Day 5; Wednesday 28th July
A misty morning. We had porridge for breakfast, cheered by the spectacle of a big rainbow. But we were not yet ready to leave the R3 and R4 class P8. Originally, this rapid had looked too big for us, but once we had seen it from lower down, we (some of us!) decided that it was runnable after all, at least with empty canoes.
Warren portaged his canoe back up to the top of P8 and then ran solo.
He was followed by Rick and Alan who ran together.
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Alan then portaged Warren’s Mad River canoe back up to the top and ran solo
After all this excitement we loaded the canoes and paddled to P8.
Three kilometres below Portage Number 8, there is another Class 3 chute (P9) which can be run to the right of centre after careful examination from shore.
We all ran P9 OK
11.5 kilometres downstream from Portage Number 9 the canoeist encounters Bielby Rapids. This rapid is in two Class 2 sections: The first section is a large, but short, boulder field which can be run down the centre. The second section is separated into two channels by an island, the left channel appears to be the best to run.
We ran Bielby, but did not find the R2 chute which was supposed to be there. We had lunch on a tiny island and although there was very little wood available we managed to cook hotdogs on sticks. (In retrospect, we are surprised that we were still eating fresh hot dogs this late in the trip)
1.5 kilometre below Bielby Rapids another Class 2 rapid split by an island is encountered, the right channel appears to be the best to run starting on the right and moving to the left near the bottom.
We ran the two R2 rapids beside the islands
Two more short Class 2 bouldery rapids occur below Bielby Rapids and before Olson Rapids these should present no great problem to the alert canoeist.
There had been a very recent forest fire on one side of the river. We camped on a wooded island, where the campsite was a small hike away from the river.
We bathed on some slippery rocks. Warren and I went fishing, and caught a 3.75 lbs jack at the chute. We also retrieved a hook that the jack had bitten through at the first attempt. I was given job of filleting the jackfish - they have lots of bones at funny angles.
We had a multi-course dinner (remember the 4,000 calories being burned up every day) consisting of soup, macaroni-cheese, fried back-bacon and onions, fried jackfish, followed by fried bread (freshly made yeast bread, Brent’s specialty, fried in butter) with canned cherry pie filling spooned over it and coffee.
Night hawks dive bombed us on the island. The noise they make is extraordinary; we originally thought it was a moose calling. Scientific research showed that Deet does not weaken fishing line but it gets on everything else. We were late to bed.