my next stroke, flipping again when there was nothing to paddle with. I guess the look on my face was a priceless mix of surprise and fright - there are some big rapids immediately after..

The first night was awesome - clear weather, good food (check out the smokies - James Mole eats like a king on overnights, and brought enough to share - definitely better than freeze dried mac and cheese) and some wicked humour. We discussed the importance of NASCAR, the joys of BBQ and the culinary delight of Aunt Tina's beans.

Mole's kitchen.

Can't be a kayak trip without some dip.

Nighttime on the Mokelumne.

Day 2 is my favorite of the trip - the gorge right below the camping is schweet. Like all the trips I go on though I end up taking my camera out less and less as the days go on so I have less and less photos to share - there's a few below. Day 2 is the day with all the big gorges - some are good to go, some are pretty horrible. Lots of good stuff though.

First drop on Day 2.

One of the best rapids of the trip.

It's not all bad-ass - nice meadow boating on day 2.

Ben Davis, mushroom boof.

Mr. Kompass, mushroom boof.

A big cliff.

Day two brought us through a lot of river miles - it was long, with some hot, tough portages. However, we ran lots of great stuff and picked a choice campsite at the exit of one of the gorges - that night we spent building a massive fire out of dead manzanita. We also tried our best to roll a giant boulder over a cliff, but it didn't work. I also nearly stepped on rattlesnake - my first sighting in Cali.

Day 3 has some good whitewater, but I don't think it's as nice as the second day. From where we camped we had to do the big portage around the waterfall right at the start and were at the fantastic Fantasy Falls by mid-morning. It's such a sweet spot there. The rest of the day has 2 or three other big grante rapids and a bunch of no-so-tough but really good granite stuff. It stays solid right in to the lake. We had no takers on the Island or the Thing, even though they both end in giant pools.

And that was it - another wicked trip. The paddle out sucked, and it was a long long shuttle. By the time we reached somewhere to get food, the only places opened were Denny's and Taco Bell. Upon seeing the Denny's menu, it was shouted by one memeber of the crew "Nine dollars?! Do you know how many tacos I can buy for nine dollars?" Said person continued to Taco Bell while we ate horrible food at Dennys - it wasn't as bad as the Taco Bell though - the taco eater spent the rest of the night nearly shitting his pants over and over again, much to our amusement...

Great mountain scenery on day 3.

Fantasy Falls - Max Kniewasser.

A parting shot - camp #2.

And that's all I got. Click here for the Fantasy beta. Merry Christmas.

The End Of The Ashlu

2009-11-30T23:34:00.007-08:00

It ain't over 'til it's over. Well, it's over. Here, my friends, is all that remains of mighty Ashlu Creek.

This past weekend a few of us drove up the Squamish valley trying to squeeze the last little bit of life out of the fall boating season. There was no firm destination set - Fear Canyon had water for sure (as I write this I'm watching Cody's latest movie and the segment with Fear Canyon in it: funny coincidence) - but as always the gravity of the Ashlu pulled us up there at least to eyeball the flows.

It was an inevitable outcome at this point, but none the less not one we've wanted to meet. Getting to the twin bridges the river was suprisingly full - it looked like the Box or the Mine would be a real possibility. However, rounding the corner we came upon the heartbreaking sight of the powerhouse at the end of the Bottom Mile generating power - our first sight of the dewatered Ashlu.

Give them flak if you like, but in my experience the workers at the construction site have always been friendly and excited to see kayakers. Sunday was no different - we stopped and chatted with the few remaining folks around and they explained that they were running a 72 hour test of the dam, ramping up to full capacity. I'm not sure if this is the first time the diversion was operational or not, but it can only mean that whenver there's water from now on it will be in the pipe, not the riverbed. Here's the scene at the now completed dam. Notice the lack of water in the riverbed and the tiny flow coming through the pipe - I suppose this is the fish flow. Certainly not enough flow to make the Box or Bottom Mile runnable when there isn't enough water to overwhelm the diversion. There was a lot more water coming in to the lake - the Mine would have been at a nice flow but it was inaccessible because of snow.

There is also this interesting device in the valley - there is one at the start of the Bottom Mile and another at the start of the Box. These appeared some time in August or September.

Yes - the Ashlu now has an audible kayak warning system - I guess it's like an air raid siren for boaters in the canyon. When power generation stops I suppose this thing sounds with the intention of warning boaters of the impending tsunami of whitewater. Get out while you can! As everyone knows, you can just jump right out of the water while in the Box and scamper to safety. What is more likely is that this will deafen every living creature in the forest and the boaters on the water will hear nothing, being left instead to be swept away by a torrent of mud, logs and water. Anyways, how good can a siren be when it's not even plugged in?

In all seriousness, this system is better than nothing, and it might just be that it is within earshot to boaters on the river. It would certainly let you know trouble might be a brewin' if it goes off while you're getting set to go. In reality, the risk of an unexpected and severe jump in flow will forever be a consideration when paddling the Mini-Mine, Box and Bottom Mile from now on. Having bumped into a friendly dude/dam worker while recharging a flat battery on one of our cars, it was explained the plug on the siren is acutually to re-charge the otherwise solar-powered siren battery during the extended periods of cloud that persist in southwest BC. Hopefully this is the normal procedure...

The comissioning of the Ashlu dam is undoubtedly going to have an effect on the boating season of the river. At this point it's still anyone's guess as to how much things will change. High water Mine/perfect water Box is one exciting outcome. Will there be scheduled releases down the Mini-Mine, Box and Bottom Mile as promised on the Ashlu IPP website? If there will be releases it will be a welcomed concession, at least by me. Does anyone out there in blog-land know anything about this?

Back to our visit - all was not lost. Despite the dismal stream of water coming out of the dam that equated to not near enough water to boat on, the copious rainfall of the previous few days had the side creeks raging and the river was charged up enough after a few km to have good water for the Bottom Mile. This was my fourth run down this section, and it was fun as always - the level was perfect. It was obviously a rainy, very gray day and I only got one decent photo of the run.

And to end it all off, here's a photo of the water being returned to the river at the end of the Bottom Mile. A lot of water goes in the pipe.

That's it for today. While it is sad to see the river change the way it has, this place will still be one where I'll be spending more than a few days once again in 2010. Also, if you're interested there are some quick notes posted to the guide about Silverhope Creek out near Hope in the Fraser Valley.

The Ottawa Double Header

2009-11-23T23:17:00.006-08:00

From the desk of Philip Kompass - The mighty Swine and Rideau Falls

The city of Ottawa, Canada’s national Capital, is really an excellent place to be a kayaker. There are very very few places – even fewer major metropolitan cities – that offer such an abundance of urban whitewater. While Ottawa’s playboating is pretty well known, outside of the Ottawa paddling community not many people know that the town itself offers up some of the best “downtown” waterfalling of any city in North America.

Most of the year there is negligible flow coming down the Rideau. However, in spring flood and in late fall, when the National Capital Commission begins to drain Dow’s Lake and diverts the flow out of the canal, the Ottawa Doubleheader of Hogsback and Rideau becomes a possibility.

The classic Doubleheader would see the morning start with some warm up laps on Hogsback <-click for beta. Get the shoulders moving, the game face on and stroke tuned up before following the Rideau River 8 km downstream where it fall off the edge of the earth, landing into the Ottawa.

Despite what kayakers spout off at the pub, Rideau Falls falls roughly 35 feet, unless you add in the 6-8 foot drop over the lead in dam. Falling from that height you really want to ensure a pretty steep angle entry. In fact - having recently landed on my head and emerged unscathed - I would argue that the biggest hazard here is a flat landing. Better too steep than too flat.

Go huck your meat.

- - - - -

Steve sez:

Here's some photos of Ottawa's mighty whitewater - it's wiked fun. Nothing like spanking the Swine when the leaves start to fly. The Hog photos are from an unseasonably warm blast of rain in January 2008 - that's a nice medium flow. That rapid can get way, way higher - imagine no waterfall and holes that would suck birds out of the sky. The Rideau photos are courtesy of Martin Cayouette and the Carleton University Kayak Club. It's a little low in those photos - like Hog's Back, it gets massively high as well. Check out this photo of the falls in the spring when all the ice comes off the river and pours into the Ottawa. Cool stuff.

Check out the new homepage for the LL guide too.

Bob Butler fires up the double at the Hog.

In the midst - the scene at Hogsback.

Big drops in downtown Ottawa.

Taking a moment before taking the plunge.

Damn.

Damn, again.

Upper Ryan: Fall's The Season

2009-11-12T23:33:00.003-08:00

i. Upper Ryan

You might have the conception that the fall is often a dismal time to kayak, at least where natural river flows are concerned. It's not true, there's always something out there to paddle - some great stuff appears when the water starts to go away....

Right through to the end of August there was plenty to paddle - even well in to September until one weekend we drove up the Ashlu and behold! there was no water. Well, there was water - we put on the Bottom Mile and quickly walked back to the car - it was high as. Fear Canyon never dries up though, and the day was saved.

The following day was one we'd been looking forward to all year - the Ryan River in Pemberton we thought might be at an ok flow - the upper stretches were apparently a fall run that need low water, and being fall and low water it was time to go. Rallying a pretty big crew - Steve and Matt from Van/Whister, Sean from Oz, Kiwi Steve fresh of the Stikine and our friends Ben, Brian and Cody from the the States we made up a ready team of adventurers to go get lost on the only road up the Ryan valley.

A beautiful but chilly morning in Pemberton brought us to the touchy access point to the Ryan FSR - of the limited info we had on the run, the only sure thing was that the bridge at the take out that gives upstream access is washed out, meaning you have to hike. A hearty attempt at finding a "new" road to the top led up a very steep hill that was fun driving but in the end was just a few hours wasted.

Lost - and there's only one road... Photo Cody Howard.

We hiked up the old logging road that is horribly overgrown in spots with some great views of the very steep river that obviously wasn't suffering from lack of water. It's amazing how quickly the road is being re-claimed. The bridge was washed away in 2003, and already there are spots with thickets of 2-inch alders turning the road back in to forest. I had the pleasure of stepping in the biggest pile of bear shit ever while thrashing through this stuff.

The Upper Ryan ended up being a crazy steep run full of big boulder piles with some mank mixed in for good measure. Definitely something to go back to, especially in the late season when river options are a little less copious than in the summer time. The Ryan is a big river and trying to run this section in July would be silly, baring a unusually cold snap. If you want to run it, click this link to get all the beta you'll ever need.

Hiking on a great fall day.

Easy stuff before dropping in to the deep valley, and the hard whitewater.

Yes, it's steep. Photo by Cody Howard.

Sweet boofs abound.

Heavy glare in one of the last big boulder jumbles.

ii. Seymour

Back to the comment about incessant fall rain. I don't mind the fall rain - many people complain about this, but it's really not that bad, particularly when the Seymour River roars back to life. This run is practicaly in downtown Vancouver, and it's awesome. Last Sunday was the first time I took a camera along to the river - here are a couple of shots - at high water this run is a beast. A full report will appear here eventually. Enjoy.

Rain brings out all kinds of creatures.

The last rapid in the canyon is one dark spot.

Exiting the heart of the canyon.

Rogers Creek: Classic South Coast

2009-10-30T21:31:00.002-07:00

Rogers - you know what that means. Three perfect waterfalls in a wicked canyon. One of the coast's finest really. It's a short run but it's worth the effort, especially if you try and make a few days out of it by running Snowcap Creek, just across the river from Rogers. Upper Birk/Rogers/Snowcap would be a pretty awesome weekend.

We got out to Rogers in mid July this year in a bid at the Rogers/Snowcap double. Rogers was at a perfect level - I'd run it once in the past at low water and while fun it was a little bumpy on the paddle in and out. With a proper flow the whole thing was great - even the boulder shyte on the paddle out.

We took our time paddling through the gorge, enjoying the fun hike up the old road (it's steep and rocky and there were trees down half way up) and the bushwhack down to the water. Unfortunately our time spent there kept us off Snowcap, which is probably for the better as the middle canyon on that one would probably have been a little on the sporty side. We finished the weekend off by trucking all the way back down to Squamish for a high water lap down the Mine.

Not a lot more to say today. Here are some shots and the beta on Rogers if you want to see it for yourself.

Warm up on Rogers Creek.

Rogers boogie. Photo Steve Bartrom.

Stoked.

Matt Kompass ripping through drop one of the three.

The triple falls.

Ali Marshall's retribution run on the triple falls...

Just Like You Imagined

2009-10-22T20:41:00.003-07:00

If you live in the Ottawa area, check this out - organized by Mike McKay. It's definitely going to be a good time.

No Place Like Home - Northwest River

2009-10-14T21:26:00.003-07:00

There really is no place like home, be it home where family and old friends might be - or the places where many a good time was spent in the past.

I'm originaly from Newfoundland, the eastern island province of Canada. I always find it funny when people from the west coast talk about a trip to Ontario as a "trip out east" - you certainly have to go east to get there, but it's by no means eastern Canada. Anyhow, Newfoundland is well known for its rugged ocean scenery and a rich, distinct culture - including an accent that can be almost impossible to understand. One thing it isn't well known for is whitewater kayaking.

I learned to paddle in Newfoundland. There are a suprising amount of rivers to be found in the province, and what is known is probably just a fraction of what's out there. There has been some attention brought to the boating scene there - notably some Americans (John Weld, Andy Bridge and friends) came in the 90's on a trip to what they called "Fantasy Island". Subsequent visits by SLP filming for the movie Aerated and the Jackson Kayak crew in the fall of 2007 raised futher awareness of what's over there, each crew tackling some new rivers. The local paddling community however have done the most work in sorting out what's good and what's not, ticking new rivers off the list each year as flows and access are sorted out.

One of the bread-and-butter runs in Newfoundland is the Northwest River - an excellent stretch of whitewater about 2 hours from the capital of St. John's. It is a classic eastern style bedrock run with pool-drop rapids of the highest quality - a contender amongst classics anywhere. The majority of the run is class III-IV, but there is enough spice found here and there to keep any class V boater happy as well - it's a great run for people looking for fun river running, a training ground for harder whitewater and an excellent introduction to NL paddling. Whenever I'm back in NL to visit it's always on the top of my list to try and fit in a trip down this river that really does feel like home.

There's a lot of history and great stories surrounding this river - one day I'll get around to posting some of them, but for now you should click here for the river beta, and start planning your trip to Newfoundland...

Here are some photos from a recent trip down the river in August of 2009.

Toni - fired up and ready to go on a hot summer day - we had to thank Hurricane Bill for all the water.

A relaxing start on the Northwest.

Rolling through the first rapid - Wake Up Call.

Dropping in to a hole called Fish Hook - a partly cloudy day led to some fantastic, vibrant photos but also so rather dull ones as well - this one was in between.

A normal outcome at Fish Hook - Darren made it out in one piece using the giant ender strategy to get out of there...

Running the bottom half of a nice double drop.

The Weir! Boof or get beat down.

Inspecting the gnar (that we didn't run). This rapid rarely gets run.

One of the rare runs. This is Fergus Coffee, as taken by Darren McDonald.

A fun S-turn boof.

The second golf course drop - a huge hole forms up here at high water.

Mulligan - the alternative line on the second drop.

Check out that beauty weather!

Stacked action.

The Northwest goes out with a bang... 50/50 Falls.

There's Something About Fall...

2009-09-24T20:08:00.005-07:00

From the desk of Philip Kompass - an eastern update.

Every sport has a primetime season. Hockey fans have spring playoffs, college ball has March Madness, and for boaters in Eastern Canada it has to be fall. The first few leaves have changed colour and the chill in the air brings our attention back to water levels and rainfall forecasts in this part of the country.

For sure, spring run off may get you a greater number of river options, and possibly even nicer weather - but there’s something about fall that gets people excited about creek boating again. You bump into old friends you haven’t seen since May, and maybe get around to hammering out the busted bow from an late spring ELF run or fiddling with the outfitting now that you’re down to your summertime fighting weight… you know what I mean.

Warm water and warm weather usually means low flows on the classics, and creek boating options literally dry up out east. There are some exceptions and occasional releases but for a lot of people summertime means playboating, or mountain biking, or climbing, or house repairs, weekend weddings and honey-do lists.

The official kick-off of fall creeking begins with the Labour Day weekend releases in upstate New York (Raquette Stone Valley, Beaver, Moshier, Eagle, Taylorville) and continues well past Moosefest in mid-October until the cold gets too much to bear or the roads get snowed in.

With the leaves off the trees, and sometimes the ground frozen, there is no longer a sponge to soak up any precipitation – snow, sleet, hail, rain and any combination of those – meaning river rise quickly often bringing runable levels again. Look for levels to rise following any major rain event and as it gets later into the year it takes less rain to maintain the flows meaning multiple options. And unlike the spring, you may have a much longer runable window. Keep an eye on the Grasse and Oswegatchie drainages for late-season boating as well as the Lake Placid / High Peaks region for autumnal action.

Beautiful fall colors on the Independance River.

Blazing yellow on the Grass - the peak of fall in 2007.

The main event of the Eagle section of the Beaver - NY fall classic.

Part II: The Seven Sisters

Working in exact opposition to all of the advice written above, the 7 Sisters of the Rouge River is a late-summer and early fall classic that runs on low flows.

The actual run is paddled at range of levels, typically below 200 cms and in playboats, with the caveat that 5 or 6 of the “sisters” are portaged. Only when you hit the late-summer flows of less than 50 cms do the 7 Sisters come into play. They have been run higher but for most paddlers that offers a good guideline. I’m not aware of a low limit on this section.

The 7 Sisters are a series of 6 waterfalls in very close proximity (the first Sister is earlier in the run). They are big water drops with big holes but are easily portaged and scouted. Good platforms for setting safety and the short pools are good for the confidence, and this section is suitable for introducing new creek boaters to waterfall running. The middle five Sisters section can be carried up on the river left shore for round two if you are so inclined.

I won’t go through them line by line, but it really is a great spot to shake off the rust on your boof stroke and get your head in the game for the rest of the fall season. Get out there now before it starts to rain. Here's the link to the beta.

Stop now! A warning of impending doom at the Sisters

A busy rapid above the 7 Sisters.

The 2/3 combo drop.

Philip Kompass running the boof line at 4.

The beatdown ledge at 6.

The grande finale of the Sisters.

Lynn/Ashlu

2009-09-13T22:58:00.003-07:00

IPPs strike again!

Here's a link the the hompage for Lynn Canyon Power - an IPP in the heart of Vancouver's North Shore. A well done, thought-provoking website.

Also, if you like the Ashlu, the rumour is that the river continues to put up a fight until the very end and the dam won't be diverting water until the spring. Go get some while you still can.

No blog post should go without a photo - Kiwi Steve lines up for the second biggest hole on the Ashlu Mine run.

Big Silver Skunk Fest

2009-09-07T22:41:00.003-07:00

There's nothing worse than driving vast distances to go kayaking, only to do no kayaking. That's what happened to us this weekend.

There's a fair bit of hype about Big Silver - click here, here and here and you'll see why - off the hook gorges and clean waterfalls sing a powerful siren song. Even at low water things seem to go fine on the upper sections, and the stout looking middle section seems to be coming into prime at this time of year when the water is low. Dreaming of a clean waterfall and running some cool gorges, off we set on the long ride up around Harrison Lake.

The whole Big Silver zone is exceptional. The water is that brilliant green color, and the gorges are steep and deep. Only thing was, the water was super low when we got there - that was obvious. What we determined is that the upper Big Silver does indeed get too low.

The first waterfall was much too dangerous to consider at the fish flows there when we put on. On the shuttle, Gold Creek was curiously full of water (and it had some awesome looking rapids - has anyone out there run this down into Big Silver yet?) and we were really hoping it would join the Big Silver sooner rather than later - this was not to be. It comes in about 3/4 of the way down, and up until then the rapids had just enough water to slam down - some we had to walk because there was just no line. Below Gold Creek the volume at least doubled and while still low there were some fun lines to be had.

Despite the low water, it was still cool to paddle through the upper Big Silver - the gorges are incredible with fantastic scenery and geology unlike any I've seen anywhere else. It would be a great run with water - it wasn't worth the drive up there in September though - unless our next day on the middle turned out to be fruitful.

The Middle wasn't to be either though. We did some extensive scouting on this section in the pouring rain, having heard rumors of a hellish portage deep in the heart of the gorge. The portage did look horrible with near vertical slimey granite walls on either side - the options we could see were to go way up and over a few rapids up from the falls you need to walk, or an extremely sketchy climb at water level right at the falls that would be tough in the best of times and impossible in the rain. In the end, the weather and multiple portages (we would have done at least three more) kept us off the water and heading for home.

So, that brings us to the customary links to the beta pages for both the Upper and the Middle Big Silver. I've decided to start something new in the guidebook - including rivers that I don't have a lot of beta for, or that I don't have any good photos of. Hopefully some directions, some level insight and a few brief comments will work - in some ways that's better than having everything spelled out anways. These runs will be listed under the heading Quick Beta on the regional web pages.

Click here for the Upper Big Silver beta, and here for the Middle Big Silver beta. There's also a few photos of our rock battle down the upper - it was too wet to have the camera out on during our dissection of the middle.

The big sieve at the put in falls was more than ample enough to accomodate almost all the flow in the river.

Scouting hopelessly.

While most of the river was runnable, there was some portaging because there just wasn't enough water.

The few rapids below the confluence with Gold Creek had water enough - even though still low, there were some fun lines like this one in there.

Stave River

2009-08-25T20:35:00.005-07:00

Want to paddle the Stave? Click here.

While the boating in southwest BC is excellent with a long season and a ton of variety, you can count on one thing for a lot of the rivers - they're short. Many of the runs once you know them can be blasted out in less than an hour, and you often spend more time driving down a dusty dirt road then in your boat kayaking.

There are several well known multi day trips in the area (and I guess you could string together some of the rivers with multiple sections), but they are usually not super diffficult (Stein, Clendinning) or they are known to beat the shit out of your gear (North Stein) - this, and wanting to do a little exploring led us to the Stave River. The Stave is one of the south flowing rivers that drains Garibaldi Park.

Our interest in the Stave first came about from trolling about on Google Earth - the whole river corridor can be followed using high resolution satellite images and what we saw looked good - well, what was saw was a lot of white in the river bed, a few big canyons and access that would require a float plane.

Aside from what we could see on Google Earth, there wasn't a whole lot of information about the Stave out there - a crew of guys ran it back in the early 90's and seemed to have a hell of a trip - and by hell I mean horrid. They went way over schedule (5 days total?) and ended up having some massive portages. Well, being 15 years later and with at least some idea the river was runnable we figured we'd bash through the whole thing in three days and have a good look at some of the canyons in the middle of the river that were undoubtedly the cause of the big portaging. If it was portaged once it could be done again if the whitewater did prove to be too much. The biggest unknown were flows - August seemed a good time to sort it out - things are usually dropping by then, but the glacier fed streams like the Stave still have flow. So, July 31 we took off from Whistler to land on the lake below the Stave Glacier too see what the Stave would have in it's valley.

Loading the plane - Whistler Air's Cessna Caravan.

Our pilot Mike, and a fleeting view of Blackcomb mountain out his window.

The crew - Matt Kompass, Max Kniewasser, Steve Bartrom, Corey Boux.

A hazy view of the headwaters of the Cheakamus River in behind Whistler mountain.

The amount of ice in the mountains is incredible.

This is the headwaters of Snowcap Creek - more ice.

Coming in to land on the lake below Stave Glacier.

We flew in the evening before the first day of boating, and ended up paddling across the put in lake and down the river for a few km to the first whitewater where we set up camp. We brought in a few beers, but half of them were lost forever after Matt let them float by his boat as he got in from the plane - they floated when tested, but went under just enough to be lost in the extremely silty water. After a major heat wave in BC right before our trip all the rivers in the area we running brown and muddy, and the Stave was no exception. The high water brought on by this heat wave had brought the river way up (beyond what we set at too high to put on) just before our put in date, but it came down just enough to start out on the day we wanted to.

A quick scout downstream revealed a canyon - the first canyon. I wasn't really expecting a canyon this early on, but as far as we could see downstream looked good, even if there didn't seem to be a lack of water. In the morning, the water level fears were somewhat eased as the river level dropped substantially - the Stave ended up having a big diurinal cycle - and we dropped in. What ensued was several kilometers of absolutely phenominal class IV-V boating through a committing canyon that was all runnable. Needless to say, spirits were high when we paddled out of the gorge an hour or two later.

After a short calm section with great mountain views we came to a rumbling horizon line - we found a big rapid with a long lead in, a tough move in the middle around a headwall and a boiling eddy ending with a big squeeze to sub manouver. Everyone walked except for Steve - he didn't make it, and after a tough rescue out of the boiling eddy in the middle of the rapid we got him to shore and managed to wrangle the boat a few hundred meters downstream. It was hard watching the boat float around the corner, but luckily things were calm after this drop and we were able to catch up.

The second half of the first day was largely wide open valley. A lot was great read and run, with one section in the middle that took quite a bit of time to sort out with several notable rapids in quick succession that required some not straightfoward scouting (at one point we thought we were at the head of the second canyon we were expecting). Late in the afternoon, everyone was looking forward to camping out - in the midst of some aggressive boat scouting we were looking for campsites without much luck and rounding a corner we suddenly came upon the second big canyon we were expecting. Just as everyone was getting out to take a look, Corey paddled past the eddy we were in and dropped in, sight unseen.

Packing up after the first night out.

One of the first rapids in the first canyon.

Steve Bartrom - no photo captures the character of the first canyon better than this.

The exit drop of the canyon.

I'm not sure what this river signal means, but that's a big pinch at the bottom of that rapid.

Steve Bartrom dropping in to the big rapid after the canyon.

The mountain scenery is nothing short of amazing on the Stave.

Max taking in the fantastic scenery.

Dropping in to one of the open valley rapids just before the end of the day one stretch.

It was clear that the rapids here were something big, but being in the bombing mindset Corey figured it was just another rapid we could bomb. After hurrying downstream and seeing the fury below, and no sign of Corey, the alarm was sounded and we crashed along the rim of the canyon in a mad search for him. After 10 or 15 extremely tense minutes of frantic searching and calling (and seeing a ton of V+/VI in the canyon) we finally heard a call from down at the bottom of the canyon - he was alive, although in a somewhat dubious spot.

So, here's what happened. After dropping over the first drop of the canyon, Corey survived for a few seconds in his boat, but was quickly removed from his craft, where he continued to swim through the canyon (some of it is pictured below) and over a 25-30 foot waterfall in the heart - after almost too much time underwater he finally washed into an eddy (the only eddy) on river left, still in the gorge and above a massive horizon line. Luckily, this eddy was opposite the only spot in the gorge where we could get to water level, and after some more very tense moments we were able to pendulum him over to our side, getting him out of the water. The toll was significant - he kept his paddle, but the boat went downstream along with one of his shoes. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, everyone portaged around this canyon and set up camp on the spot just below the gorge, which we decided to call Boux's Box.

The day 1 campsite is an awesome and fearsome place. Right below where we got Corey out of the river is one the steepest sections I've ever seen on a real river. The first drop was 30 feet. Directly into 40 feet. Directly into 70 on to rocks. Very directly into a granite crack about 5 feet wide and over another huge waterfall that we couldn't see the bottom of. Needless to say this was a mandatory portage and will never be runnable, and makes up the core of the second canyon, which continues below the death crack for another few hundred meters. Without any of Corey's food, gear or a boat, we all planned on doing the portage in the morning after which we would figure out what to do about our situation.

The entrance rapid to the second canyon - the rapid that made Corey swim. Crappy picture of a powerful spot.

The downstream view of what Corey had to swim through - it keeps going around the corner and over a waterfall in the heart of the gorge.

The next falls after the gorge opens up a little - we got Cory across the river right above this waterfall. His shoe recirculated in the hole at the bottom for many minutes.

Taken from the same spot as the photo above, this is 40 foot falls.

Looking downstream over the 70 footer and the wicked crack below it.

Close up of the crack - the rocks are really cool here, and very slippery.

Some of the waterfall series, taken during the portage the next morning.

After the incident of the day before, our mood became one of getting downstream safely and around this giant canyon. The section Corey swam is probably runnable at lower water (minimum 1/2 the flow) - the falls never will be - we portaged around on the right, over a creek and along some steep talus - after the death crack the river opens up to another canyon similar to that above the falls that we took a quick look at but couldn't find any put in options. We portaged until the canyon ended, which from the camp took about 3 hours.

Below the second canyon we decided that Corey should try and walk out to the road, which we figured was about 5 km downstream. It would suck, but beat calling in a heli to get him. At least then it would be easy going until the lake. Based on Google Earth scouting, the next section of river looked to be like great boulder rapids - this was the case, but it was way steeper and way harder than we expected - scouting from space is not recommended to assess river diffficulty! As was to become a theme for the rest of the river, much of this stuff had just too much water to nagivate safely - we picked away at a lot of it but left a fair chunk of it un-run, especially the very last 200 meters of the section.

The biggest break of the trip came here as well - we found Corey's boat, and while it was demolished it didn't have and cracks in the hull and after he portaged it around the big stuff of the day we were able to bash, melt and weld it into shape enough for him to paddle out to the lake. All of his gear was still in the boat too. Everyone slept a little easier that night knowing we'd be able to get out without too much trouble. The third day we thought would be relatively chilled out...

Maxi amidst the talus on the big canyon portage.

A big slide we walked around.

And the huge boulder pile right below it.

Steve ducking between some of the boulders on the second half of day two.

Matt demonstrating his knowledge of the Force.

Corey's f'd up boat.

Everyone was fired up to be back on the river after a gruelling second day, and the whitewater started off great - very quickly though we came to the head of the third canyon on the Stave, which starts with a prefect 30 footer. As you can guess though, this canyon had way too much water - the falls is awesome, but right below it was an enormous river wide hole followed by more whitewater madness. The portage on the right was thick as hell but flat, and took about 1.5 hours - most of the canyon looked good (to much water though), except for one rapid in the middle - if you come to the Stave be sure to scout the whole thing first as the walls come straight out of the water and getting out would be hard, if not impossible.

The rest of the Stave is best described as IV-IV+ with a few big ledges and waterfalls mixed in. It's all good, but some of the falls had too much water (which by this point wasn't a suprise). There is a road along the river, and the valley has been heavily logged. All in all really great whitewater, but very unexpectedly and not at all welcome was the discovery of a hydroelectric project that is nearing completion. It's going to dewater the best stretch of the river below the third canyon, and the destruction here is complete - a section of river at the intake is diverted and the original riverbed is gone. Soon, when the dam is done, about 3 km of river will forever be lost - certainly when the upper river is/might be prime this section will be all but dry. The Stave isn't the only victim here - concurrently, a side creek is also being divereted in this area, and the second power house is on the opposite side of the river from that of the Stave diversion.

This BC forest at the end of the third canyon portage.

Taking a look at something on the lower river above the dam.

A fun boof.

An unfortunate discovery - a diversion channel around the construction site.

The industrial complex of the Upper Stave Hydroelectric Project.

The first half of a double waterfall, too high as well - the second uniform ledge (out of the photo) had an enormous hole at the bottom.

Sweet class IV below the falls (as seen from a road scout), soon to be dewatered.

The whitewater is over after the powerhouses and it's a long cruise out to the lake with some great scenery - it reminded me of the scene at Fantasy Falls in Cali on the way out. As we got close to the lake we called in the plane from Whistler to pick us up, and after paddling out on the lake to get clear of the dead trees near the river we were shortly in the air, enjoying the flight back up the valley towards home, and a big feed at Splitz.

And that's the story of the Stave River. Things started out strong with a fantastic first day on the river. We worked out the shit that went down late on day 1, and figured out the portage on the morning of day 2 with no rope work, just hard work. Most of the stuff we ended up walking on the rest of days 2 and 3 (and the canyon Corey swam) are probably runnable at lower flows. If they are good to go, the Stave has the potential to become one of the best class V multi day trips in southern BC, adding to an already impressive list of great rivers. The dam will from now on always be a problem though - have fun sorting this out, and be ready for a hard but rewarding trip. If you'd like some detailed logistical notes, click this link to check out the beta page.

Calling in the plane.

All smiles while loading up on the lake.

The dam site - you can pick out both powerhouses if you look closely at this photo.

Logging in the Stave valley.

Some more cool ice on the flight home.

The summer of '09 was a bad one for fires in BC - here's a big one in the Lillooet River valley.

Boulders On The Upper Birk

2009-08-06T21:39:00.003-07:00

i) Upper Birkenhead

The Upper Birkenhead is one of the best boulder runs around - it might not be the most photogenic run ever (well, they by far do not do the boulder rapids justice), but it does have some wicked fun rapids. I've been down there a few times, and it's awesome every time. Make a point to check it out.

It's cool - clear green water greets you when you get to the put in, and it's fully class II. Things escalate slowly as you go downstream where you'll find boulder piles, and more boulder piles. I think some of the trickiest rapids aren't quite at the end, but the longest one certainly is. Good stuff - it's certainly only one of many creeks in the Pemberton zone that have yet to be disseminated to the masses.

Click this link for the beta you need, and check the shots to see what it's all about.

The launching point.

Arrival at the goods.

One of the coolest moves on the river is this one right here.

The squirrly squeeze rapid.

The home stretch - this is 1/2 of the last one.

Log jam - it's all good.

Dealing with the portage of the last rapid on the Upper Birkenhead - that's as bad as it gets if you decide to walk.

All smiles at the end of the river.

ii) Tatlow Creek

Tatlow Creek is probably done, or close to done for this year. It was running two weeks ago during the big heat-up in BC. Sources say it was low early this week. Get it while you can, it won't last long!

Tatlow Creek, crystal clear blue water and all.

iii) Up Next

The upper Stave. Stay tuned for the full story...

Middle Cheak

2009-07-10T09:21:00.005-07:00

Does this rapid look familiar? If you've boated in Whistler, it should - it's the put in rapid for the Upper Cheak, one of the most popular stretches around there. This post isn't really about the Upper Cheak - it's about the Middle section. However, it makes sense just to run the Upper and Middle together so there you have it, the first rapid of your trip...

Last week during the Canada Day break, some good friends from Newfoundland made the long journey over from St. John's to Vancouver to check out the scene and run some rivers - it was a good time with us having sampled a lot of the good whitewater in the Squamish-Whistler-Pemberton corridor. We had a grizzly sighting in the Pemberton valley, which in itself was well worth the long drive out of town.

After some warm-up boating on the Chilliwack and Ashlu, we found ourselves at the Callaghan take out looking at low water from cool temperatures, a crappy snowpack and super hot weather in June that ate away at all the snow - being low water and with the prospect of upcoming hot weather maybe bringing up the water a bit, we put it off for later that week, which left us without a plan.

Of course, the Cheakamus quickly came up as an option. Levels were hovering a bit low there as well, and looking for something a little more substantial than a 20 minute blast down the upper we set shuttle at the Cal-Cheak confluence intending to see what we'd see below the House Rock take out.

The Middle Cheak delivered in a big way! The Whistler guys run it often enough, but aside from that you don't hear much about it. I'd paddled down to the first drop of the Middle in the past, but never bothered to keep going and see what was next. To be honest, the Whistler waste treatment facility is right above the first drop of the middle and it's a little gross when you paddle by the outflow, but not too bad all considered. People paddle in way grosser places. Below the first rapid is a ton of other good stuff almost right to the take out and it makes the upper Cheak run into a proper river trip.

There are a ton of log jams on the Middle, but they're obvious from above, and only one blocks the river completely. High water on this section isn't an option because of wood - check out the photos below and you'll see why.. The whole thing ends in a great class IV blast through a beautiful canyon - just go down the middle. Check this one out, I'm sure you'll be stoked you did. Click this link for all the beta.

Bombs away on Balls to the Wall.

Darren McDonald brings it home through the run out of Balls - it's the tricky part...

There's a little bit of wood on the Middle.

Yes, it's as bad as it looks.

Dave Mac below the wood portage.

The log jam you paddle under - you can see Dave ducking under in the shadows.

Dave and Darren rout the final stretch of the Middle Cheak.

Skookum Creek

2009-06-26T00:48:00.003-07:00

Skookum Creek is an undertaking. If you'd like to find out how to participate, click here.

This was one of the rivers high on my 2009 hit list. A soggy day in mid June and it all came together - a few of us from Vancouver made it up there, along with a large contingent of Czech boaters here to sample the waterways of BC. It was a good day.

Not a lot of words about Skookum today - it's a great mission, but one that I'm not likely to return to this season - maybe next year after the memories of the walk in and the portage around the 50-60 foot waterfall fade back into the recesses of my mind. If you do find yourself going to the Skookum, get ready to scratch the shit out of your car, have a good bash down to the water, run some rapids and then some big waterfalls. There's a perfect one, and a bigger, not so perfect one. While the wood at the bottom was a great excuse to not run the big guy, I'm humble enough to admit I was also afraid of it because it's huge and lands in an eddy. Maybe next time!

Early on in the shuttle adventure - a little overgrown.

And it only got worse.

Ian was not afraid of the road - here he is fully enjoying the truck-assisted bushwhack.

Climbing down the side of a cliff - the only way in is to grovel and hope you don't slip and fall.

The first rewards.

More canyons to run - could this be the one that TRL spent time trying to chop a giant old growth out of?.

The first waterfall - there's not much else to say about it.

Proof that I kayak. This is the last waterfall that Everest will ever run. Thanks Jakub for the nice photo!

One of the scariest portages I've ever been involved in. Running the waterfall and dealing with the wood would probably been much safer.

The Skookum ends like this... Careful, those rocks are sharp!

Rutherford Creek Revival

2009-06-15T21:49:00.002-07:00

After over a months hiatus, LiquidLore returns with some fresh beta for the BC zone and tons of new stuff to post up to the site. With summer in full swing and rivers running throughout the land it's hard to justify sitting down to write about and fool with kayaking photos when I can be out boating instead! Coming down the pipe are more BC snipets, some fresh-off-the-plate updates from the East, and as is the custom for internet-kayaking in June/July (wouldn't want to be left out eh?), updates and new reports out of California.

My first trip down the Rutherford came on the last day of May after blazing hot temperatures in southwest BC - not much to report, check out the beta page if you want to see it for yourself. The Rutherford is a fine stream typical of the area - there is a lot of boulder action in there, and some good bedrock as well. You got to get there at the height of snowmelt these days though as this one has fallen to a run-of-the-river hydro project.

The only thing of note on our trip came in the form of an avalanche. It sounds worse than it actually was. Upon getting up in the morning and checking the level, Kyle confirmed the level was perfect. We left for breakfast, and just as we were leaving we noticed that the powerhouse was not producing power any more - could we be getting even more water on that fine sunny day?

We certainly were going to get more water - returning after food we found a river that was obviously much higher, and it had turned from that nice southern BC cloudly blue to angry brown. We were scared, and debated the merits and possbile pitfalls of putting on a swollen, muddy river without making any decisions about it. Matt was the only one really fired up about it - he's boated a lot in Colorado where apparently high, brown and with no eddies is the way they roll.

Just as we were going nowhere in the decision making process, one of the dam operators came by and explained the situation - there had been a big avalanche upstream that morning that clogged up the river - the resulting drop in flow at the powerhouse caused the generators to stop, as we saw when going for food. Apparently the riverbed dried up for a while, and the brown and high water we were seeing was a result of the bursting of the avalanche dam. With this beta, knowing the river was dropping again and that they would start diverting water soon we headed for the put in, finding a perfect level and blue water once again. What ensued was an uneventful but great day of boating with a level slowly dropping from perfect medium to a little on the low side.

The Rutherford is a good one - go check it out..

These signs are everywhere in BC - people may complain about logging, but it certainly makes getting to rivers easy.

The beautiful (not) artifical course at the end of the Rutherford.

Strolling through the BC forest - really not a big deal on the Rutherford.

Money shot of Matt Mackinnon on the first waterfall on the run.

Discussing the portage up a rotten earth bank - this portage is around a sizable waterfall that while runnable has a gross rapid immediately below. The falls does get run on occasion.

The main reason to portage is this mess - it tragically clamied the life of one boater a few years back.

Bedrock.

Boulders.

More, bigger boulders.

Kyle Dunn mushing through one of the last notable rapids on the Rutherford.

Lesson Learned. Jacques Cartier Nord Ouest

2009-05-11T18:50:00.015-07:00

On the May long weekend for the last few years it has become a tradition to journey to the waterways of Quebec, a pilgrimage that never let us down with good times, good friends and great whitwater - 2008 was no exception. Unbeknownst to me at the time, 2008 may have been the last May long weekend I'll get in Quebec for a little while and as the long weekend for 2009 approaches it's with a touch of nostalgia that I tell the tale of our fateful journeys on that weekend almost a year ago to the day.

Of course, going to boat in Quebec is almost synonymous with going to boat on the Neilson and Cachee - these are two excellent day trips with easy access and very good whitewater - high yielding whitewater rivers. We went to those first - if there was only one river I would ever get to boat on again, it just might be the Neilson.

Bob gracefully avoiding the top hole of the Picard on the Nielson.

The classic drop on the Cachee.

For the last few years we'd made attempts to sort out new rivers in that area beyond paddling the stuff we normally shoot for. For most of the easily accessible runs it's easy enough to get beta, and in the absence of that our topo map guy Adin has a long list of river stretches that are on his list to lead us towards. Our goal for 2008 was the try and run Jacques Cartier Nord Ouest. Click this link if you'd like to read about what we found and how you can organize a trip into this river.

For those familiar with the Taureau section of the Jacques Cartier - one of the iconic river reaches of Quebec kayaking - the Jacques Cartier Nord Ouest is the major river right tributary that joins the main Jacques Cartier during the paddle out on the Taureau. It obviously runs through an impressive canyon, and after logging many runs down the Taureau we naturally began to wonder what was to be found in the gorge upstream of the confluence.

Not a lot of information was available on this one - it receives little mention aside from acknowledgement of its existence in the Quebec guidebooks, and attempts to track anyone down that had actually run the river were not a success. From the varied channels of the internet and our own figuring the river is actually only a short 6 or 7 km stretch of whitewater, but due to a very long shuttle it would be best to fly to the put in lake seeing we wanted to maximize the boating time during the weekend. We also found out there is an unrunnable (or at least not yet run) gorge that is a hefty portage and you need higher levels on the Taureau to make the stretch runnable. Finally, it was said that you could get to the river after the portage via a scramble down the steep canyon wall, and the river could reasonably be done in one day. And with that, off we went.

We were five. Showing up at the float plane base at first light, it would take 2 flights to get everyone in to the lake, totaling about 2 hours of transit time. Due to a low ceiling our take off time was delayed by almost two hours - in retrospect, this delay was the leading cause of our unplanned epic in the woods that was to follow.

Adin and I took the first flight, straight to the lake. When we arrived, the plane flew off and we were left deep in the wilderness - we sparked up a fire and waited for the other guys to arrive - the flight in was beautiful flying over the hills of Quebec - there was still a lot of snow in the woods, and it was obvious the river wasn't going to suffer for a lack of water.

After an hour, the float plane returned with the rest of the guys, and when everyone jumped off the plane there was an immediate burst of excitement as they relayed to us visuals of the river - their flight flew right up the JCNW valley. The comment of the pilot upon returning to get the second load was (insert surly french accent here) "...it is very cold and there is a lot of water" and the comment of Christy upon landing on the lake was "... how much is it to fly back out with you?" From the air it was obvious the river was raging, and ran through an intimidating canyon - I'm glad I didn't get to see it...

And with that, off we went ready for a merry trip down a now not-so-merry looking river. The upper stretches above the gorge went by quickly and aside from a big waterfall we didn't run it was uneventful. It's obvious where the gorge starts, so after a quick lunch we started the bushwack. We knew that this was going to be a long portage, but man did we underestimate the amount of time it was going to take - between the four feet of snow in the woods, the impossibly thick bush and not really knowing where to go (aside from downstream) we were fully mired deep for about 4 hours - after a lot of swearing, sweating and getting pissed at one another we finally found a place to get to the water, and it was not a steep scramble, it was a 50 foot rappel. When the dust settled and we were ready to set off on the water is was 6 pm, and we had 3 hours of light to paddle the 6 km gorge and the river below the confluence with the Jacques Cartier, which while not hard whitewater it was 20 more km to the car because the road was closed about 20 km downstream from the ideal take out. As you should be able to predict, we didn't make it.

The sight of the first rapid immediately dashed our hopes of quick downstream progress - it was a massive drop with several stomping, overlapping holes at the bottom with the river rolling around the corner out of sight right below. A quick sneak/portage brought us to another big rapid, and another and another - it quickly became clear - well, it was already very clear - that the river was quite high and we were going to have to all scout everything. One particularly intense moment came about when we found ourselves at a location where portaging was not an option and we were faced with another big long rapid ending in a bad hole that we had no option but to run - luckily, everyone made it through without any trouble.

When night fell, we had no idea how far we'd make it down the river - we were in the midst of a portaging/running scary rapid race against the clock to get out before dark, and we lost. Tensions were high as darkness approached as some people wanted to just admit defeat and others wanted to push on until the bitter end, but once we stopped everyone took a deep breath, sat down and had a grand laugh at the whole thing - at least there wasn't a better group of guys to be stuck in the woods with!

Our campsite just happened to have a huge pile of driftwood next to it, and the first half of the night ended up not being so bad with a raging fire and good company as we tried to grab some sleep. This all changed at about 3 in the morning when the rain started to fall though - we sullenly put back on our damp kayaking gear to sit in the rain waiting for daylight so we could finish off the JCNW. Our friend Jamie had no issues with this though - he slept on the ground (well, on our pile of firewood) for the whole night even when it was raining, and when we were all standing around in our gear ready to go at daylight he actually said to us when we poked him to get up "..just let me hit the snooze button and grab a few minutes more sleep!"

Back on the river, we were almost at the confluence - there was one massive rapid called Landslide left that for us was an immediate portage. We later found that it was run a couple of times by some Quebec guys. Landslide is essentially the end of the whitewater, and as we merged onto the Jacques Cartier we thought we could finally sit back and cruise to the take out. Again, we were proven wrong - what is normally splashy class II during normal Taureau runs was ripping downstream like a freight train through huge wave trains hiding equally big holes - while it wasn't difficult there were a few instants when we were scrambling to get away from something ugly. Needless to say, the car at the take out was a sight for sore eyes - take out beers at 9 in the morning never tasted better.

And that's our Jacques Cartier Nord Ouest epic - a classic case of many small mistakes all rolled into one big disaster. Had the plane made it out on time, we would have made it to the confluence. Had the normal takeout been opened it would have been easy to get to the car that day. Had we packed for a 2 day trip the long portage and high water would have been much more managable and I bet we would have run almost everything. Had we known about the trail that went half way through the portage, the portage would have been half as long. Maybe it's just a case of over-analyzing something that simply just wasn't meant to happen in one day! In either case, I learned a lot on that trip, as I think everyone did. Would I recommend this trip? For sure - as long as you're ready for an adventure. Would I go back? In a heartbeat.

And, the pictures. Click here for the beta, if you missed the link up top.

The morning of our trip found us looking at the most classic of shuttle rigs.

For some reason Adin was very serious just before the plane took off.

The confluence of the Jacques Cartier and the Jacques Cartier Nord Ouest. Photo Bob Butler.

This is the big cliff you paddle under on the paddle out from the Taureau as seen from the sky. Photo Bob Butler.

The upstream view of the Jacques Carter Nord Ouest.

Something scary in the upper gorge. Photo Bob Butler

Upstream of the last photo - equally as stout, and unrunnable. Photo Bob Butler.

Coming in for a landing on the put in lake.

Our awesome shuttle rig - the DCH-2 Beaver.

Bummed it wasn't a good one, but stoked up to be out in the woods - the first waterfall.

Yeah, you can drive there too - this bridge is at the start of the portage.

Lunch break, before the hell bushwack began.

The bushwack was four hours of walking through this.

This is me, not looking very happy with the forest.

Big countryside - taking a break at the edge of the gorge during the portage.

An upstream view from where we went down to the water.

Looking down at one of the first rapids.

Peering into the heart of the gorge.

Bob, not a fan of heights, was the first one to plunge over the edge while Jamie checks his equipment.

Adin brings it home.

The first big one we got found.

This is the only other spot where I took photos of the whitewater on the first day.

The rapid at our unintended campsite - the river raged like this without stopping for a long way.

Settling in for a nice night in the woods.

This is us gazing down Landslide. It took about 2 seconds to decide to portage. Photo Bob Butler.

Looking up from the bottom of Landslide. Photo Bob Butler.

A parting shot - the last of the whitewater of the Jacques Cartier Nord Ouest as it exits the canyon.

Cascade Creek

2009-04-28T20:58:00.002-07:00

What's up internet kayakers? Before I get to the meat of this post, here's some recent beta from the Ashlu, if you happen to be in this area. As of last weekend (26-04) the Box is running, and the big pinches are clear and free of wood. Go get some before the flows come up to summer levels - the work on the dam up there is still ongoing and there's a strong likelyhood this spring will be the last time it runs as a free-flowing river. The loss of this river to hydro developement is a real tragedy - it's heartbreaking to see what's happening up there every time I visit.

Check out the photo gallery update as well, for your viewing pleasure.

Cascade Creek - this one is found in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver. While there is a long list of rivers to be found between Vancouver and Hope, they are generally of the wide open, not-so-steep variety. The Cascade, tucked away in a small valley near the southern end of Stave Lake is an exception to that generalization. Even if you were just to consider the two giant waterfalls at the end of the river the gradient is notable - above the falls, this small watershed is home to a steep section of boulder drops and a pristine, albeit short bedrock canyon. The biggest suprise about this creek is that there isn't a lot of beta out there to suggest it's run very often (it has been run though) - I don't know why.

Giant waterfalls at the end of the river aside - that have both been run by the way - the Cascade is really nice class IV-V trip - it's not super difficult, but does have enough action to keep you on your toes. You'll find some awesome bedrock falls and slides in there, as well as a great section of boulder slalom style stuff. The only downsides are that it is a hike in trip, and finding the put in that will let you miss the horrible mank section at the start is a bit tricky. That's all part of the adventure though - this creek is begging for others to get up there and run it.

I'm not quite sure what brought us to the Cascade in the first place - we headed out that way in February to look around and see the big drops - the river was much too low to consider running, but a quick look above the falls showed there was still plenty of gradient left for people not quite in to running 110 foot drops. A short walk up river lead us to some good looking boulder stuff. When we reached the end of a canyon section that ended in a 15-20 foot clean falls, we knew that coming back was a definite. Although we couldn't find anyone who had run it, Cody Howard and friends over at Huckin Huge had been there recently scouting (and slaying the big one) and confirmed our suspicions that people had been up there before.

With limited info, our trip went well - we messed up a bit on the hike in and put in too high up the river where, to be honest, there wasn't enough water to reasonably kayak. After a disheartening start because of this, it came as a huge relief to find the lower half of the river to be an amazing bedrock run with some excellent drops.

And with that, you'll want to click here to get the beta. Check the shots, they'll confirm that it really is a fun one.

Taking a rest stop on the slog up the hill to the put in.

This doesn't look too bad does it?

It got really bad.

There was the odd section of ok whitewater in the upper stretch.

Things went from bad to good when a major tributary entered from the left - this was the boof at the confluence.

A small boulder choker at the start of the canyon.

The first half of the first big rapid in the canyon.

More action.

Getting set to run another one.

Slides you'll find.

Crunch.

Rolling into a tight one - this drop caused some drama.

Exit drop.

The first big waterfall, weighing in at almost 110 feet.

Ever stare down the barrel of a 110 foot waterfall?

The second big waterfall - a 60 foot double drop. The top is good, but the bottom tier has a very tight line to not crash into rocks.

Ashlu Bottom Mile. Easter Update.

2009-04-16T23:34:00.002-07:00

While the weather in the lower mainland of BC is slowly starting to switch from the rain and cloud of winter to the rain and cloud of spring, the rivers are also slowly starting to awaken and trickle back to life. During the past few weeks as we wait patiently for the booming high water of summer we've been able to snag the Bottom Mile of the Ashlu for a few laps at both low and high levels. Despite praying for the Box to come in, flows haven't quite risen enough yet!

The weather, in spite of my comments above, is actually quite pleasant with many sunny days - the leaves are even starting to grow down in the city.. All this culminated in the crew having some amazing sunny days while we descended the final canyon of the amazing Ashlu Creek.

I've been looking to run this stretch for a long time - having visited the area several times in the "normal" kayaking season I've had a chance to run other stretches of the Ashlu and have always wondered what lay down in that first piece of river we drove past on the way to the upper reaches. Actually a little too keen this winter, our first attempt at the Bottom Mile in February was a failure - the water was too low, and it was mega cold with tons of snow at river level. Returning a month later however the Ashlu delivered. The Bottom Mile is a fine stretch of whitewater - it's steep with lots of boulder, cool boofs and sweet lines. Check it out if you're ever here in the kayaking off season.

Finishing up on the Ashlu half way through the Easter long weekend, Toni and I changed focus and headed south to Seattle to check out the city. It's a nice city. In addition to exploring down town, eating good food and drinking good beer, our secondary (or primary?) mission was to go paddle some of the classic whitewater sections close to the city.

We started on the Middle Middle - the Middle of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie. As is the case sometimes, AW mis-rated this section and it ended up being a float with almost no notable whitewater. It would be an excellent section to learn on though. Not deterred and with rain pouring down around us we decided to head further into the mountain to run the Fall In The Wall section of the South Fork Snoqualmie. The only beta we had was that the level was good (on the gauge) - a local kayaker, in passing, mentioned we may have to post hole through some snow to get to the river.

As we went deeper into the hills and up towards Snoqualmie Pass where the FITW is found our hopes went from high to sceptical to very low. Our friend wasn't kidding about post holing - where we were supposed to find the river we were met with no less than 15 feet of snow. Sheepishly turning around and taking a few photos of our blunder, we headed back to the city maybe not wiser but certainly armed with the knowledge that spring isn't a uniform phenomenon when you're living in the mountains...

The last day of the weekend we fired up the Sunset run of the Skykomish at a nice flow of 8000 cfs followed by a quick blast down the lower Sultan. Cool section, but way too short. Here are a few photos of the kayaking portion of the Washington trip.

No, boating is not an option at Snoqualmie Pass in April. We felt dumb...

Kayakers beware - only those with appropriate headgear may pass.

And last but not least, the beta for the Bottom Mile of the Ashlu, and some photos for you to check out.

Kyle Dunn marching towards the river.

The scene after the first major drop of the Bottom Mile.

Exiting the Tantalus drop.

Begin the boulders. Photo Kyle Dunn.

Photo Kyle Dunn.

Photo Kyle Dunn.

Action! It all worked out. The level was a little low, so getting screwed by rocks was inevitable.

The stacked action of the last few ledges.

The whole Bottom Mile.

Checking things out at a good, stout flows.

The sweet ledge boof at the end - this is the same ledge as in the photo three shot up above. The hole was sticky...

Welcome to BC: Norrish Creek

2009-04-05T22:58:00.005-07:00

Moving to Vancouver I had visions of endless winter kayaking arising from the incessant rain that is apparently supposed to douse this city endlessly. This winter that was not the case - sunny weather and cold temperatures put a halt to all kayaking activity for virtually the whole winter. Luckily there are some other high quality winter activities to enjoy around these parts, and between those and figuring out a new place to live I was kept plenty busy with other things.

However, when we had our first big rain two weeks ago, you can imagine the feeding frenzy that ensued once it became clear that rivers were going to run. Phone calls were made, thousands of dollars were spent on texting and people thought about quitting work to get a day on the water (luckily this didn't actually happen and all parties involved are still gainfully employed) and we went boating.

Things started with my first voyage down the Seymour in North Van at a respectable flow, but the next day more and more rain made this one go from good to high to too high overnight, so plans were laid to move out the Fraser Valley to try and run the Norrish Creek, a great low-stress river just an hour east of the city - we were successfull in having an amazing day on the water.

Smooth rocks, bedrock rapids and tight canyons make the Norrish a fun day on the water - we found medium-low flows that were quickly dropping out during our run down. I would recommend hitting this one as quickly as you can after rain - it's a great river to practice skills and run some rapids that you can't walk easily in a relatively innocous environment, but low water would not be enjoyable because of a shallow paddle out at the end.

The only event of note that day was the appearance of wood in the second big pinch on the river - while there is normally one log stuck in there that you can paddle around, a small but horribly placed tree made the rapid that takes you through the pinch and into a calm pool fully unrunnable. This rapid is supposedly unportagable, which we quickly proved to be false. A little team work and a seal launch from a small ledge got us around no problem.

You can find all the beta you need to run the Norrish by this link. Also, click on over to the Hell Or High Water site for some recent updates on everything you need to know to go blaze down the Petawawa in a few weeks.

And of course, some photos of the run, and a sneak peak of what's up next..

Scouting an excellent bedrock rapid at the start of the Norrish.

Matt Kompass getting ready to launch into the clear green water of the Norrish Creek.

Encountering a problem deep in the Norrish Creek valley.

Once we got around the log jam in the last picture, these two guys caught up to us and had an equally unpleasant time scrambling around the logs - it wasn't the end of the world but it was tedious.

Norrish Creek goes out with a bang - the boulder squeeze rapid means you're getting close to the end.

So what's next from the annals of LiquidLore kayaking? Take a look at this picture and get set for some more BC. The classic shot of the Lower Mile of the Ashlu. Stay tuned for an update and beta on this early (and late) season classic.

Straight as an arrow and steep to boot, this is the Lower Mile of the Ashlu - believe it or not, there's water in there somewhere.

Pre Spring Update: Hell Or High Water Petawawa

2009-03-16T20:44:00.006-07:00

Part 1: Come Hell Or High Water - The Petawawa Downriver Race

From Petawawa local/mastermind Philip Kompass comes the first ever (and hopefully not the last) Petawawa River race. Book off the time, kiss the kids goodbye, quit work, do what you have to do and get up there on May 9th for an ample helping of sweet rapids, fast lines and of course good times.

The Petawawa River, a major tributary of the Ottawa River upstream of the well-known rafting and playboating section is a fantastic and wild river with origins deep in the heart of Ontario's majestic Algonquin Park. Several hundred kilometers long, the Petawawa offers a variety of river opportunities ranging from a short but action-packed section of class III-IV right through the heart of the town of Petawawa to several amazing canoe routes in its upper reaches. Sometimes flooding upwards of 300 cms, the river offers big water rapids and play that rival the Ottawa during the spring melt, fun low volume river running the summer and everything in between.

Aside from promoting the Pet as a boating destination and encouraging boaters big and small to get out and celebrate the excitement of spring, this event also is of more sombre significance. Like many our our whitewater treasures, the Pet is under threat of hydro developement. Philip explains:

"The Petawawa River is currently being considered and assessed as a site for a hydro dam.

The Petawawa River is a gem. It is one of the few remaining whitewater rivers in “southern” Ontario that remains largely untouched; free of major dams, and any major industries as it flows from the heart of Algonquin Park. Let’s ensure that the recreational value of the river is more visible, and recognized by the general public.

More so, it is important to demonstrate that the river has recreational value to the general public at all water levels, conditions and temperatures.

Do those behind the dam projects realize the importance of the river from our perspective, as whitewater enthusiasts? Do they know that the general public can and does enjoy the river at its highest flow level? I don’t know, but I’d like to ensure that we demonstrate this."

Hopefully this gets you motivated to go up and check out this great river. For information on the race, click on over to the Come Hell Or High Water page for all the details. You can also download this convenient PDF of the beta, or use the link on the right hand sidebar to get the info too. Stay tuned to LiquidLore for more details as race day approaches.

Philip paddling into one of the Petawawa's fine rapids - Lovers.

Part 2: The LiquidLore Photo Gallery

Not much to say here - the LiquidLore Photo Gallery is now online for you viewing pleasure. Because weather, lighting and all those wonderful things don't always cooperate when we head out to gather beta for the LiquidLore guidebook, the photos in the write-ups aren't always prize winning. Maybe not prize winning, I thought it would be cool the keep the best photos as they happen all in one place, for easy viewing pleasure - check it out!

Here's a sample, and with that stay tuned for spring beta updates as they roll in when the snow starts to melt...

Bob Butler, stark granite and cool clear water on Upper Cherry Creek.

Grass River

2009-03-11T22:12:00.004-07:00

Here's lookin' at you...

Any boater who paddles a lot in New York has probably paddled, or certainly heard of the Twin Falls section of the Grass - for me, this is the best of all the pool drop rivers in the whole state. Maybe it's the fact it runs a lot at all kinds of different flows and it was close to home. Maybe it's because the rapids are awesome, especially when there's lots of water in the river. Over the years I've spent a lot of time on this run - it's produced a lot of good times for the whole crew - maybe that's what makes it my favorite.

The river is pretty sweet - it's typical New York with big ledges and slides interspersing long flat sections. Probably the biggest highlight is the first rapid, alternatively called Large Marge or Rainbow Falls, depending on who you talk to. It's often portaged, a lot because there is no warm up and however you look at it, it is a beast. The second highlight that everyone enjoys, and the main highlight if you're Marge-free is Twin Falls, a big cascading drop that often gives up an out-of-control ride. For such a tall drop it's easily runnable, in part because you can teeter over the edge and line yourself up before dropping in as it's as flat as a pancake above it. I've run both of these rapids on my head, which isn't recommended.

Being late at night, I can't come up with any witty anectdotes to tell you about the Grass right now, so you'll just have to check out the photos, read the river beta and go check it out - you won't be let down.

One more thing - if you've been following along you'll remember I mentioned the Seymour in North Van was clogged with trees for a good part of the winter - they all washed away last week, so go get some.

Large Marge/Rainbow Falls - hold on tight... Photo Max Kniewasser

A standard rapid on the Grass - Adrenaline Falls

Getting some surf on - the Grass can dish out pain

Some boat carnage in the second last rapid

Woooooaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Some Fine Whitewater

2009-03-03T13:14:00.005-08:00

... on the Fine section of the Oswegatchie. The Oswegatchie River in New York is a large river system with three branches that all come together to form the main stem that flows into the St. Lawrence. Typical to this part of New York, the river has copious amount of flat water punctuated by what can in some cases be some fairly stout rapids - this hole for example is not small.

Most people agree that the best of the Oswegatchie River is either the Bryants Bridge or the Sluice Falls section of the Middle Branch - I can't really argue against that, however the other branches do have some good pool-drop whitewater that often gets looked over because of other more popular sections in the area.

The Fine section of the East Branch Oswegatchie is the section in question today - despite the appealing name, most people think this section is anything but fine with long flat stretches and some rapids that most people will never run. This, coupled with two of the better drops sometimes not having water because of the action of two separate dams drive most people away.

All the same, this river is worth checking out, and I encourage you to do so, even if only once. The best thing about it is you can run it when everything else around there has virtually dried up, and the rapids that are there are really fun. Low water and some of the big drops will be a little more appealing as well. Having run this section at high levels, I can say it is definitely more exciting and you'll have a much better chance of having water below the dams, but the big rapids get even tougher than they already are. Did I sell you on it? Maybe not, but go check it out anyways - here are some shots of the run, and a link to the river beta to get you fired up.

In other news, if you live in Vancouver or plan on running the Seymour in the next little while, you may want to scout judiciously as there is a bad, unportagable (at anything but low water) log jam in the heart of the canyon - it will probably move at high water but for now it wouldn't be worth it, or safe, to run the river over maybe 2 feet on the gauge. With a spike to 5 feet this morning things may have changed, but be careful that the wood just doesn't get jammed up further down stream - scout before you drop in.

The first decent rapid on the Fine.

The second good one - this one smashes you against the right wall - believe it or not a lot of boat carnage happens here.

One of the monsters - any takers?

Awareness/Eastern Update

2009-02-20T00:55:00.003-08:00

Part 1: Awareness

If you've been following the internet kayaking news at all, you've probably heard all about the changes to the NWPA (Nagivable Waters Protection Act) that the Canadian government are trying to implement. It's not ideal - and it's an issue that spans far beyond the interests of whitewater boaters. I encourage you to read the I Speak For Canadian Rivers website as a portal for up-to-date information on the issue and for information on how you can contact the people that are involved in the decision making to voice your concerns.

The negative effects of this new legislation could be devastating to rivers everywhere. Take for example this map (below) of hydro projects in BC. This image is striking in its depiction of how many rivers are actually on the table for hydroelectric development - it represents almost every river, especially in the southwestern corner of the province. While the benfits of run-of-the-river power projects are clear with the current emphasis on developing clean, renewable energy sources, it is not acceptable for these projects to be developed without considering their environmental impacts or the negative effects these developments will have on recreational users of rivers. This is the reality of the changes that are being made to our laws.

Taken from Private Power Watch.

Is it really necessary to put a dam on every single river where hydroelectricity is a possibility? Take a look at the webpage of the Plutonic Power Corporation (doesn't this name scream environmentally friendly?). They seemingly want to dam every river from the Toba River up through Bute Inlet. Check it out - a development like this would forever change what is largely still a very wild area - our laws should not let things like this proceed unchecked.

Part 2: Eastern Update

Most of the last few beta updates have talked about rivers on the west coast - down in California to be precise. Getting back to the homeland, here's the new beta page for the Blanche River in Quebec. The Blanche is a short run that's a little bit out of the way, but is worth the visit. There are a bunch of fun slides on there, including one of the most exciting put in drops around.

Below are the photos that are in the river description - they're not the greatest shots ever but they give a decent feel for the run. Go check it out!

Looking down on the first drop of the Blanche.

Looking up at the first drop.

A big slide in the middle of the Blanche.

Shuttle Tales: Fantasy Falls

2009-02-09T20:58:00.004-08:00

If you remember from the last post about the South Siver, I said we met a bunch of friendly bunch of local boaters. Well of course when we started talking it didn't take long to get on the topic of who was going where to run what, and it was quickly decided that Fantasy Falls on the North Fork of the Mokelumne was going to be the next high Sierra river to come in, if it wasn't in already.

With it being just Bob and I on our trip and knowing that the shuttle on Fantasy Falls was long and convoluted we attempted to drop subtle hints that it was where we were headed next but didn't have much of a plan for shuttle, hoping that someone might be kind enough to help us out - at the end of the day nothing worked out, leaving us with a plan, but no way to act. The only suggestion we got was to put on shuttle be damned and work it out at the lake.

We decided to go to the put in anyways. After resupplying in Lake Tahoe and driving over Ebbets Pass from the back side we arrived at the put in bridge late at night, and a quick check showed the river was at prime flows. I thought it was nice to see the put in, but there was no way we'd ever see the rest of the river.

After getting up bright and early and with a little arm twisting on Bob's part, we decided we were there, it was good so it had to be done. We'd figure out how to get the van once we got to the take out. We packed up extra food just in case we had to live at the reservoir for a while and set off, our team of two.

What followed were 3 days of fantastic boating. To be honest it was a little scary with just the two of us - we ran a lot of big rapids and gorges blue angel style hoping someone would always make it through, and in the end everything we ran worked out smoothly - the only tense moment came when Bob got caught in a horrible depressed, recirculating eddy a drop or two below the boulder-sieve slide. Having selected the "chill" line down the right, I barely clawed through only to see Bob stuck deep - head and shoulder only showing. Bob is an great paddler though and once he got his bearings it only took a few seconds to dig out along the gorge wall to safety.

It was a grand feeling of accomplishment to sort out this run by ourselves with no real beta beyond it's good, and there are gorges. We didn't run everything - but wouldn't even if there were 10 people on the trip - the only downside is we didn't take a lot of boating photos as we were mainly concerned with each others saftey. You'll have to read the river information page of LiquidLore to get the full story of what to expect in there.

Some good stuff early on day 1.

Scouting something. Photo by Bob Butler.

Looking into one of several big gorges.

Falls of Fantasy.

So what happened with the shuttle? In the end we got to the take out in the early afternoon of the third day and only had to wait for a few hours before a crew that put on just behind us arrived at the take out as well. After many funny looks after hearing our tale of putting on without a shuttle they were gracious enough to squeeze me in for the trip back to the put in on route 4. A few weeks later after talking to some of the crew we met at South Silver we heard that after I got out of the car everyone had a good laugh when one of the guys in the truck (Alex from California) explained to his friends that he was the one how encouraged us to put on without a shuttle and hope for the best. Thanks for the tip Alex!

What's California Without South Silver?

2009-01-28T19:36:00.005-08:00

Like the title says, what would a trip to California be without going to see the South Silver? Well, if you didn't make it you'd still have fun, but you'd be missing out on just a little bit. It can be a little busy, but that's ok - the reason it's busy is because it's fun, and at low flows like when we were there it was relatively low stress. Besides, how many rivers do you get to paddle with bikini-clad girls lining the shore?

A rare sight for kayak bums.

The whole thing was quite funny really - there were 4 or 5 girls that showed up to watch this crew of dudes run the South Silver. In all my years, I've learned one thing, and it's that girls love agro screaming as you chest bang your bros. The main thing is they were having a good time, just like we did I guess

We came here right after running Bald Rock on the report that there wasn't going to be much water left for much longer. This beta was right on - the river was at a minimum flow, but as most of it is very clean bedrock low flow isn't a big deal, if not a little abusive on your gear. The low water took the edge off, but even still the drops are stacked and don't get any smaller. This river would get pretty stout with a lot of water in such a steep river bed.

Within the next day or so the flows dropped out here for the season, so we timed a visit up there perfectly. There were lots of people there and we ended up boating with some local guys from Sacramento who knew the river very well, and who we ended up spending some time boating with a little later on that summer. If you ever are in the area and things are running, make sure to get up in there and check it out - and, you can use this beta (click the link!) to help you figure it all out.

Bob's all smiles at the put in on another sunny day - the horizion for Autobahn is in the background. Autobahn is a long, low-angled slide.

After Autobahn we didn't stop until the teacups section - here's the biggest of them all.

.... and the last of the ledges above Skyscraper. It's been said before, and I'll say it again - it's a fitting name!

The entry move to Skyscraper.

Hanging out in the pool above Off Ramp.

A different angle at Off Ramp - check out all that California granite. There's not much space between these two rapids.

Late in the afternoon, going back up for one more run....

Relocation Mission: Robe Canyon

2009-01-17T21:31:00.004-08:00

Having successfully moved half way across the country, it's now official that LiquidLore is a west-coast based internet resource. While it will be a while before any beta is posted about some of the runs here - please use the wonderful side bar called "Go Kayaking Here" to see the guidebook listings for rivers in those areas - there is still a lot of eastern material to share so don't worry about not finding out about the latest and greatest out that way.

The lower mainland of BC typically sees quite a bit of rain in the winter, hence several of the rivers that run into North Vancouver are supposed to have flow more often than not. I guess this winter is a bit of an anomaly though - Vancouver was doused with many feet of snow, which isn't good for a city whose snowplow fleet consists of a small contingent of Ford pickup trucks instead of dumptrucks, front end loaders and snowblowers that deal with snowfall in Ontario. When I first arrived, the message from the city was to sit tight and wait for it to rain - if the plows couldn't deal, warm temperatures would.

Eventually the rain did come, in a big way - it poured for days, and the snow melted and made a lot of water, filling the rivers to the brim - alas, I missed boating the city rivers in lieu of going skiing instead, and by the time I got home the water had already receeded.

By the time this weekend rolled around, I was hoping to get a day in boating. Luckily some of the guys - Kyle and David - I met here were keen, as was Matt Kompass from up in Whistler so late on Friday evening a plan was hatched to go and run the Robe Canyon down in Washington. The previous week the rivers down there were way high, and we caught the tail end of those flows.

After a decent bit of driving and getting lost, we made it to the river and had an awesome day. Robe Canyon is a fantastic run with a ton of great rapids from start to finish. To top it off we boated with a great crew of local guys who were stoked to show us down. If this is the standard then the kayaking life - although maybe not Coquitlam life as the lads were only too happy to point out - is going to be good...

Check out some photos from today's trip - it was pretty slimy and dark in there being winter and all (meaning I didn't take the camera out a lot). And, on a completely different and somewhat random note, I've added the beta for the Branch River in New York to the New York section of the guide. For comparasion, Robe Canyon has about 20 drops that are equivalent to Blue Ridge Falls on the Branch, not including the boogie - and it's in a canyon. Enjoy!

Getting ready at the start of the river - a foggy drive down ended as a bright sunny day at the put in.

There wasn't a lot of sun in the canyon though - this was one of the rare sunny spots, above a rapid called Hotel California.

Getting ready to drop into the Hotel.

Kyle Dunn.

A random pool in Robe Canyon.

Portaging around the landslide rapid - the rocks were mega slick with a thin layer of ice. It sucked.

One of the sweetest boofs on the run.

Being an icy day, there were some neat ice formations to be found down there too. While it was great, we were happy to be back in warm clothes at the end.

New York Soul: The Moose

2009-01-08T23:21:00.004-08:00

It's a little out of season to write about the Moose River in New York - usually the hype about it all goes down in October, around about the time masses of kayakers migrate there to brave the cold (it's not that cold in October) and paddle on its waters. But, being the dead of winter when all the rivers are frozen, why not?

There's not a lot to say that hasn't been said really - the Moose is reasonably close to Ottawa, my home for the last few years up until a week ago - maybe it's nostalgia that made me look through some photos to put up on LiquidLore. It was one of the first rivers I did in the area. Blindly following Moose master Chris Koll down the whole river made for an eye-opening experience to say the least.

Lacking anything cool and witty to say about the Moose, here are some photos from the river, and don't forget to check the link for the guide to the run.

Some dude laying it down at Knife's Edge.

Serious inspection of each and every rapid is required.

Double Drop inducing large amounts of excitement down the center line.

Phitty.

Bob doesn't like the Moose, but here he is, boofing the shit out of Agers anyways.

Checking the scene at Crystal on a beautiful spring day.

The middle of Crystal, with the horseshoe ledges in the background.

Phil LaMarche keeping it tight on the final boof of Crystal.

The last drop of Crystal is tricky to style - here's some guy who got sucked backwards down the rocky center channel.

The more likely occurance at Crystal though is just to run the last drop on the ideal left side, but in a backwards, sideways or some other form of not in control It's flushy and deep though, so it's all good!

The Middle Feather

2009-01-01T21:29:00.012-08:00

Rewind back to June of 2008 - it seems like a long time ago now. Anyhow, maybe you'll remember some mention of a kayaking trip to California that my friend Bob and I decided to take part in - it was a long time coming, and we put in a good effort to get on as many rivers as we could in the 5 or 6 weeks that we had off that summer. The kayaking there is pretty good.

It all started in the previous fall when we wanted to take a chunk of time and try and get out there to sample to goods - well, to make a long story short it all came together. In the end we had our fair share of difficulties (nothing major though) and in the end everything worked out perfectly. Probably the biggest thing we had to deal with was the fact that we were 2 guys with one vehicle, and we thought that shuttles, at least at the start of the trip until we met some people, might end up being tricky - we weren't altogether incorrect.

After leaving Calgary (that's where we picked up our trusty van) and driving for many hours to California - Bob had scarlet fever so I drove the whole way - we decided to try and run the Bald Rock Canyon on the Middle Feather as a first river - partly because it's on the way further south, and partly because it seemed like a reasonable warm-up run.

Bald Rock Canyon ended up being a great section of whitewater, but there's one problem with it, particularly when you're there solo - the shuttle. From the obvious take out parking spot it's one hour or more to the put in bridge far back into the woods at Milsap Bar. This place is a USFS campground, and when we were in there, there was no shortage of interesting people camping out. The river itself isn't too long, maybe 6 or 7 miles, but the river ends in a reservoir, and the end of the river is some 13 or 14 miles from the spot where your car will be parked. Needless to say, the best option is to have a shuttle driver and get a boat to come pick you up at the river mouth. Not having either of these options immediately available, Bob and I headed to the put in without a plan.

You know you've made it to Milsap Bar when you see this sign at the end of a long dirt road. A lot of interesting people come to hang out here.

Like the guy who runs the Church of Asia who lives on the road down to Milsap Bar... The propaganda is thick in his front yard.

We made it to Milsap Bar and set up an nice camp site that night, pondering what to do about the shuttle having finally realized its magnitude. In the morning, after a little deliberation we finally decided that shuttle be damned we were going to run the river and move on to other places - we were going to pack our overnight stuff, paddle the river and make as much headway across the lake as we could and then try and hitch/walk back to the van at Milsap Bar the next day. Not the best plan, but at least it was a plan.

Just as we were about the start boating, we saw two trucks roll in to the campsite with boats in the back - we were in luck, maybe we'd be able to bum a shuttle with them! Interestingly, these guys (great guys by the way) were going to run the last day of the three day upper Middle Feather trip - the Devil's Canyon. With an offer of a shuttle and the hint they'd hit Bald Rock the next day, we went with them.

A one day Devil's Canyon trip is do-able, but the shuttle is long on some crappy dirt roads, and the hike down to the river is quite long. The whitewater ended up being fun, nice class IV - the water was definitely low on this stretch, which was expected as the 3 day Middle Feather trip is normally run at higher water then Bald Rock Canyon. As always though, it was good to see a new section and meet some new people.

A random rapid, low water Devil's Canyon - there's granite up there too, just not as much as in the Bald Rock Canyon.

When the day ended and the shuttle was dealt with we loaded up and all drove back out to Oroville to get some grub and rally for the next day. In the morning we all met up - the guys we paddled with were Eric, Kurt and Danny, all local guys - Eric was kind enough to find both a shuttle driver and someone to pick us up with a boat from the marina - so we headed back to Milsap Bar for Bald Rock Canyon

Bald Rock ended up being just the warm up river we were looking for in California - awesome granite rapids, a sweet canyon and a good crew that knew the river really well. Check out the beta page for all the info you need, and a selection of shots below to make you want to check it out...

Bob was obviously thrilled to be eating breakfast in the parking lot of an Oroville gas station.

Bald Rock Canyon has some amazing clear water and white granite.

The walls often slope right down into the river - usually they're curved at the bottom like they are in this photo, although they go straight into the water is some spots too.

Curtain Falls - this is where the meat of the run really starts.

Bald Rock has a mandatory portage around a mess of boulders called Atom Bomb Falls - this is what it looks like from the top. Photo by Bob Butler.

The portage involves a ferry above a sieve, shown here - not a big deal here, but at high water it would probably be terrifying.

Lunch break at the end of the Atom Bomb portage.

A typical scene from river level. Photo by Bob Butler.

There are some small boulder rapids down there.

And lots of bigger boulder rapids - this one has a notable undercut on the left.

When the hardest part is over, Bald Rock Dome comes into view. This was the first granite dome I got to see in California. Photo by Bob Butler.

Cruising on the lake back to the cars - Bob looks much happier after a day of whitewater kayaking.

Waterfalls of Quebec, Part 2

2008-12-20T11:18:00.006-08:00

Once again, the waterfalls of Quebec - although devoid of any major mountain range, Quebec has more than its share of fantastic waterfalls that you'd often associate with big hills and massive gradient. This is the second installment describing some of these beautys.

Like anywhere, eastern Canada has both a high season and a low season for whitewater boating. Here, when it's not winter, you can find rapids almost anywhere during the spring and again in the fall when the leaves are gone and it rains. On the other hand during the height of summer, barring some of the huge rivers and dam releases, rivers are typically dry right down to their rocky riverbeds. Last summer, after a particularly long spell with no rain we started looking for new and exciting places to go kayaking outside of the Ottawa and the dam release runs that are close to home.

The fall before that, Christy happened to be in Quebec City for a family vacation and came across the 7 Chutes of the St. Anne du Nord River. At the time the river was very high from fall rains, but the big waterfalls and the impressive gorge weren't forgotten. This river is close to Quebec City, laying just to the east and actually has a popular whitewater section below the 7 Chutes canyon as it runs towards the St. Lawerence River. As it wasn't really an option to try this thing at high water when this lower section is good, we reasoned that maybe a good time to go check it out would be in the summer when the run would be, as you would expect, low. A little detective work revealed low is good and it had been run a handful of times, but access is sensitive - just ask politely.

One weekend at the end of July we hatched a plan to load up the truck with a bike, fill it up with Christy, Bob (dragged from his rafting work on the Ottawa) and I and to go explore the 7 Chutes along with the Malbaie, which seemed to be running at a low but acceptable level. Both runs ended up being fantastic.

After the long drive to Quebec we crashed out in a park and got up ready to roll the next morning. We got the the 7 Chutes and just as we were ready to go another car rolled in with boats on the roof! It was a strange coincidence to see others there - they'd come for the 7 Chutes action too. As we ended up putting on before them, they observed us running and we had the chance to take some photos of them after we'd finished and they started.

The river itself ended up having 2 massive waterfalls, the first one and the last one - the last one didn't get run at all that day, but everyone tumbled down the first big slide to air, which was probably 50 feet tall. In between there were a handful of other runnable waterfalls which were all good and fun, but in the end the level was a little on the low side for some of the falls. It poured rain all day though, which set the stage for perfect flows on the Malbaie the next day

We managed to rally the other crew (Kelsey and Chris) to come with us to the Malbaie - it continued to rain all night - rather than sitting around in the rain, we spent the eveing driving around the woods trying to find the take out for the lower section of the Malbaie, with no success.

After a fitful sleep because of a terrorizing porcupine that kept sneaking into our campsite the night before, we woke to beautiful sunny blue skies and a rising flow on the river. After a short walk down to the water (the flow ended up somewhere between 40 and 45 cms) and a refreshing swim before getting geared up, we were shocked to see two Quebecers floating down the middle of the river in lifejackets stuffed with beer cans. At first we thought it might have been a canoe trip gone wrong, but no, they were out to drink some cold ones and swim down the river. After chatting for a while, they jumped in and continued on downriver - we didn't see them while boating - I guess they made it to wherever they were headed. Seeing things like that makes you realize that we (whitewater boaters) take ourselves a little too seriously sometimes...

The Malbaie was great - we didn't have to get out of our boats except for the famous/infamous? 30 foot drop. There was a lot of water thundering over the edge - to be honest, everyone was a little nervous - well almost everyone. Christy took one look, excitedly commented to everyone how good it seemed, jumped in his boat and probed away. After a successful run, our morale was boosted and we took turns running and re-running the falls. From there it was a short paddle to the bridge where we left the bike.

And so ended the 2007 weekend of Quebec waterfalls. Beautiful weather, good friends and some amazing rapids went down as one of the best on record. Have fun, but please remember to get proper permission if you want to run the 7 Chutes - ruining access would be a great loss here...

Click here for beta on the 7 Chutes, and check out some photos from our day there below.

Sliding into the first of the big rapids on the 7 Chutes. Photo by Christy Thompson.

The first drop in all its glory - you get going amazingly fast down this beast.

The second of the waterfalls in the 7 Chutes canyon.

Boofing down the 4th of the waterfalls. Photo by Christy Thompson.

The exact same moment, taken from the opposite bank of the river. Photo by Kelsey Thompson. Kelsey and Christy aren't related..

Waterfalls Of Quebec, Part 1

2008-12-11T23:02:00.006-08:00

By now, you're probably well aware of the many wonderful waterways in Quebec. There's really something for everyone there, including many high volume rivers that drain the continental mass of eastern Canada. While that's nice, this post isn't about said giants of whitewater. As big rivers need to start somewhere, it makes sense that there are a lot of smaller streams out there as well.

The Ottawa River is one of those big rivers. While being the border of Ontario and Quebec and most easily accessed from the Ontario side, most of its water originates in the deep woods of Quebec. In the lower reaches of the Ottawa valley, some of the small streams that add to an already substantial river have some fantastic sections of whitewater, some of them quite steep. One of these is the Petite Nation River, which forms several notable rapids including the Chutes de Plaisance just before the rivers' confluence with the Ottawa.

I first saw the Chutes in 2003 when I first moved to Ottawa - back then I thought they looked cool but didn't put any real thought into giving them a shot. Over the next few years it came up in conversation a few times, and finally we got over there last fall to give them a go (well, we went there once before that and chickened out). After a bunch of scouting and setting up safety, we managed to tick off both the main channel and even the river left side channel all the way from the top, with varying degrees of success, but all clean runs in the end.

While the Chutes are a spectacular end to the Petite Nation, there is a moderate section of river up above here that's fun in the spring when the river is high. I don't have beta for that one, but if the Chutes are your thing, click here to find out more.

The only warmup you get before dropping into the Chutes - the low November sun resulted in a lot of glare and shadow, as you'll see in the next shots.

The Chutes de Plaisance.

Standing in the shadow of the first cascade.

The second drop.

The far left channel.

Group photo, with nobody paying attention - these are the lookouts you can scout from.

Sunny California

2008-11-30T19:32:00.003-08:00

If anything, the weather in California in the summer is great. It just so happens that there's a lot of excellent whitewater there too. During a six week trip, it might have spat rain for one hour, one afternoon while we were on the water anyways. It's nice.

Weather aside (or maybe partially because of the weather), California is one of the premier whitewater tourist destinations in North America. Every spring, people come from afar to sample the smooth granite, the wide selection rivers and of course the famous class V multi-day kayaking trips. Really, it's a bit of a circus as the kayaking crowd migrates from river to river when the flows get just right.

Despite the emphasis on the harder whitewater down there, California, like anywhere else, also has it's fair share of quality moderate to easy whitewater so it would be a great destination for anyone, with proper selection of river section of course. The Sierra Nevada mountains provide a dramatic backdrop to the rivers, in addition to providing a fantastic reservoir of water in all the snow that gets depositied on the lofty peaks during the winter.

My first trip to California in 2008 came together a little last minute but ended up being an excellent experience, including lots of driving, meeting many great people, and of course some amazing boating. While we really only scratched the surface of all the whitewater there, I though it would be nice to share the beta on the runs we managed to get on. Fast-forwarding to the middle of our journey, read about the Hospital Rock section of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah, a nice river inside Sequoia National Park. We spent about a week in the area doing some different stuff, and I'd go back in a second.

Hospital Rock was the section we visited the most - it's quite fun, with a good mix of bedrock and boulder rapids. The poison oak on the banks leaves a lot to be desired though. We were initially taken a little by suprise on how challenging the river was from the start, but after a false start one day due to gear failure (the beginning of a long downward spiral that would ultimately result in kayak self-destruction) we managed to sort it out - the first two rapids are some of the more challenging on the run.

Here's a smattering of shots from the rest of our travels down there - there's a lot more to come later..

We drove towards this giant for a long time when we first got to California - Mt. Shasta.

Clear blue water floating into the heart of Bald Rock Canyon.

Classic South Silver - even though low, it was still steep!

Uhh, that looks very scary - a typical scene on the Mokelumne.

Look at all the nice California granite.

El Cap and the Yosemite valley.

A giant portage - at least the rock is like a sidewalk.

Guess what river this is.

Our trusty 1987 GMC Safari.

Hiking with a kayak is a lot of work, but well worth it.

Reaping the rewards of a long hike in.

Cachee Days

2008-11-24T17:33:00.004-08:00

The Cachee River is north of Quebec City - it's short, and it's good.

The first time I went to the Cachee a few years ago, we ran the upper section that wasn't a lot of fun - it's full of bad rocks and not a lot of nice rapids. Massive water levels might make it good. After getting off the river we decided to check out the infamous "Basse Cachee" - the lower section of the river that dumps down a steep hill into the Jacques-Cartier. Even though the crew all agreed it looked awesome, we ultimately didn't run it on that trip because, well, we were afraid!

Of course, immediately after leaving cries of having to go back asap were made, and later that summer we banged down the river at bare-minimum flows when we were there on another mission. Even though it was low, the river was something special for eastern boating - steep, continuous and quality rapids and ledges with barely a pool on the whole river...

Since that first visit, we've been back to the Cachee many times, and it never ceases to deliver a smile. Even though it's short, there are more rapids on this river that a lot of river sections we paddle a lot. We've had other low water days just to get something in, lots of days and lots of laps at normal flows (it usually runs the May long weekend, and at that time of year there's lots of other whitewater in the area) and even a high water trip that was one of the burlier days I've had boating in QC (the water was level with the top of the gauge rock at the put-in - it's all good still, but very pushy).

The fact that we continue to visit the Cachee attests to it's quality - you can't go wrong with a roadside river that will always be a good time! Take a peek at some photos taken over the last few years of the signature drop of the river - it's a good one...

Getting ready for the cascade - the first notable rapid is in the background.

Halfway down. See the eddy in the bottom center? Jamie was trying to catch it - after that run, he walked back up, and got right in there, no sweat...

Jamie, running like normal people do.

How it's done.

It's not all glory - the powerful hole at the bottom takes its toll.

More On The Mastigouche

2008-11-17T20:36:00.004-08:00

After a little delving into the names of the river we thought was the Mastigouche and the river we put on by mistake, I found out that the river with the multiple big slides is actually the Mastigouche Nord, and the river with the rapid we almost ran blind is the Mastigouche. Check out this link that describes (for canoeing) the sections below the steeper parts we ran. If you can read french, the directions are great in getting to both sections of river, with the names of lakes, roads and even rapids in the descriptions and on the maps.

Putting On The Wrong River...

2008-11-13T21:14:00.006-08:00

It’s funny what you can find when you just pick up a map and go to a river you’ve never been to before. Having met some of the local Quebec lads and trying to pick their brains for new rivers to run, they let loose the secret (ok, it might not have been a secret) about the Mastigouche. They told us about big slides and big fun, but not any info about where it was.

I didn’t think much of it after leaving Quebec that weekend, however Adin didn’t forget and began an extensive topo search of rivers called Mastigouche and found just what we were looking for – gradient and easy access. It just so happened that there were numerous other pieces of nice looking river in the area as well.

One year after the seed was planted, we headed towards the mythical Mastigouche (often referred to as the Messy Crotch by the crew – blame it on bad translation) one low water May 24th when the usual suspects were looking low and not fun. As one car load was leaving a day before the full contingent was to arrive, the prospect of a short shuttle on a new river was very appealing.

After driving around for a while, we finally found the river – it was short, just a few kms, and it obviously had gradient based on the climbing road from the end up to the start.

The river was fairly small, and was made up of a bunch of small slides – as we went along, we thought it was going to be a nice day, pretty relaxing as we had already lost what we thought was a decent amount of drop when we heard the dread scream “eddy out NOW!” from an eddy Christy and I had just paddled past.

After some tense scrambling and paddle-flailing we safely made it into an eddy at the brink of a very large rapid. Yeah, we would have blundered in had it not been for the warning. The photo below is what we found.

From the big guy down it was more of what we found above – all in all a fun river. It ended up though that this was not the Mastigouche we were looking for and we'd put on the wrong river - it was a small tributary flowing in below the whitewater we were actually looking for! We sorted it out and after uniting with the rest of the lads we spent the next day running the Mastigouche we were looking for in the first place – rather then one big slide, the Mastigouche proper had 4 or 5.

Here's all you need to know about getting to and boating down the Mastigouche River, the section we were out for in the first place.

The energy you need to run the Mastigouche

A not so glamourous put-in on the Mastigouche

Air on the signature drop

We ran it many times

Dispelling A Myth

2008-11-08T18:25:00.007-08:00

The Oswegatchie River - it's a big name, hard to spell. Good river too - there are are bunch of sections, on three different branches. Some are good, and some are good to do once. The Oswegatchie is typical of kayaking in northern New York - there is a lot of flatwater, with rapids in between, some of which are quite big.

The Middle Branch, flowing through the town of Harrisville on route 3 is agreed upon by most people as being the best branch, and the New York guidebook by Dennis Squires talks about 4 different sections that are all fun. Well, not wanting to miss out on all the fun, our crew ran the Bryants Bridge section (section 3) a few years back, and it ended up being great, with many good rapids and one of the best waterfalls in the area.

Our days always ended at the Bryants Bridge takeout. We knew that the takeout served as the start for section 4, the Sluice Falls section, but the tales in the guide about massive class V-V+ rapids that amount to a portage-fest just didn't sound appealing.

It went down one spring day in April when everything in the area was starting to get on the low side of good - having picked off most of the runs in the area, we decided to finally paddle down this section and check it out, even if we did have to carry a lot, just to see something different. We were a little suprised to find out in the end that there is no V+ on this piece of river - in fact, it turned out that there were about 10 class III-IV+ drops including a big steep slide but not including the Sluice Falls drop, which although intimidating and a step above the rest of the run certainly isn't class V+. All in all, a fun day on the water that's on par with all the other rivers in the Oswegatchie/Grass zone.

So, the guidebook description of this section is completely wrong, and it's probably scared a few people away from a good section of whitewater. Hopefully this post will help a few more go check it out - do it with the Bryants Bridge section if you can. Here's the link to the site for the Sluice, or just link to in from the menus on the side over there..

Last weekend, the first one of November when it's usually starting to get freezing cold we got a run down the Sluice on an awesome sunny day - there was 6 inches of snow on the ground and the water was cold, but it was a great way to start the end of the boating season. The fighter jets out of Fort Drum were putting on a cool aerial display too. In a couple weeks the water's going to be frozen and we'll be skiing, not kayaking - get it in while you can!

Down the pipe at the big slide - the low sun makes a lot of glare but doesn't make the rapid any less fun!

The Sluice. It looks impossibly narrow.

Running the Sluice - it's good. Photo by Adin Richardson.

Quebec

2008-11-03T20:35:00.005-08:00

The vast province of Quebec is quickly gaining recognition as one the marquee kayak spots in Canada. This place is a massive landmass that has many hills, a long winter and deep snow come spring - this equates to kayaking of all kinds - there are steep creeks, mellow play runs, rivers that rival in volume any of the classic big water runs, excellent surfing and limitless potential for discovery. As an added bonus, you can get fat on poutine when the kayaking's over!

Keeping it short and sweet, here are some photos of some rivers in Quebec, along with the first river from there, the Malbaie.

Rainbows on the Malbaie.

Waiting - summertime in Quebec.

Summertime in Quebec again, only on a much bigger river...

The First Of Many

2008-10-28T19:33:00.005-07:00

So why a guide?

Why not a guide? Finding river beta can be hard, particularly when a guidebook isn't available - so, I thought it would be cool to share what I've learned about where and when to go paddle a river. There will be runs here that everyone already knows about, and hopefully some that you don't know about so you can go enjoy them too.

How it works is simple - there are links on the right to different kayaking places. Click them to find out about the rivers. Each river will have flow info, directions and maps, and some (but hopefully not too much) river info - there's also a PDF version of the river page to print off and cart around to read on the way to the river.

Here's the first..

The Raquette

My home base has been Ottawa for the last 5 years - the Ottawa River has a heavy presence on the kayak scene here, but it's definitely not the only thing going - on top of world-class surfing there's also an abundance of not-so-classic to ultra-classic river running in all directions within a few hours drive.

The very first river I did when I got here was the Stone Valley section of the Raquette in New York, and I didn't really know what to expect at the time. It ended up being a great class IV-V- river that became the destination of choice in the summer to run laps during dam release, and a favorite amongst our crowd to run at all kinds of levels, all year. This run is stout at high water.

So, check out some photos below, and click this for the river guide.

Chris Koll, eating Colton Falls for breakfast.

Tim Kelly, at home.

Getting Set...

2008-10-23T20:27:00.006-07:00

Well, as nice as Blogger is, it doesn't really cut it for posting quality images - you get those little tiny ones that look more like thumbnails than photos. This is how they'll be on here, and in the guide once it's up and running. Getting excited?

This is the double drop on the B section of the Neilson, at about 50 cms in the spring of 08.

Marsyangdi takeout - no Himalayas you say? That's because all the rivers end on or on the way to the flat (and hot) Indian plains.

The Opening Line

2008-10-22T20:35:00.009-07:00

Well, here begins what hopefully becomes a useful and meaningful project.

I've had the mind to create an on-line, photo-friendly whitewater guide for some time, and after a lot of thinking on how to go about its presentation having no skillz in the internet arena, I thought a blog would be a good start.

A lot more is going to unfold over the next little while - the meat of the guidebook (well, the beginning of the meat, it is/will be an ongoing work) will start to trickle out soon. I'm pretty sure nobody will pick up on this right away, however while I work out the kinks, here are some whitewater paddleboating shots to entice a return visit...

Neilson River, QC

Takeout of the Marsyangdi River, Nepal