Epic Adventures

We had been in British Columbia for over 2 weeks now and had many days of excellent paddling behind us. So far we were unbeaten by the rivers and were starting to get overly confident. However, no trip would be complete without a story to tell.

We had chosen 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 to endure.

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 3^rd 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, to the awaiting rescue team. After a few photos we were finally able to retire to the local watering hole to relax, realising that this will be a story told over many a beer.