British Columbia 2001
16th
July – 3rd August
After 13 arduous hours we finally touched down in Vancouver, B.C, to
find not the sun we were expecting, but gray skies and drizzle; this was to be
a recurring theme for the following three weeks of our adventure. As this was the first trip out of Europe
that anyone of us had done we had decided to play things by ear to allow us to
get as much boating done yet get to see as much of B.C as we could. The only requirement we all had this holiday
was to see a bear, although ideally from the car as Robin was really quite
paranoid about being attacked by one.
Grade VI can’t hurt us but a bear can was the general feeling of the
trip.
As a group we hadn’t done much paddling together but have all paddled
fairly extensively in Europe including France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy,
Germany, Slovenia, Spain and Portugal, so we were confident we would work well
as a team.
British Columbia is the western most state of Canada and is 4 times the size of the UK with a population not much bigger than that of London. This meant we had a lot of driving ahead of us. After initial car troubles we settled for 1 compact sized car and 1 cargo van for all the kit, the van making life so much easier with not having to waste time strapping boats on the roof.
Our first port of call had to be Skookumchuck. It turned out to be not so much of a warm up
but more of a work out! This awesome
tidal race only runs at a good level 1 week in 4 and no trip to be B.C would be
complete without a couple of days here.
High tide wasn’t till late in the day which gave us plenty of time to
recover from the evening bar sessions playing with the yokels in the local
Egmont Marina. For such a small resort
we met many local characters. These
included a once British based alcoholic who had started drinking at 7am, and a
crazy chimney sweep who had been jailed for attacking a cop with a telephone
(yes we did let him win at the pool table).
First day on the Skook was an eye opener, the wave will go from 6” to
about 6 foot in only a couple of minutes but then flows for around 4 hours
reaching a maximum of 3m with a huge foam pile. As the wave builds it is a sweet glass wave which starts breaking
and becoming more retentive as it gets larger.
We were paddling at the fastest flow of the year which meant the wave
was as big as it gets but by the second day became too fast and greened out
making it impossible to get on at peak flow.
This was the biggest wave any of us had been on before but we were able
to hold our own compared to most of the paddlers, with the exception of a
couple of the Canadian freestyle team who were getting some huge air. The only downside was below the wave was
incredibly boily and failure to make the eddy straight of the wave resulted in
people paddling several hundred meters downstream to get back up. After the wave peaked it dropped fairly
quickly and was harder to get on as a much faster sprint was required to beat
the higher. We would definitely
recommend a trip to Skookumchuck to anyone venturing to B.C, oops did I forget
to mention the 2 mile walk out with your boat!? Probably good bear country, but no sign of any.
It did get quite busy at Skookumchuck, we reckoned 30 paddles and
probably 50 tourists watching us.
However this wasn’t much of a problem as people were resting and given
the long paddle after falling off the wave, the queue for the wave didn’t last
too long and gave us a chat to get some local knowledge. Worryingly for us Dav was told he was going
to die going paddling a prozone on Canadian rivers, and as seen as we were all
in fairly extreme playboats (apart from sensible Method Air Carl) we became a
little wary of the rivers.
To get to Skookumchuck, it is best to paddle out from Egmont Marina (or
walk in if you so fancy) on slack tide to be able to watch the wave rise and
get warmed up. The later you leave it
the quicker the paddle, but the less surfing time. To get back to the cars you can either walk 2 miles up the path,
some people leave their boats at the wave without any problems. Alternatively you can paddle back as the
headlands form massive eddies making life quite easy.
Having warmed ourselves up (more like worn ourselves out) we headed off
to do what we came for, the rivers. The
guidebooks for the rivers of B.C come in a variety of standards; the Stuart
Smith books for the Rocky Mountains were accurate and very useful, the books
for areas nearer to Vancouver, we found out, are not published anymore, doh! We
resorted to using raft guide knowledge combined with the not so detailed World
River Guidebook for these rivers, which turned out not as bad as we had
expected.
A short break in the itinerary allowed for a brief stop in an internet
café in Whistler. Whistler is one of
the main winter ski resort towns in B.C and we reckoned it would be an awesome
party town when the skiers are there.
Whilst chatting to the “pleasant young lady” in the café, she informed
us she was unfit and couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do exercise,
we all felt Dav said it best as he retorted with “me thinks you is well
fit”. This amused us hugely and made us
realise that Canadians haven’t heard of Ali G!
Off we went to find ourselves a campsite only to find that the only
campsite was fully booked and the rest were 30mins away. A nearby car park suited us, although our
tents flooded when the sprinklers came on as it is kind of hard to peg them out
on tarmac.
Our first taste of Canadian rivers was to be the Cheakamus. We started by doing the lower section which
was a nice easy section but remained continuous for its 5km. It was a simple grade III with one drop
(-IV) being the only rapid of note. The
gorge directly below this section is allegedly unrunnable so made me slightly
nervous when Phil missed the last breakout above it, bloody muppet. After a few minutes of searching for him I
finally noticed his paddles flailing at the bottom of a steep slope where he
was clinging on to the rock wall creating his own eddy. Still, no real problems: Canadian rivers 0, playboats
1.
We then made the short drive further up the Cheakamus to paddle the
upper section. This was only a short
(3km) IV but was a gorgeous river, it was here we found what we had come for. The river, never getting past IV+, was
superb read and run rapids with some beautiful clear blue water. At the end of the section we didn’t really
have time for a 3rd section elsewhere and we liked this section so
much that we headed back up for a 2nd run down and some photo
opportunities, which meant more “Shaun Baker Camera” lines but nothing
serious. Canadian rivers 0, playboats
2.
We decided on a late night driving session to get us to some new rivers
so we left Whistler and cruised on to check out the mighty Thompson. It was still raining and with local flood
warnings we thought we should see what sections the local rafting companies
were doing. We were informed that the
Thompson was at a high level, what they meant was 63,000 cfs (around 1800
cumecs), mmmm that’ll be nice.
Looking at the river from the road, it all looked very easy and lots of
rafts were getting on as well. Everything looking good until one of the guides
asked us “have any of you guys got any big water experience”. We thought the amusing answer could be the
Tryweryn or HP at high flows but kept our witty answers to ourselves as he told
us he had been sucked 20 foot down in his Vertigo by one of the
whirlpools. What we want to know is why
was he carrying a depth gauge with him?
We put on above the Frog wave, (for which the river was far too high to
be working) and as we passed through this rapid we realised just how much water
63,000cfs is. The river never really
got above a IV but at this flow everything was huge, the lines were easy but it
was easy to get dragged by the massive boil lines or have a wave break on you
as you pass through/over it. We all
sneaked Jaws, the largest rapid on the river by staying far left. Oh, another thing to note is that American
raft guides either have a opposite river left and right to us or just find it
amusing to tell Brits the wrong line to see if they die or not. We were told to take Jaws on the right. For some reason, despite having seen us all
heading far left, Robin decided to stay right.
Beaten is probably a useful word to now describe what happened to him
for the few minutes following his choice of line!
After Jaws the river eases in grade but the boil lines don’t and in
some parts none of the river appeared to be flowing downstream, more like
straight down. Took out at the
confluence with the Fraser. If the
Thompson was at 63,000 cfs when it joins the Fraser, the Fraser must be well
over 200,000 cfs. Still, no problems
here, raft guides seem to talk an amazing amount of shit; either that or they are trying to keep us
away from their rivers. Canadian rivers
0, playboats 3.
Having heard the word Nahatlach mentioned several times from several
sources, we couldn’t give this one a miss.
The river looked fine although we weren’t entirely sure where the take
out was. Seemingly our problems were
solved as we met a Slovenian guy named Yanis who “knew” the river. Phil wasn’t paddling so he was directed as
to how to find us that at the bottom.
We put on at the lake and as Phil was leaving Yanis announced he had
swum on the river yesterday. Thoughts
of here we go, typical lone European boaters, but too late now. Bimbled down the upper section easily,
probably a III(IV-). As you pass the
raft base the gorge starts.
Within a couple of corners we reached the main rapid on the section
Yanis announced “you must inspect”. As
we got out of our boats it appeared we didn’t need to inspect but we went along
with him anyway. We all ran it fine
(nothing harder than IV) and I was starting to feel a lot more confident of
Yanis’ ability. That is until we were
sitting above a drop and as I signalled the rest down the right Yanis said it
goes easily on the left. As I was
confident of my choice of line I left his line up to him. As Carl, Robin and Dav sailed through far
right without any problems, I watched as Yanis failed to make the necessary
ferry glide across and he dropped sideways into the hole. After disappearing for a while, Yanis
appeared separated from his boat and blades.
Losing his blades and a pursuit made after them, we lent him our splits
to carry on down the section.
Fortunately a following group had found his blades so he was reunited
with them. Only a few more drops
followed before the take out.
The gorge would have been a great section but we weren’t able to enjoy
it in quite the style we were used to.
It did go on for longer, I think you can carry on down to the confluence
with the Fraser a few kilometers extra.
Canadian rivers 0, playboats 4 and still no bear.
We did most of our driving in the evenings, so we could use as much of
the daylight as possible for paddling.
Keeping with this theme we drove the 4 hours to Clearwater. The roads in Canada are reasonably good
quality. Most are tarmac but as you get
into the more deserted areas, i.e. where the rivers are, the tendency is for
dirt/gravel tracks. You can get stuck
behind lorries and tourists stopping to look at the sights but there are
regular overtaking lanes so this generally isn’t a problem.
The following morning we checked with one of the local rafting
companies for the best sections to run on the Clearwater. It appears that you can go as far up as you
want up the river and there are varying grades for the different sections. We
decided to put in just below The Kettle (VI) (the lowest section) as this was
the most commonly run section. Looking
at The Kettle it seemed there was a vague line, but if you screwed it up you
would be beaten seven ways into hell! We decided to put in below it.
The first rapid, The Wall (IV) has a horizon line over which it is
tricky to guess the line, so we left crazy Carl to check it out. After guessing it was ok, as we could just
make him out at the bottom, we all shot down it. No problems apart from Phil who managed, as seems a regular
occurrence, to roll his way down it.
There were a few more rapids, no harder than IV with quite a few play
waves, however it is not long before the river eases to a III and then to a II
for the last km of the section. As we
were running the shuttle we gave a lift to a couple of Scottish guys who had apparently
run a section higher up. We looked at
it as we took them to the top but it looked quite gay really so we couldn’t be
arsed, the bar was beckoning. Still,
Canadian rivers stuck on 0, they can’t beat us (we hope).
As we drove across the border with Alberta and up to Jasper that evening, it was raining solidly for most of the journey, and it seemed to rain all night. It was then not much of a surprise when we got to the River Canoe that it was very high and the dirt track was in quite a state. Carl and Phil only managed to get the van stuck once, but we were able to get it out after a few different attempts were made.
The get-in for the Canoe took a little finding, but we finally put on
at the gauge station. We ran both
sections of the river, the river was probably running at 30-40 cumecs and the
water was very cold and brown. The high
levels meant that there were very few eddies to be found which made for
interesting leading round blind bends by Carl and Dav. The river wasn’t technically hard (III/IV)
but was a superb run as you couldn’t see what was coming. Very fast reactions
were required. I was happy chilling at
the back amused by everyone else’s poor attempts to find eddies and often sat
watching them paddling round corners which I knew they couldn’t see past. One rapid of note, Powerline (IV+) easily
spotted by the overhead powerlines! Can
inspect right if necessary, we all followed Dav. About 500m below there is a tree across the river which if it was
any lower would make for an interesting portage. Luckily enough we were able to limbo under it, although Dav and
Phil messed up and splatted the tree somehow.
This was definitely bear country, Carl claims he saw one but we don’t
believe him; Canadian rivers 0, playboats 6, bears 0.
As we had been out in B.C now for some time and had been paddling
everyday, we took it upon ourselves to have a day off. We were in Jasper, which is one of the
largest tourist areas in the Rockies.
This meant there was no end of things to do. We settled for the Miette hot springs, which is a small swimming
pool with water at 38°C. Swimming kit was available to hire at a very
reasonable rate so we had found ourselves something to do for the
afternoon. On the drive there we did
check out a section on the Maligne which sounded like it would be good as Carl
read out the description. However when
we got there the riverbed was dry, Carl then read out “don’t be surprised of
this run is dry as it only has water in it about 1 in 4 years”, slaps all round
for Carl.
After getting up late the next day and reviewing our river options, we
figured it would be clever to drive to Banff as there was a) more rivers and b)
much more chances of some clubs and nightlife.
This however meant that it would be another rest day. Not much of a problem as we kind of are on
holiday. As we made the 250km drive we
stopped and checked out a lot of the tourist waterfalls and spent time
deliberating over what lines to take. As the traffic ground to a halt, we
realised we had found what we had come for. Although it was behind some bushes
we were quite clearly able to see a black bear. Black bears are smaller than grizzlies, but in the same hand a
bit less dangerous (we still didn’t fancy our chances), and despite the photos
not coming out all that clearly, we had seen a bear.
We also stopped and went for a wander on the Athabasca glacier, this
was quite an awesome sight. The river
running off it looked fun but probably not the warmest of runs! We arrived quite late in Banff so went for a
brief wander around town but were too tired to go and give it large, we
targeted the best places where we would come tomorrow.
Made the drive out from the eastern most edge of the Rockies towards
Calgary to go to the Kananaskis river.
We got there to find another dry riverbed. Challenges of “here Robin cross the river on these stepping
stones” went unmet fortunately as whilst we were walking back to the car, Robin
who had hung back shouted with delight, as we returned the river had risen over
a foot in a minute. It didn’t take us
too long to work out the river was damn released and would be running from 10-5
today. The Kananaskis is a simple grade
II 500m section with a play hole at the top and a wave at the bottom. The hole at the top was pretty small and
gay, by the end of the session people were getting multiple ends with splits
in. Dav and myself wanted some sick
blunting action so left to find the wave.
The wave was about 1m high and 2m wide, it was not very retentive but
with some practice, blunts, grinds and spins were all being pulled and held.
Now it was time to give it large in Banff. Shopping first, been as we had been wearing the same clothes for
the last 5 days, and didn’t have anything much cleaner to put on, Dav, Carl and
myself felt obliged to buy some good clothes to wear out. Robin and Phil went out in their 5-day-old
stuff, mmmm pleasant! Shopping is much
cheaper in UK, although credit cards still don’t like it if you simply buy more
because it is cheaper.
We decided to grab some food in KFC and spent a few minutes convincing
Robin that buying 80 bits of chicken between 5 if us would probably be a little
extreme. We settled for a bar from
which the noise levels were quite high guessing it would be quite fun. We met a bunch of mountain bikers from
Calgary who had come over to Banff for biking and drinking. We were instantly
challenged to a game of pool, so we were forced to beat them at that, our
reward, a round of beer, nice! However,
they then forced us to play them at the golf machine, to which they whooped our
arses, shots of some strange concoction were then passed round.
We then went with the crazy Canadian mountain bikers to a club that was
across the road. They were clearly
wasted and they soon wandered off searching for chicks in the club. As soon as we walked in you could tell it
would be a good night (obviously having a girl jump on me straight away had
nothing to do with this feeling).
Clubbing in Canada was just so much more relaxed than in Britain, no
dress code, drinks not too expensive and the people are all friendly. Whilst in Britain you would soon be in a
fight for looking at a girl who had a boyfriend, here we could meet anyone we
wanted and have a laugh. Best night out
ever.
Having re-warmed ourselves up and recovered from the previous night, we
drove to Golden to paddle as many sections there as we could in the last few
days we had left. On the way there we
checked out Johnston Canyon where Tao Berman had done is record fall. Most of the smaller falls would go if the
trees stuck in them weren’t there, but looking at the big fall, the guy must be
a madman, it is a bit on the high side.
We paddled the popular rafting run on the Kicking Horse, the Lower
Canyon Run. According to the gauge in
Golden the river was running medium-high.
We put in at Split Rock (-V) and whilst most of us ran it ok, Phil
managed to do his rolling down rapid maneuver again. After this there were some more IVs nothing too hard and quite a
few play spots. The section ends with a
couple of boring km of II, still, had some very nice rapids in it. Canadian
rivers 0, playboats 7, bears 1, wicked nights out 1.
We cooked and then went out checking for a bar. Golden isn’t the biggest of places and by
10pm we were bored. One suggestion of
lets go to Banff and our minds were made up.
We knew we could be there in around an hour and a half, so could be in
the club by midnight. 3.5 minutes later
we were changed and on our way, obviously no speeding at all was done by myself
at all! Another cracking night out
ensued and then the marathon drive home at 4am. I managed to get us most of the way back, but as the Americans
aren’t allowed to sell taurine, no redbull or proplus was available and I flaked
at around 5am as the others were all asleep.
Robin drove the remaining half-hour with only the one minor incident of
trying to drive the wrong way down a highway slip road!! Fortunately, we got back in once piece.
Canadian rivers 0, playboats 7, bears 1, wicked nights out 2.
With a second wicked night out under our belts we didn’t really get up
until lunchtime. After a lot of
deliberating we decided to run the short section of the Kicking Horse down to
the Natural Bridge. It is a one shot
wonder grade V, line relatively simple down the center of the drop. You must take out before the Natural
Bridge. Here hoards of tourists will
wave frantically to tell you to get out, as the river flows through a gap of
about 50cm and is basically death on a stick.
As we had been so slack this morning, there was no way we could get a
second section done anywhere, so we quietly retired to the bar.
No trip would be complete without an epic and this one was to be no
exception. We chose Glenogle Creek as
our next challenge, sounded quite straight forward 4km of grade IV with a
possibility of a couple of log jams.
Whilst our diary report reads quite simply “quite easy, lots of log jams
in the harder drops, one tricky portage at end” it doesn’t reflect the nine
hour epic we had.
As we arrived at the get in the river was looking a bit none
existent. It must have been 6 inches
deep and about 1.5m wide and looked like a rock-scraping mission down grade II
for as far as we could see. Whilst
Robin and Phil said no way, for some reason Carl and Dav thought it would go
and “it’ll get narrower and deeper downstream”. With their mind made up I chose to tag along with them just as it
seemed a better option than sitting around playing shuttle bunny.
Setting off, we were just about able to navigate the river without
having to get out of the boats, wasn’t looking too bad. The guidebook had warned of log jams so we
weren’t dismayed at the first couple that blocked our path. In many cases we were able to limbo under
many of the trees as the river was quite low, some however were complete
barricades of wood. The river became
more navigable as it closed into the steep gorge and there were a couple of
rapids of III-III+. We arrived at the one
bit of the river which we had previously seen from the road and were slightly
worried about as the drops looked big from 400m up and no portage path visible
across the 80° scree slopes
stretching hundreds of meters upwards.
The rapid was as we had anticipated a definite portage as there were
trees stuck in the drops in the wrong places.
Fortunately there was a route around the rapid , here a good balance was
required but the portage was possible.
Fortunately not much time lost here.
By now we had lost count of the endless logjams and portages we had had
to make. As we got out to inspect
another series of drops, we thought we couldn’t be that far from the end and we
weren’t wrong (in distance terms). The
first couple of drops went ok and we were able to do these but there was one
big drop around the corner that we just couldn’t see. We spent some time trying to scrabble up the slopes to get a
better look but just couldn’t see what was there. Last Eddy Follows claimed he could see an eddy right above the
drop from which he would be able to see. What he hadn’t thought about was a dry
exit from the eddy, 20ft sheer sided cliffs were in his way.
As Dav and myself scrambled higher desperate to see the drop, Carl had
gone before we had chance to call him back.
Dav got as high as possible and could just make out the drop and it was
a definite grade VI piling into a wall, no way are we killing ourselves
here! Carl had somehow managed to get
out of his boat and was on the side but not able to get up without a rope, and
we couldn’t get too him as the cliffs were in the way. What was also frustrating was we could see
the confluence with the Kicking Horse just 200m downstream. However, to get Carl out and get all our
gear out we had to traverse the 80° scree slopes to
get a line too him. Apparently there is
a comparatively better portage path on river left, but with Carl stuck on river
right this was no option for us.
There was a kind of route available to us along the right hand bank for
which we could use the trees to secure ropes to and traverse across to get a
rope to Carl. Doesn’t sound too bad but
we had to climb 50m upwards to get to the route! We left Carl hoping that he wouldn’t consider running the drop
just to get out of the river, and started our marathon climb upwards. Dav and myself were able to work quite well
together and reasonable efficiently get all our gear two rope lengths directly
upwards. As we secured our boats on the
steep slopes for the second time we looked for a route across the scree slope. The problem here was I had to cross without
the aid of a rope, rope doesn’t work going horizontally with no gear, with a
50m fall down the slope bouncing off the cliff and a further 10m fall into the river waiting for me if I screwed
up.
I tried several different routes across the slope before settling for a
more diagonally downwards route, which would get me to Carl more directly and
give me a slight bit of security with a rope.
As I tentatively reached the security of the trees on the far side I was
able to tie a rope off and get a more secure footing. Fortunately I was back in contact again with Carl. This short 100m journey had taken us over 2
hours already, Carl claimed he had been tempted to run the drop as he didn’t
have a clue where we were.
As I began getting Carl and his kit up from where he was stuck Dav was
coming up with cunning plans of shifting the boats and paddles. The most tempting of which was leaving them
in the gorge and claiming on the insurance!
We settled for a more economical approach and basically attached the
boats to the taught line and threw them down the slope, it might break them,
but they were insured.
In theory the idea would have been fine but Dav made the slight
school-boy error of attaching the boat directly to the rope with a karabiner,
forgetting to use a sling. We then
realised we were in trouble as the krab caught on the two krabs joining the
rope together in the middle of the huge slope.
Lucky muggins here gets to traverse back out into the danger and whilst
holding on with one hand try and unclip a 20kg boat and reclip it with no slack
in the rope. After several attempts I
just couldn’t manage it and was getting very sore arms. Not to worry, sort it out in a minute,
second boat down, sling attached, no problem, get the two boats together. And
Dav can sort them when comes across.
It was at this point we realised we were going to have to sacrifice our
ropes to the gorge. We checked how
much more rope we would need to get out, we figured we could lose one rope
completely and lose most of another one, only one last bit to go and we would
be out, quite lucky really as we didn’t have any other options. No time to worry about being knackered or
the 5 hour adrenaline rush we were all having, we needed to get out as it was
getting late. It was 8pm and the
reality dawned on us, we just wouldn’t make it back to Banff for a 3rd
night out in a row, ahhhhh quiet night in, well if we don’t fall to a horrible
and painful death that could so easily occur.
After much struggling by Dav he was able to somehow sort the boats out
and release them and we pulled them into the safety of the trees relatively
undamaged. We were close to 4 hours
into our marathon portage now, why didn’t I stay with Phil and Robin in the
car, bloody Follows and his last eddies!
Whilst completing the final abseil down to safety I could just make out
red flashing lights on the road on the far side of the Kicking Horse
river. I realised that our caring
friends Rob and Phil had probably been a bit concerned for our safety. Leaving the other two to get themselves
down, I ran to the river to try to signal we were ok to the waiting emergency
services. Unknown to us the police had
been contacted about 3 hours earlier and about half an hour ago mountain rescue
had been called out, bring on the helicopter.
My first thoughts were get back to Carl, get his camera, I wanted a
photo of the helicopter. The chopper
landed on the railway tracks and after a brief conversation to confirm we were
all ok they left us to ourselves and the waiting vehicles. Gather all the kit together and get out of
this goddamn gorge from hell, after a brief yet fun 9-hour adventure.
We had a 500m paddle down the Kicking Horse to the planned get out and
as we cartwheeled our way down the remaining few meters relieved to find deep
water. The remaining rescue people
thought we were struggling as we were rolling quite regularly, until Robin
explained what we were doing. Everyone
waiting for us was relieved to us alive and well. One of the rescue people, happened to be a kayaker and informed
us that Stuart Smith (guidebook author) is known for being a nutter (he used
the words kiddy fiddler) who seems to like his crazy little creek runs he
includes in his book.
It was getting quite late so we retired to a local bar half amused,
half embarrassed by our little adventure, realising this would be a story to be
told for years to come. A couple of
beers later we collapsed in the tents, exhausted. Still, we didn’t let the river beat us Canadian rivers 0,
playboats 9, bears 1, wicked nights out 2
No surprises the following morning we got up quite late. Not content with one epic, Dav and Robin
decided to tackle the Ottertail, this involves an 8km walk-in for the get
on. Sod that was the response that came
from Phil, Carl and myself, but Dav and Robin were convinced it was a good idea
(don’t ask me why). We left them
wandering off up the trail as we settled for a more relaxing day. We figured we should return in about 5 hours
(2-3 hours walking 2 hours paddling) and they will probably be absolutely
knackered.
We managed to find a suitable section on the Kicking Horse, an 8km
section of III/IV, nice an easy won’t have any problems. It turned out to be a nice play run with
several fast steep waves for spinning and blunting once you had caught them, we
didn’t hang around for too long as we didn’t want to be late for the others.
Returning to the get out, no sign of Dav or Robin, good chance for a
quick sleep, hope we don’t have to call our friends at Mountain Rescue
again! It was only an hour or so later
that they returned shattered from miles of walking. Apparently they had missed the get in and reckoned they had gone
an extra 3km through the forest, rather them than me. Reports on the section are that it starts as a sweet grade IV,
then eases into a III and then some dull grade II to finish.
Final Scores: Canadian rivers 0, playboats 10, bears 1, wicked nights
out 2.
And so ended our Canadian adventures.
As far as I am aware everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We went paddling almost everyday for the 16
days we spent in B.C and Alberta. We
have added some awesome rivers to our done list but had to miss many more. Maybe in a few years time we will return and
yet again show them who is boss.
Report by Stephen Tebbett, paddling with Carl Follows, Davide Calogero,
Robin Scott and Phil Macdonald.
We flew with Canada3000 for £550 each from Gatwick to Vancouver. Flights from Dial-a-flight. Canada3000 have a policy of flying all
sports equipment free of charge. We
thought we had direct flights to Vancouver but stopped for an hour in Edmonton
(outbound) and Calgary (return) for more fuel.
This made the journeys 12 hours (direct is around 9-10 hours). No problems at either end checking in loads
of kit. Vancouver is 8 hours behind
London; Calgary is 7.
We originally hired 2 cars from Rentawreck (www.rentawreck.com)
at a cost of $900 CN (£450) each for 3 weeks.
These allow 200km free per day.
Having tried many methods of transporting boats, we exchanged (at no
charge) one car for a cargo van with Lo-Cost.
The van was $1000 to hire but with an allowance of only 50km per day and
18cents per extra km the total for the van came to more like $2000CN (£1000),
still well worth it. In total we drove
4500km in 18 days.
We spent most of our time in British Columbia, but crossed into Alberta
to check out Jasper and Banff where most of the glacial areas are
accessible. There is a one-hour time
zone between states.
We mainly camped at B.C provincial park campsites. These are very good and generally had
showers and fire pits, but they do get very busy with all the large Americans
with their large caravans. It cost
$18CN per site, some places would let us use just 1 site for 5 of us, and some
required us to use 2. Campsites are
generally quite regular along the main routes and are well sign posted. However, maps generally mark all the big
campsites on. Finding campsites around
Vancouver was a little harder, we thought the best one was at Capilano, just
North of Stanley Park. This had a
swimming pool and hot tub, and was only a short drive from the city center for
a cost of £4 per person, very reasonable for a city area.
With an exchange rate of around $2.1CN (Canadian Dollars) to the pound,
food is roughly comparable in price to UK in the supermarkets. Eating out is cheaper than UK but drinking
out is more expensive. Petrol is much
cheaper than UK. In 3 weeks, we spent
£550 on cars, petrol and food per person, (not including beers etc….) which we
all thought was quite reasonable, could be done cheaper but then not as fun.
We had obtained the Central Rockies by Stuart Smith through Amazon online before we left, but were not able to get the Southern one as they had no stock. Both of these books were available from Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) in Vancouver. MEC is the biggest outdoor shop I have ever seen in my life. If you want to buy something, they charge $5 for lifetime membership. They stocked a very comprehensive range of guidebooks from all around the World.
We used the 2 Stuart Smith guides to cover the rivers in the
Rockies. These guides were generally
very good. Stuart Smith however must be
a nutter, he seems to enjoy carrying all his kit 20km to get in and rock bash
20km of grade VI+. Be slightly cautious
of the creeks, but for the larger runs, no problems with the book.
We also used the Betty Pratt World River Guidebook, as this seemed to
have rivers like the Nahatlach and Clearwater in it. Not detailed at all but
useful to find the rivers.
It rained almost everyday for 3 weeks. We had a couple of half days of sun but nothing more than that. In the same hand, the temperatures weren’t too low probably around 18-20°C.
We had a mixture of water levels.
At the start of the holiday we were worried that the levels were too low
as some sections we checked out were dry.
This turned out to not be an issue as some of the rivers were running
very high (Thompson, Canoe). We had
wanted to do some of the upper Fraser sections but the locals were saying they
wouldn’t go near it, so we thought it sensible to give it a miss.
Bit of a tricky decision to pick out one best bit of the trip. Close runners up would be surfing at
Skookumchuck, paddling the Thompson at 63,000 cfs and even seeing a bear. However, the best experience had to be
clubbing in Banff. The atmosphere in
this town was amazing, we met so many cool people who were up for a big laugh
and as soon as we entered the club the atmosphere was amazing. 500 people having an awesome night out being
friendly to everyone. I think we would
all return just to go clubbing in Banff!
|
Date |
Section |
Length |
Flow |
Grade |
Comments |
|
18/7/01 |
Skookumchuck |
2 mile paddle/2 mile walk |
Peak flow 12.0 knots |
|
Awesome. Leave Egmont marina
3 hours before high tide |
|
19/7/01 |
Skook |
As above |
Peak flow 13.0 |
|
Flow too large, better at 11-12 knots |
|
20/07/01 |
Cheakamus from Dam |
5km |
20 cumecs |
III(IV-) |
Easy, inspect take out as gorge below is unrunnable |
|
20/07/01 |
Upper Cheakamus |
3km |
15 cumecs |
IV(IV+) |
Sweet, pool drop IV |
|
21/07/01 |
Thompson |
15km? |
1800 cumecs |
IV |
Absolutely huge |
|
22/07/01 |
Nahatlach |
10km |
30 cumecs? |
III(IV) |
Could have gone further. |
|
23/07/01 |
Clearwater |
7km |
100 cumecs |
IV |
Eases off towards end |
|
24/07/01 |
Upper Canoe |
7km |
30 cumecs |
III |
Very high level |
|
|
Lower Canoe |
4km |
30 cumecs |
III(IV+) |
Sweet |
|
25/07/01 |
Miette Hot springs |
1.5 hours |
No flow |
38°C |
Can hire swimming kit there, ideal rest day |
|
27/07/01 |
Kananaskis Wave/Hole |
1km |
20 cumecs |
III |
Nice little wave |
|
28/07/01 |
Kicking Horse, Canyon run |
6km |
60 cumecs |
III-IV |
Good play run |
|
29/07/01 |
Kicking Horse Highway Bridge down |
1.5km |
40 cumecs |
V |
1 shot wonder |
|
30/07/01 |
Glenogle creek |
4km |
0.5 cumecs |
IV |
See report!! |
|
31/07/01 |
Upper Kicking Horse |
8km |
40 cumecs |
III(IV) |
Good play run |
|
31/07/01 |
Ottertail |
8km |
10 cumecs |
III-IV |
8km walk in !! |