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94-06-10: Friday Today we were to paddle down the gorge past McKenzie Falls. We woke up around 7. It was a little cold/cool in early the morning, but was okay by the time I crawled out of bed. Brent and Alan went off to do the car shuttle. Normally, we would park the cars in a heavily-used provincial campground (or hide them) to protect them from vandalism, which is common out here. But this time, it would have been very difficult to hide them, without getting thoroughly stuck in the soft sand. Both cars ended up within 50 ft. of the road. We packed up camp and made coffee on the stove. We usually do all our cooking on a campfire, but we were in a rush to get going. We also ate a little granola. We then paddled down the creek, which was more like river when in flood and joined up with the Haultain river. There was a surprising amound of current, in spite of being pretty wide. We were thrilled. Warren & Rick
We arrived at our first set of rapids. David Rapids had two holes on opposites sides, requiring a good back ferry in the middle to miss the second one. Missing the holes wasn't essential, just drier and maybe safer. Darryl and Alan didn't bother with a back ferry, and whipped across the top part of the rapid on a diagonal, then plowed down through some of the bigger stuff. Safe! Rick and I ferried nicely across the middle, but still took on a bunch of water as we went through some of the haystacks after the holes. Mike and Brent didn't do as well. They took on some water at the top, then hit the second hole sideways as they tried to avoid it. The canoe flipped very quickly. Mike got his legs bruised, either by the speed of the flip or by the struggle to get out when upside down. We helped them drag canoe to shore and empty it. Sequence of how NOT to do it!
There are 4 photos (each with a canoe in it) in this sequence. You have to look at the big version to see Mike's hand and paddle still in the air after the flip.
We then stayed and played a while at the bottom of the rapid, practicing eddying in, eddying out and so on. Rick and I flipped while trying to ferry across the boil. We were probably a little too close to the rapid. Things were very twitchy and unstable and we ended up surfing down the front of a wave , burying the bow, which then snapped the canoe around and flipped us. Fun and fast. I swam to the canoe, rolled it back upright, and climbed back in. It rolled up with very little water inside, maybe only 7 inches. One of the advantages of having all your gear in waterproof bags, strapped down tightly in the canoe. I frequently exit a rapid with the water level inside the canoe higher than the water level outside! Exhilarated, we paddle on to McKenzie Falls... and ran them. They turned out to be an easy Class 3 rapid. We gleefully paddled on. We arrived at the top of the gorge. Rick and I always look forward to a gorge. Brent and Mike are a little less enthusastic about them. A gorge usually creates a longer rapid than the short rapids we usually get in Saskatchewan, as one lake drops into the next ("pool and drop" type waterways). It turned out to be a huge violent (class 4+) rapid, as the whole river zigged and zagged down the first part of the gorge. Rick and I looked at the rapid, and decided that everything below the big zig zag was runnable. We were unable to convince anyone else of this, so we split up. Splitting up is never a good idea and we rarely do it, and so don't have any good back up plans. This time it turned out okay, even if there was a fair amount of confusion on both sides while we were separated. Rick and I portaged (on river-left) the hairy part of the rapid while the rest of the gang set off down a trail on river-right. There was lots of deadfall, but it wasn't too bad on top of big rocks. We put in just below Class 4 stuff, but there was still plenty of big stuff to go through before entering calm looking pond below. We turned upstream and forward ferried to get across to the smaller stuff on the other side, and then ran down through the rest. Rick and I then pulled out a small beach (river-right) at bottom of the rapid, but no-one was there to meet us. We waited for a while, and then decided that something was up. We got back in canoe and paddled over to the other side of the pool. As we crossed over, we discovered twin 15 ft. falls at exit of calm pool. Lessons Learned: Don't trust the map and scout ahead. We had assumed that the Class 4 part of the rapid (which was marked and labelled as the falls), was the falls. The real MacKenzie falls were over 2 kilometers away from their marked position on the map! The Real MacKenzie Falls
Once again, we portaged (river-left). This time it was tougher. Even more deadfall, and then The rapid looked nice and runnable, so, we had to run it. I carried the canoe down the steep sandy/gravelly slope to the river at the bottom of falls, while Rick acted as a brakeman from behind. Warren portaging thru the deadfall
This picture was taken by the rest of the gang portaging down the other side of the river. I loaded up the canoe while Rick walked (struggled) down along the river bank to scout out the rest of the rapid. He got back with a report of a deadly ledge at bottom of rapid, so if we wanted to run it, we MUST eddy out to river right before bottom. Only problem was that if we ended up swimming, the ledge looked to be a keeper. The Ledge
Warren, forever the optimist said "No real problem, just make sure that we don't swim". Rick and I had a long discussion (well, maybe arguement about the best way to tackle this rapid. I favoured a forward ferry, while Rick wanted to back ferry across. I think I was more comfortable with forward ferries than Rick is, probably mostly from my kayaking experiences. In a kayak, forward ferries are a way of life (you try back ferrying in a kayak one day, it doesn't work). I felt a back ferry wouldn't be strong enough to keep us away from the bad stuff. Rick felt that the turn around from facing upstream to downstream might leave us vulnerable. I got my way, but only because it was my canoe, and I was in the stern! (read "Captain"). So, we turned upstream, and did a forward ferry across to easier side, then eddied out exactly as planned. The rest of the group was waitng for us at the landing (apparently saying nasty things about how foolish Rick and I were being...). Once we were safe ashore, we examined the ledge, which was indeed big and bad: about a 6 foot waterfall all the way across. Maybe it was agood thing we hadn't seen it before. Rick and Warren eddying in
The other half of the group, Darryl, Alan, Mike and Brent portaged the both rapids and both falls on river-right. This turned out to be a long portage (1+ km). They followed a decent portage trial that had maybe been last used 10 years ago, then followed a stream bed, then beat a new trial through the bush for the last half of the portage. Unfortunately, Darryl had used this occasion to try out our new portaging technique (where you do the portage in 1 1/2 trips, rather than 2). It was unfortunate because this technique can only be used on well marked trails where you have NO chance of losing your gear. This one was not one of those portages. Darryl had to carry his extra heavy load the whole way, in onse swell foop. They finally ended up just below the killer ledge and were able to come up and watch Rick and I coming down the rapid.. We then paddled a short stretch to next rapid. A large rock in the river divided the river into two nice tongues, each which dropped about 5 feet. The channel on river right was blocked by strainer (a tree, bridging the gap), but river left had big smooth tongue with a sharp turn. Warren and Rick ran this first, with an unloaded canoe, and with Rick sitting in the mid-front. Warren was in the mid-back. This allows the canoe to bounce through big waves much more easily. It worked well, and we went through the biggest stuff without taking on any water. Alan ran it solo, while Brent and Mike potaged. We then ate lunch (it is embarrassing how good hot dogs in pita can taste when you are out on a canoe trip), Hotdogs for lunch
After lunch, Alan, Darryl and I swam at base of rapids. It was refreshing and not too cold. The bugs made sure that lunch wasn't too relaxing though! We continued paddling downstream, and ran some easy rapids. We then set up camp right above a ledge, where the river was squeezed down to a 15 foot width and dropped over a 5 foot ledge. Everyone else was too bagged out by the day, so Alan and I volunteered to take the empty canoes over the ledge. Over the Edge
This picture is a little more dramatic than it really was. However, you should note that we both had our paddles on the right side of the canoe. The main current would push us up against the rock face, and we needed to draw strongly on the way down to keep us away. It worked well. The Foam
The aerated-water at the bottom wasn't really capable of keeping the canoe afloat. Fortunately, we had lots of speed, and sped out the other side before we sank. We did the same with the Grumman. Then we took the Prospector down. It has a lot less flotation than the other two canoes, and by this time, the photographers were getting bored, so we have no pictures of the event. Anyways, we hit the boil, and the current sucked the canoe down and away from us. I heard (and felt) the dull thud as it bounced off the bottom, 12 feet or so below. We continued swimming downstream. After about 5 seconds, the canoe resurfaced 30 feet downstream from us and we paddled over to it and started towing it to shore. Halfway there realised I could stand (was on a shallow sand bar). So we stood up, drained canoe then paddled back up stream to our camp. Once again we tried fishing. Didn't get anything, so we blamed it on the water: too rough, murky and strange when in flood. Brent and Mike made big fire and cooked hamburgers and rice that had gotten soaked.somewhere along the way. We aren't as careful as we should be about waterproofing our food bags. Campfire
The sensible ones went to bed (it seemed to get darker this night). The less sensible ones (Rick and Brent) stayed up late drinking. Since our campfire was right on the edge of the precipice, as night fell the edge and the rapid disappeared into blackness. Brent is not much of a swimmer (understatement!!), and stayed a long way away from the edge while drinking... just in case. |
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