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We woke up early. It was like a sauna in the tent, up high on a rock, no wind and bright sunlight. A nice change. Since the water levels were so low, most of the rapids ended up being a narrow channel through a boulder garden. This rapid was stated to have a class 4 ledge across it... obviously not as this water level. I figured it could get my canoe down it, the only problem was the sharp turn required once you were half way down the ledge. Turned out to be easy solo, the canoe just got turned nicely by the water.
So, Keith and I thought it would work with 2 people. I am in the bow, ready to dig in hard and pull the bow away from the shore.
This is a close up of the same picture. The bow only missed the shore by less than a foot.
This was such fun, that we portaged two of the canoes back up to the top and did it again.... (they were rentals!)
After a small pool, this rapid continued on down a narrow channel. This picture is a good example of the pool and drop philosophy of this river, turned to creek. There were about 5 steps, each about 20 feet apart, each of which had the navigable channel on opposite sides. Lots of back paddling and side-slipping across to the other shore all the way down.
Keith's primary objective was to keep his pipe lit.
The boulder garden gave us the chance to get some really unusual photos.
The next portage was Tuck Falls. I am going to run this someday...
It would have been nice to camp here, but we still had lots more time left in the day, so we carried on paddling. At 9:30 pm, we finally found an unusual but reasonable campsite: we would have to have our eating area on one side of the river and our tents on the other.
Now if you look closely at the rocks right at the water's edge, you will see a 6 inch strip of algae. At 10:30 at night, Sandy reached down to fill the coffee pot with water to do some of the dishes. As her weight transferred onto her toes, it also transferred to the algae; she slid in. In the darkness, the cold water (and probably a little panic), she totally forgot how to swim. After about 5 seconds of mad scrabbling (and losing the coffee pot), she remembered how to swim and clambered out, up the slippery rock face. The next morning we discovered her claw marks in the algae. |
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Send comments to: warren.long@shaw.ca Go to: Warren's CanoeingPages Go to: Warren & Sandy's HomePage |
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