Being hereby contained within an account of my attempts to go with the flow, both on and off the river, the people and places i meet, and such like and so forth.
The boys paddling across Clendinning lake, one of many glaciers to be seen hanging on the peaks overhead.
Another one for the books eh? How was your summer? Got any exciting winter plans? Just cosying up in front of netflix? Or spending the whole time debauched in perverse sexual deviancy? No? Just off to Chile again? Well bully for you.... im going skiing. In the meantime, heres another blog post plastered with my dodgy photography. Hope you enjoy it. I didnt actually take many pictures this summer, largely cos i was kinda down on my camera as various paddling magazines have declined to publish some of my better shots as theyre simply not high enough res. Which is fair enough i suppose, i do have a fairly basic slr with only 16mp and its not even fast enough to shoot RAW. Ooo, photo geekery and whining, just what youre reading for! If you are reading.... Well i made excuses last year so at least im consistent. And i did take some, and i did some boating!
Slimmer n Stryder enjoying the big water. We had the highest levels on the Horse since 2012, good times.
It was a super busy summer of working for me. This year i relocated (again) to jnterior BC and the town Golden to work on the mighty Kicking Horse for Alpine Rafting (Chur Jimmy). As one of the head guides i was in the thick of it all season, pushing rubber for all i was worth. Although i managed to get a few runs in here and there i was largely restricted to after work Horse laps. Could be worse eh? Whilst the the lower canyon is still (and for the foreseeable) off limits to commercial rafting it is still possible to discretely access for kayakers, and if youre happy running the bridge drop you dont even have to be discrete about it. This comes with a warning, some of the locals are very jealous of their river and if they suspect that youre a better kayaker than them, they may try to kill you in order to remain the best paddler on the Kicking Horse. I shan't name the guilty, but watch out, thats all im saying.
Jair Stolz enjoying Skookumchuck creek in the sunshine. Lovely.
Being in Golden gave me a grand opportunity to check out various runs around the interior that i have either long held an interest in or didnt actually know about, the above pictured Skookumchuck creek for one. Located a wee bit north of Kimberley in the East Kootenay, this river is a wee gem! Paddling ABC calls it "the finest class 4 that mere mortals can aspire to run" and theyre not far off. Its 16km of super continous, super fun, low stress class 3/4 boating with just rapid after rapid of big smiles and good times. We had a great time, especially the hour we spent watching Slimmer and Jair cut a log out of the one of the rapids. Good work boys, carry on ;) Thoroughly recommended for anyone on an early summer BC roady.
Thea, seen here trying to hide her face as she was ashamed to be seen with us. I would be to....
There are many fine runs to be found in the Upper Columbia valley and the East Koots, such as the Spillimacheen which i managed to get onto again in September. Thanks for organising again baby face :) Or its tributary, Bobbie Burns creek which we checked out back in June. Super fun at the high water levels we had, tho youd want a fair bit less to take on the 30' in the middle i reckon. I did get onto my after work runs tho and a couple of quick rips out to Johnstons Canyon and Pipestone were nice highlights in the calendar.
Erik Shore crushing out the best boof on the Pipestone on a very pleasant summer evening.
Johnstones is one of the wierder kayaking experiences you can find. Its a super short run, packed with gradient including the one time world record waterfall at the top. That thing is disgusting and naturally i never even considered it but walking up the run is the odd bit. Its just outside of Banff and is one of the premier tourist attractions in the area, with a nicely paved walkway out over sections of the river, railings, viewing points, the lot. Even late in the day as we were, its still packed with tourists meandering up and down and asking you questions about 'rafting' and if youre going to shoot the rapids. Wierd i tell thee. Still, some fun moves in there.
Yours truly sending a big ol' over boof on the 1st drop. Photo: Thea Froehlich
La Slimolina braapin' it up. Photo: Thea Froehlich
Aside from working i did make it out of town for a few wee trips, not least a fine day out in June to check out Sutherland falls with my man Liam "the baby otter" Fournier. We had a good ol' scout of it and deciding we had plenty of juice decided to send her. After waiting what felt like ages for Katrina to show up to help us out with a little safety we fired it up. Liam volunteered me into going first and i had a good line, waiting below for him coming after. If anything Liam had an even better line but when his boat skipped into the eddy, we noticed that the front had been bent almost 90' up by the impact. Just water mind, and altho it had been bent on the top deck before this was still a hell of a bend. And that was the end of kayaking that day.
All ready to tuck up. I was expecting a big hit, but we had enough juice it were'nt'nt too bad. Photo: Liam Fournier
Early in the summer i made a bit of a mad rally all the way to Nordegg to jump on the Bighorn. It was a wild stormy kind of a day and driving into the Saskatchewan valley i was confronted with one of the strangest sights i ever encountered. The whole valley was wreathed in bright green mist, rolling across the highway and dropping vis down to 100m. For a second i thought the Russians had finally stepped up the chem trails conspiracy (i dont credit that garbage either, do i look in need of a tin foil hat?) but quickly realised it was tree pollen. Now ive seen clouds of it before, and watched the streets running yellow after a good shower at the right time in June but never like this. Crazy, i just wish id pulled over to grab a photo but i was too intent on getting to the river.
Babyface battles the Bighorn. Ethan on Curtain Call. Its brown as they say.
The Bighorn is one of the best runs in the Rockies, one of my favourites. Its only a short run, with i think 6 rapids, each one formed by a ledge of the crumbley shale that makes up the main ranges of the Rockies. Its wild stuff, with loose pebbles of it visible in the big boils at the base of the larger drops. My pardner rocked up and we had a fun run, with the school activity group giving up on their rappelling at the put in to check us out while we ran curtain call. Ethan had been planning on staying a day or 2 as the level was good and more peepls were on the way but as i was making my way home one of the heaviest thunderstorms ive seen in a long time was hammering the area, with lightning flashing from peak to peak and wind threatening to toss me off the highway. I got a phone call to tell me the river had spiked 3 metres up the banks in an hour. Bit too much we thinks.
Ethan gettin' accelerated. Particle accelerator.
And free falling. Free fall. Told you i'd make you famous bud ;)
All of which is a round about kinda way of getting to my big highlight of the summer which was a crack at the infamous Pingston creek. Ive been itching to run it for years, and ive still got the middle and lower sections to tick off. I was really after the upper, and thanks to one last minute booking mix up i got my chance. Rallying over i managed to meet up with Adrian and the boys and we got on her. It more than lived up to my expectations, miles of super fun technical class 4/5 boating with some sick moves and sweet boofs. All in the spectacular granite wonderland of the Valhalla range of the eastern Monashees. We had a fun level, tho it could stand a little more. Adrian essentially spent a week staking it out this last year and can now rightly be considered king of the Pingston. Hope i get my laps in next year bro!
Scotty Hall getting into Highway to Hell, one of the bigger rapids on upper Pingston.
Adrian Kiernan getting his schteezy elbows up midway down the same rapid. Granite loveliness.
Although i didnt get as many laps as i mightve liked, i did at least get to run the bottom drops down into the lake. And Adrian made a sick video of his time bumping the Revelstoke classics, check it out
Me on the bottom Pingston drops into Arrow Lake. There were 3 here. Til the lake rose 20'. Photo: Scotty Hall.
All in all, a reasonably successful summer all things considered. I was far from done boating tho and come the end of the rafting season had big plans. Ive been trying to get a trip to the Homathko put together for a couple of years now and this time we had the crew and it was all good to go until just before we were due to set off and sudden spell of hot weather spiked the river and it doubled flow in 24hrs putting it well out of court. A small consolation was that although the airline didnt want to refund my deposit, they did say i could put it towards any other flight with them in future so ive got $100 down on a Homathko trip already. I guess we have to go do it sometime then, what a burden. In the meantime, since nobody wants to spend all that flight money on a portage fest we blethered away and decided a better option would be the Clendinning. For those that arent aware, the Clendinning is a tributary of the mighty Elaho which comes in some 30 odd kms above the infamous Fear Canyon section. Its a BC overnight classic tho has been more rarely run in recent years due to massive increases in the cost of the necessary flight in. In terms of the whitewater, its super fun continous boulder gardens in its main reaches with some sections that would become very hectic indeed at high flow. We had a fun medium sort of a level but there were still long sections where youre running down just thinking "i hope this all goes, cos i cant f&^%in' stop!" Largely due to the continous nature of the whitewater, i was too busy paddling to take many pics of the river itself but the esteemed Dave O'Sullivan made a nice wee video of our trip
What i did was take a bunch of lifestyle type shots of the stunning scenery on the flight into and put in at the lake. Words, nor pictures can do this place justice, easily one of the most amazingly beautiful places ive had the fortune to visit. Enjoy
All loaded up and some remote place to go.
Monsieur Reeder enjoying the view.
Some of that view. Youve never seen so many glaciers!
The put in. Flying down between the granite walls starts to give you a sense of the scale.
Looking back up towards the glaciers at the head of the lake. We had a good ol' scout round in the sun.
Da Boyz at camp in the morning, waiting for the sun to hit.
And that was that. A good trip over to the coast, with some Cheak action and a sweet overnight. I headed home after that and had a bit of time with my darling wife until our ol' buddy Kurt rocked up and i helped him getting down to the states as he had a complex vehicular ownership situation. A sweet couple of days in the gorge got me bagging my 1st ever Truss lap, cant wait to get back on that thing with some more juice! I rolled back up with one eye on the weather which duly delivered and bounced to the island for my first time out there. Unfortunately i didnt grab any pics, it was just too rainy most of the time and i didnt feel like risking my camera. The water gods delivered tho and i got a small sampling of some of the island classics. Man, there is some amazing whitewater there! Thanks again for the hospitality folks :)
Anyways, home again and about to start skiing once more. The farmers almanac has us getting another cold snowy one and it was right last year so it must be true ;) Fingers crossed.
One last thing. Its almost exactly a year to the day since my man Will Hartman was tragically lost to us on the river. I still miss him, most every time i get in my boat. Funny how some people touch you eh, but he did. If you knew him, you did good, if you didnt, he was ace, you missed out. Heres to you bud, much love
Will contemplating S-bends on the upper Jori. He barely said a word, just got in and styled it. Typical.
The beautiful nymph pool, Tatlow creek. This is as close as we, and to my knowledge anyone got to paddling it this year. The road is hooped, not difficult, done. 3km walk in minimum. Or a chopper. We should've started earlier.
Its that time of year again, blog time! I guess theres options, like updating things more often than annually but what can i say, i dont. Maybe i could tell all a'y'all about each and every thing i do but A) i prefer my privacy a little bit and B) I dont think you care. Its a cruel world people, that means you. Nah, joking, youre all lovely. Youre reading this so you must be. Kisses.
So this was our first year back in Canadia. We moved ourselves back to the big country last winter and got settled in with Manue back to school. Shes studying massage therapy, which i am obviously pleased about, tho i dont get as many free massages as you'd think. Its kinda like trying to get a waitress to make you a coffee after their shift finishes. Good news is, shes doing great, like super great. So proud of you darlin'. Manue does currently however have a broken fibula. This after she impaled her calf (same leg, poor leg). Im fine tho, thanks for asking. Anyway, kayaking....
First run of the season back in March, and a shameless plug for ZET Canada. Doesnt the Toro look shiny? And sexy? I kept using it. Its still sexy, but not shiny.
It was a mostly quiet winter for me, getting settled back into Canadian life. Got some skiing done, that sort of thing. As spring rolled around i got myself set up and made my way over to Squamish for the summer. I had passed through the sea to sky a few years back when i was first in Canada but i didnt get that much paddling done. Ive known all about the area for years, anyone with an interest in high quality whitewater has but i felt like it was time for me to give it a whirl. So i lined up a job, got me a trailer and a place to park it at the world (in)famous "Refugee Camp" and set off.
Martijn "the dirty dutchie" at the put in falls of the upper Cheak. Great way to start your day. Or evening.
I got myself set up, got into some working and pretty soon i got into some kayaking as well. I actually did alot of kayaking this last summer, but as evidenced by the photos here it was mostly after work, evening runs. I wasnt able to get many days off through the season where i could take off to go kayaking so had to settle for being an evening warrior. The upside of this is that the Sqamton area, and the sea to sky corridor is home to some of the best whitewater on the planet. I admit, i completely lost count of how many upper Cheakamus, Callaghan or Balls to the Wall laps i got in, and when i say i managed about 25 Ashlu box laps its a guess-timate. Im pretty stoked on it anyway. The other thing is, that i didnt take many photos. Most of the runs we did were hot laps, its not necessary to get out of the boat so you dont, thus taking pictures can be kinda difficult. Anyways, alot of fun times were had, some great new friends made and old ones caught up with. My bday was a quality one, and we managed to bang in the classic Whistler triple crown of Soo, Upper Cheak, Callaghan. The Callaghan race was also a super fun day out, thanks again to Mr Arns for organising, even if Moxon (and Rafa, no objections there, you deserved it bud) won. Shame.
Andraz showing off on balls falls. The annual huckfest here is a real highlight of the sea to sky calendar.
One thing i did leave the sea to sky with was a wish list of rivers i didnt manage to get done this year such as the Birkenhead, Rogers creek and the top of my list, Tatlow. We did try and walk into Tatlow in June but as the 1st crew in there this summer we werent sure of the state of the road and definitely set off late. As it turns out, it is now a mandatory hike of about 3km to the nymph pool as a couple of creeks blew out and have destroyed the road completely. When we did make it that far it turned out to be too high anyway and with no certain knowledge of the wood situation in the canyon, plus it being late in the day we made the courageous decision to high tail it all the way back to the truck. I love taking the plastic for a walk. Nearly as much as i love spending hours hauling plastic up steep canyon walls and getting raped by wasps but thats another story. Get well soon Sandy, hope youre healing up strong bro.
Fear Canyon in the fall. The water was getting low-ish but its still so quality.
As the season began to slow down and levels dropped off i finally found myself with a bit more time to go boating and although most things were getting low i did manage to get into the beautiful Fear Canyon of the Elaho for a few laps to round up the sea to sky summer. It was a real pleasure and a privelege to spend time in such an amazing place and get to hang out with so many amazing people. Thankyou all for the good times, i cant wait to be back.
Chris "the dirty Irish" in the pinch on Fear Canyon. This is what it looks like at 90cms. Bit more chill eh.
I finished work early September, packed up, sold the trailer and headed back home for a few days with my lovely lady but as it turned out the busiest (at least the highest mileage wise) boating of my summer was coming up. I had been hoping to put together a trip to the Homathko but unfortunately it fell through in the end so looking around for other options i saw that the annual Chelan release was happening down in Washington. As this is actually pretty close to my current home base in the Okanagan it was too good to pass up so i headed down for a fun packed weekend of Chelanigans.
Hector approaching the exit of Entrance Exam. Note A) the color of the water, this is just after they open the gates and its grim, lake bottom brown. Cleans up and becomes crystal blue, lovely :) B) the crowd of "safety rangers" aka jeering mob. Of course we cheer when you get beat down, we love that sh#$ :)
Im happy to say i wasnt disappointed. Id heard about this river a little in the past, largely from previous paddlers gopro vids. Its a short run,dropping out of the eastern Cascades and is controlled by the public utilities department of the town of Chelan. Water is a precious commodity here and needless to say the local orchards are a much greater priority than whitewater kayakers.
Alec Voorhees styling Entrance Exam.
Thankfully local paddlers have been able to negotiate an annual release and make a weekend of it. Thing is tho, its a single release each day. The river is not turned on and left running, the PUD sign everyone one on and off the river, then follow the group from above as you make your way down, closing the dam off once the last paddlers are through. This leads to the big posse carnage, Chelanigans of infamy. I dont think id ever run class 5 with 40+ people before but it was alot of fun. I cant say id like to do every river that way but ill definitely be coming back next year. The Whistler crew was out in force, as was the PNW and it was a great weekend. The Whistler crew was out in force, as was the PNW and it was a great weekend.I will make sure i dont get too hungover to paddle Sunday tho (i hardly ever drink these days, what was i thinking!). Anyways, enjoy a couple more pics.
Richard "Princess Treacle" Kemble showing off his skills with the "Over Lean" aka "F*$% up". To be fair hes normally pretty styley. I still hadnt laughed so hard all week tho.
Ben Kinsella showing how its supposed to look on the Super Boof. This drop really is just a super clean, style me hard, boof. Lovely. Also see how much cleaner the water is!
Martijn Van Den Broeke crushing the entrance boof on Pinnacle. Sick drop this.
So after the Chelan i had a couple of weeks free time to play with. Some general campfire chat unearthed a couple of fellow dirt bags with a similar agenda so we set off with the hope that the rain in the forecast came through for us. Heading back towards the coast we managed to bag a Robe Canyon lap which i was pretty happy to jump on but sadly WA was not at that point getting as wet as it has been since. We headed back to Canadia only to find that the sea to sky was running dry as well. I had a couple of things to sort out in Whis, but after some discussion Kieran and i decided to jump inland and go try to hit up some interior classics.
Kieran "Filthy McNasty" Thurlow on the 2nd rapid of the Jordan.
We stopped off for a night in a real bed at home then boosted up to Revelstoke where we managed to bag off 2 of the local gems, the Jordan and box canyon of the Illecillewaet.We even got some sunshine!
The big slide on the Jordan. In the sunshine! In the fall! It was a beautiful trip for weather :)
From Revy we bounced over Rogers pass to Golden, hooked up with my friend Ethan and went straight to the Spillimacheen. This was my first time at this river and i was super stoked. Its absolutely sick! Its a short river but the whole thing is action packed with some awesome rapids (and the best rapid names ive encountered in a long time), all in a stunning canyon in the middle of nowhere BC. Basically all my favourite kinda things.
Ethan "babyface" Bagley dropping into the first big slide on the Spilli.
Kieran stomping his boof out on Happy Ending, the last drop of the Spillimacheen. Waterfalls dont come much nicer than this one, we must have run 6 or 7 laps each at least.
And here we see Babyface schteezing out a lean. Making it look nice eh. Shortly after this he went for a crossbow lean. It didnt go so good ;P
After another super sweet run, we headed to the nearby Radium hotsprings for some relaxation. From there we rallied to the Elk. The upper Elk was at a perfect level and with a couple of days of good weather in the forecast, a perfect camp site right at the take out and some beautiful whitewater to run we had an awesome couple of days. Our 2nd day, Steve Arns and Ben Hawthorne showed up. This maybe needs a little explanation. So the kayaking community is small, especially when you start talking about people who run class 5. When you talk about people who run the hard stuff regularly and have been around a bit, then the community gets really small. So my name is Ben Hawthorne,and im British. His name is Ben Hawthorne, and he's American. What are the chances??!!! I think weve known about each other for a while but wehad never run into each other til this point. I was super stoked to meet him and get to paddle such an awesome section as the upper Elk together. Hopefully we'll get a chance to run some more stuff together in the future, cheers Ben! Also, a massive thanks to Steve Arns for the pics here :)
Ethan on Horseshoe, one of the first drops of the upper Elk. Sick rapid.
Same drop, different angle, different day. Such a cool canyon. Photo: Steve Arns.
Ethan styling Caveman, aka Triple drop. Definitely the hardest rapid on the upper Elk, tho the portage option is also pretty hairy. Photo: Steve Arns.
Myself on Leap of Faith, the classic last drop of the upper Elk. Super clean 40' into a cliffed out pool. So awesome. Photo: Steve Arns.
Kieran looking good on the lip in the sun. A good place to learn about going over the bars, im guessing less painful than Tomata 1 bud? (ah hell, it happens to us all man, ive certainly landed on my head plenty :P ) Photo: Steve Arns.
Ethan stomping his line, 1st run, 1st day. Apparently you can hike your boat back up here altho we do not recommend it. That rock is sketchy.
I had a great time playing on the Elk, and i would like to point out here its not just the upper. The middle Elk is also sick, with an even more incredible canyon. Sure, the whitewater is not quite as spectacular but its super high quality and super fun. The hike out sucks tho, altho it does leave you at one of the most beautiful, spectacular camp sites anywhere. Regardless, i really enjoyed myself and cant wait to go back.
So that was the end of that roady tho not quite the end of my season. I headed home for a few days before bouncing south. I did take my camera with me but for various reasons i didnt really get it out. I was lucky enough to check out the Bend Whitewater park and i have to say it is the most awesome facility to have in your town. Youve got a nice variety of features, on a natural flowing river, right in the downtown with good facilities along side and its FREE! Its super awesome, and i was really stoked to find that the town has gotten behind a project like that. Great to see. We also checked out the other sections of the Deschutes river which has some coo stuff to offer before heading to Cali and the Burnt Ranch race.
Paddle Burnt Ranch people! PBR :) This is a great, core community kayaking event and i was stoked to get there and catch up with people, meet new friends and have a great weekend. I was also stoked to come in a respectable 4th, even chucking in a cheeky deck grab on the last boof of the race. Thanks Darryl for putting it together again man, good work. I also made it to Gnarl Fest down there which this year really lived up to the name. The weather was howling, raining like a m#$%&^$%**r, wind blowing it sideways and dropping 2' long sugar pine cones out the trees at us. I jumped in with the safety crew since i didnt know the river and wanted to take my time. We ended up with a sub-luxed shoulder, 1 lost paddle, 4 swims and a very sketchy tree incident. We made it tho, and its an awesome section with some sick whitewater. Thanks for the times guys :)
When it was time to head home, the rain had been falling and i swung into White Salmon en route. There wasnt quite as much water as id been hoping for but there was enough for a first lap down the Little White. Its that river they all talk about. Alot. So of course id heard so much about it, seen infinite videos and been desperate to paddle it for years. I was super stoked i got the chance this summer, not least because it means that when i go back in the spring i will at least have some idea of the lines when i get routed down it at high flows. What can i say, whitewater boat riders love sand bagging each other into the goods. We are kinda assholes that way huh. I did line up some boating for the ridenorth but i was missing my lady so rallied back home and got some needed rest.
Which leads me to my last paddle of the year to date and a run i wish i hadnt felt the need to take. I met with Adrian Kiernan for a lap down the illy box to raise a glass to our good friend Will Hartman who tragically passed away recently whilst on a paddling trip in Meghalaya, India.Will was an awesome guy, and judging from the huge public outpouring of grief online and gatherings that have happened to commemorate him im not the only one thats going to miss him. I wish id had more time to spend with him, and i just hope that those closest to Will are able to cherish the good memories and hold onto that love. Kayaking has brought many amazing things to my life, from mind expanding travels to simple great times in beautiful places, but nothing more precious than the incredible people i have been lucky enough to call friends. Thoughts and love to all of you folks. Thanks for reading.
Will Hartman, styling as usual in the midst of the big slide, lower Rauma, Norway. Were gonna miss you buddy.
P.P.S I wrote this whilst largely listening to John Grace's Hammer Factor podcast and ive been thoroughly entertained. Its everything i enjoy about my favourite podcasts pretty much, that is a bunch of people who know what theyre talking about, discussing things im interested in ie kayaking. That and talking alot of smack. And it features my bud, Louis Geltman, good work Geltman! Check it out :)
