Late season paddling

On Friday afternoon I went out to the Lower Willow with Allison and Ben... both students who were more than happy to take a study break to paddle! As we were planning to do the Lower and I'd only run it twice before, the last attempt resulting in a swim, I elected to take the older Dagger Rx as it was a known quantity.

We all failed to meet at the allotted point - I was running ten minutes late and assumed the others had gone to the river and they were running later than me and assumed I'd done the same - so we all bumped into each other at the put in point. After sorting out some shuttling we put the kayaks in at the takeout of the Upper Willow run. I'd not seen the Upper since I was a very green beginner, and I'd never run the adjoining section of river between the Upper and the canyon (the Lower Willow run). Thinking back to how many capsizes I'd been through on the Upper brought a wry smile to my face as we paddled out into the current.

Ben set off at a good pace and I followed him as he seemed to know the river pretty well. There was an extremely shallow section on a sharp right bend in the river as the Willow approached the canyon. We ground over that, and then things started to get exciting as the boats picked up speed and took on the energy of the river.

There were a few drops and then we were in the canyon, and the current slowed a little behind the drop called Nick's Nob. From here onwards I'd been before and I let out a whoop, partly from joy but mostly from staying upright over the unknown part ;)

We continued down the canyon apace and I started to think we'd be done the whole run in about 15 minutes! But then Ben pulled in after Surf City, a nice wave right next to a big eddy. Alli and I sat in the eddy while Ben played, throwing ends and surfing, then we both tried a little surfing with varying degrees of success. I managed a couple of short but decent surfs, and then did a couple of practice rolls which resulted in a huge headache... the water was freezing cold! Ben was doing his best to keep his head out of the water as he did tricks, and Allison had no intention of getting wet as she wasn't even wearing gloves.

We were rapidly losing the light so decided to finish the run down the canyon. Scouting from the highway bridge, which is a hundred or so feet directly above the river as it crosses the canyon, had shown a large log blocking the left channel into Freak My Beak (the route I ran before). We were therefore forced to take the river right route which was tougher due to the drops approaching the Beak. Getting the drops wrong would mean running the Beak falls upside down, which is what had happened to make me swim previously.

Ben elected to go first so he could wait for Allison and me in the eddy below the falls, and he headed down. I made a note of his route over the drops, and tried to follow with some success. The last drop before the beak had a fairly large rock in the centre, and I managed to draw right and avoid it before plummeting over the Beak. As I landed in the foampile I realised I wasn't even going to flip over, and let out a victorious yell :) Probably anyone crossing the highway bridge at that point would have got a shock.

Allison flipped on the falls but rolled up easily, and we sat in the eddy playing in the foaming water beneath the falls for a while. It was getting pretty cold and dim so we headed for the takeout and I tried not to grin too much... Frase 2 Freak My Beak 1. I wanted to test the new kayak over the weekend so I asked if anyone wanted to do a mellow run the following day. Somehow this turned into "let's do the same run again" which I fretted about a little on the way back into town, I wasn't sure how the little Jackson would react in whitewater.

Saturday morning I started the car at about 8am and the temperature gauge read -2 degrees C. It didn't get any warmer during the drive out to the river... it was going to be a very, very chilly run. Fortunately I'd recently got myself dry pants and gloves and was no longer reliant on a wetsuit/drytop! The sun was shining in our faces as we put the boats on the river, and after some early nerves I found the new kayak was fantastic to paddle on moving water as well as the flat stuff.

I didn't have much time to think as we dropped into the canyon section, but then surfing the wave at Surf City was much easier in the new boat. If I got swept off the wave coming out of the eddy, I could paddle forward onto it again. That was exceedingly difficult in my Rx. At one point Allison got her boat jammed into the pourover in front of the wave and was stuck fast. She even had time to yell over to Ben and me, asking what she should do! I didn't see how she got out, and I should have made a note as I managed to bury my bow in the pourover shortly after. The stern popped up and I was vertical for a second before losing control and flipping over. I rolled up ok, but boy was it cold! Ben mentioned I could have got out of it by edging... next time.

As we left the wave and headed down, a couple of Bald Eagles flew up the valley overhead. I had to take a deep breath to calm down as we followed the same route down the right toward the Beak, this time I caught an edge and flipped over prior to the drops. I rolled up in plenty of time and followed Ben down, then drew left to go over Freak My Beak on the left side again (which worked well the day before). Paddling hard to get away from being pinned to the canyon wall on river left, I whooped again as I eddied out and waited with Ben for Allison.

When all three of us were safely down the fall we paddled toward the takeout and I tried to do a couple of stern squirts. The banks of the river were still covered in frost as we climbed up... something I will have to get used to as the season draws to a close.

Aside from needing to adjust the seat forward a fraction, I couldn't be happier with the All-star. Hopefully something I can grow into :)

Fraser.

A new toy...

Probably one of the dumbest things I've done in a while... I mean if you are struggling to paddle a kayak because it is pretty edgy and maybe a bit too advanced for you, is buying a far more advanced playboat a good idea?? Apparently it is in Frase World.

The new boat - a 2007 Jackson All-star (on right in the pic) - turned up on Tuesday after the Thanksgiving weekend. After the obligatory sit-in-it-and-fiddle-with-bits routine, I took it out for a paddle on a local lake Wednesday evening. I couldn't have been more surprised.

I thought the boat would be particularly unfriendly to paddle, after all it is designed to be chucked around by someone who knows what he/she is doing, preferably in a hole or on a wave, not paddled by some novice idiot across a lake. However the boat was at least as easy to track straight as my RX, despite being a good six inches shorter. It was also easier to maneuver and carve turns, easier to paddle backwards and easier to roll. By the end of half an hour or so, I was in love.


Whether that is still the case after I put the little All-star in some moving water remains to be seen - the edges on the kayak really don't look like they'd forgive sloppiness! Only one way to find out...


F.

The salmon run

Last weekend we headed out to the Stellako river, a short run which is mostly flat or class II stuff with one class III waterfall in it. There had been some discussion and it was concluded that levels would be low, and the rapids might be a bit "boney", but it would be different from the normal runs in the local area.

I picked up Ty and we stopped to pick up the boat he'd be borrowing for the trip, and two hours later we arrived at the take out to find Ross and Jason waiting. We drove both vehicles to the put in since there wasn't enough room for all four of us and all four boats in one car... then having left the boats we drove back and left my car at the take out, before Ross drove us both back to the put in. Fortunately by road the shuttle was only 15 minutes or so!

The put in was in a corner of Francois lake, and the whole place stank of dead fish. There were salmon everywhere, most dead but many were still swimming in the river. Paddling away from shore while waiting for the others, bright red salmon were scattering every time I put a paddle blade in the water. Jason and Ty spotted a black bear on river left further down, given how shallow it was we made sure to paddle past that spot fairly quickly ;) The bear, however, had taken off by the time we got there.

The first part of the run was pretty much flat, although there was some current. Eddies in the river were almost completely lined with dead salmon. Once there was enough depth, Ross and I practiced some rolls while Jason did a few stern squirts. This went on until the first set of rapids, which I bounced over. At a couple of points the boat was more or less high-centred on rocks... it was so shallow. Ty mentioned to keep the boat completely straight over the rapids to avoid being pinned sideways against rocks. There was no depth to capsize and roll up which made me a little nervous, any tipping over would result in a few scrapes!

Ross was paddling a nearly new boat and kept cringing every time he bounced and scraped over some rocks. The early part of the run passed in a similar way, long flat scenic stretches with dead salmon, and very shallow rapids to work through. I found that Ty was absolutely expert at finding a decent line through the rapids, so I'd follow him down, drawing left and right around the rocks.

There was plenty of wildlife to look at - mostly Bald Eagles and the salmon - but every so often we'd see bears. After one of the bigger rapids, we pulled into the eddy behind to stop for some lunch and Ross and I surfed a little on the last small wave. The eddy made it easy to ferry onto the wave, either that or I am getting a little better at ferrying.

Whilst I was munching my snack bar and drinking a little water, Jason asked if he could paddle my boat around the eddy. I noticed he was having a harder time stern squirting... the volume is much greater than in his boat. I duly jumped into his Dagger Juice and immediately noticed how tippy it felt next to my RX. Rolling however was much, much easier and my first roll resulted in my having to brace to stop rolling right over the offside. I tried a couple of hand rolls - a skill which occasionally seems to work and sometimes not - and of course with the other guys looking on it wasn't going to work in a million years. Fortunately Jason was there to T rescue me, it would have been embarrassing to swim again :)

Pressing on we saw a "brown bear" on river right, which prompted some discussion about whether kayaker may be on the lunch menu. But he wasn't interested in us, he just lazily sauntered off up the hill, looking back to make sure we were going. As I got a little video of him I noticed that he was actually a brown Black bear, rather than a Grizzly or Brown bear. Apparently Black bears come in brown in these parts :)

Finally we came to some powerlines over the river which we knew crossed right above the waterfall, so we eddied out on river left and went to scout the falls. They were listed as a six foot fall, but actually the first fall was pretty small, then there was a little pool and then a second, much larger fall. Ross and I immediately said we'd be portaging around the falls... I was still a little wary following a trip to the Lower Willow earlier in the week, when the increased water levels over Freak My Beak had caused me to capsize, miss my roll in the foam pile, get stressed and swim. That shook my confidence, and a capsize over the first fall here would result in running the second fall upside down.

After a long discussion, Jason and Ty - who are a little more experienced - also decided to avoid the falls by taking a slightly easier route down river right. As Ross and I walked down the trail to the bottom of the small fall, we heard Ty whooping as his kayak banged down the right channel. So I guess it was still a pretty fun route ;)

From the falls it was a straight paddle over a long flat section to the take out. The scenery changed from steeper sided canyon walls to flatter, tree covered ground. Most of the yellow leaves had fallen, I think two weeks earlier in the year the view would have been breathtaking. The last obstacle was man-made, a "fish fence" to keep control of the salmon going up the river. There were a couple of fisheries people watching the fence, we had to take out and portage around. Ty couldn't be bothered to get back in his boat and simply draped himself over it to paddle the last kilometer.

As we took the boats out I realised I was shattered... my arms felt like lead and I had that overall "drained" feeling from too much work and not enough to eat or drink. We headed back to get Ross' car from the put in and then loaded up and headed home. The journey back was much quieter!

A cool scenic little paddle, and it was good to paddle another boat - especially since I am awaiting delivery of a nice, shiny red Jackson All-star! More news on that soon hopefully.

Frase.