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94-06-11: Saturday Today our goal was to paddle down past Kirkvold Lake I woke up at around 8 and was met by a cool and cloudy day. It was decided that breakfast would be coffee and turkey burgers, since the coolers gotten all soaked the day before and we figured the turkey would be going bad. Hence, we should eat them ASAP... (I had granola) Apparently, they had gone bad, and tasted terrible! As soon as we left camp, we had a choice to make. From the map, both channels looked similar, We looked at both, and since the top of the river-right channel was blocked by some strainers, we decided to try the river-left channel. It was a small channel, but with lots of flow. We landed the canoes on the island, and walked down to scout it out. It turned out to have several big drops, making it unrunnable. So we walked and paddled back upstream, almost back to our campsite, then turned and went down the other channel. The other channel ended up just having several small riffles, nothing exciting. Then the rain started, so we changed to rain clothing and continued paddling. At this point, Rick and I were looking for adventure, so I talked him into trying a little sideways surfing, just below a tiny ledge. I have done this lots in a kayak, and felt I could handle it in a loaded canoe. We paddled into it smoothly, and then got sucked down firmly into place. I had a hard time convincing Rick to put out a BIG downstream reaching brace, but when the current grabbed the upstream gunnel a few times and almosts spun the canoe over, That, and a few yells later, Rick began to understand. We sat in the surging water for perhaps 30 seconds and then decided to get out. In a light kayak, you can just dig your downstream braces in, and pull up and out of the hydraulic. We tried, but it doesn't work that way in a loaded canoe. There was no way for the two of us to pull 300 pounds of canoe up and out of this little hole.. So, with a little miscommunication, Rick and I dug in our paddles, without losing the downstream braces, and tried to paddle out one or the other side of it. Unfortunately, Rick tried to paddle out forwards, while I was trying to get us out backwards. During the intence effort, which left us in exactly the same spot (in the rain, I remind you), we must have let the canoe come a bit too level. You need to keep a downstream lean. The upstream gunnel was grabbed hard by the current. Both of us panicked, but in the right way. We leaned way out, and managed to keep the canoe level, but it continued to fill. After another 5 seconds, the water pushed the canoe down under the foam, and out of the hydraulic. Once again, we managed to keep it upright, and because we have our gear/flotation tied in so well, we were able to paddle it to shore and drain it. The canoe isn't real stable when the water level in the canoe it 2 inches higher than the water level outside it. Lessons Learned: Try new things in small hydraulics. You will probably discover that they are plenty big. Side-Surfing Aftermath
A little wiser, and a lot wetter, we carried on paddling, and arrived at yet another set of falls which were NOT on the map. Lessons Learned: Don't trust the map and scout ahead. These falls had a 20 foot drop, with lots of foam and spray. The lip was wide and level, so there was no real current threatening to suck us over the edge. It was easy to put ashore on river-left and portage down around the falls. Well, it was easy to put ashore, but the portage itself wasn't that easy... Getting the canoe down a ledge
We then set ourselves up at the base of falls, and prepared to run the rapids below them. The bugs and rain were working hard to dampen our enthusiasm. Rick in Full-BattleGear
Getting ready to run the rapids
Once again, Rick and I did a forward ferry across to river-right into an eddy, then turned around and went down through the big stuff at bottom of rapid. No problems, all as planned. Mike and Brent pulled out smoothly and went straight down rapid. The extra foot of length of Brent's canoe enables him to do stuff that would sink my canoe. Either that or its Mike's "Stay Dry" Technique. They took on a bunch of water but looked good doing it!. Mike's "Stay Dry" Technique
Darryl and Alan made the whole thing look a lot harder. Each time they pushed away from the shore, the back eddies sucked them upstream towards the falls. This created a lot of adrenaline and hard paddling. After circling at least three times, they made it out and headed down through the rapid. They chose (?) a section which I thought had some rocks hiding in the waves, but made it through just fine. (I know from subsequent trips with Alan's fiberglass canoe that hitting a rock results in a hole, so he can't have hit any very hard). Alan and Darryl heading back to the Falls
At the bottom of this rapid, we decided to hang around and do some ferries across the fast current. This time, it was Darryl and Alan's turn to swim. They were ferrying across the boil when they flipped and had to swim. Rick and I towed them to shore, and watched briefly as they emptied out their canoe. While they changed in to dry clothes, Mike, Brent, Rick and I drifted down river. We found Alan's bailer floating 500 m. downstream. About 45 minutes later, Alan and Darryl finally caught up. We then arrived at Observation rapids, which consisted almost entirely of a huge hole right in the middle, with the whole river flowing into it, and with 12 ft of foam surging upstream back into the hole. What would normally have been a runnable tongue continued straight down until it was 6 feet below the surface of the lake it was flowing into. The matching haystack was 6 feet above the water level, and the 12 feet of foam tumbled down the face back into the hole. But... off to one side there was a real small runnable section. The tough part was to avoid getting sucked into the hole. I ran my canoe solo down this, but I cheated by staying extra close to the shore and ducking under some branches just before the big drop. In the picture, you can see part of the hole behind me. It was the most impressive one I had ever seen. Brent figured I was going to die. Observation Rapids
Rick stopped during this portage and threw a fishing line into the water. He quickly caught a 2 foot long jackfish and as he was pulling it in, a second jack, with 6" wide jaws came up from the bottom and chewed on it for 15 minutes. We never really saw all of the big one, but he must have been at least 4 feet long. Rick played hime around for 15 minutes until line broke. A Big Jackfish
We continued on down through the meanders and ox bows. When we got to the island with Lewis Falls marked in the river-right channel, we firgured that the other channel should have some good runnable rapids. It started raining harder as we found the class 3 rapids and a subsequent set of falls. Things looked good, but the shoreline made scouting tough, and it was getting dark besides. In addition, Rick was getting grumpy. I got out of the canoe and stood on the right on the edge of the falls, leaning out over the edge to see down. This made Rick even grumpier, as he thought I was taking unnecessary risks. I think he was just tied of being hungover all day. Or maybe just the thought of having to rescue me from down below. Anyways, he made it known that he would prefer us to go back up the river and then down the other channel and since he was the grumpy one we all listened. So we paddled back up the channel (against a fairly strong current). The canoes which had remained more upstream while we made up our minds saved a lot of energy, since the currents around some of the corners were impossible to paddle up against. We ducked in and out of the eddies as much as possible and when there was no other way, we nudged the canoe up into the bushes (remember, the river is in flood, flowing through most of the bushes lining the river banks) , grabbed a handfull of them and pulled the canoe up and around the corner. Slow going. We then headed down the channel and ran some fun rapids, culminating in a 3 foot ledge, right where the falls were marked. We assumed these were the falls, however, it turned out they weren't (of course!). Lessons Learned: Don't trust the map and scout ahead. There was a small tongue dropping over the ledge, at 90 degrees to the current, and Rick and I tried to make it down this... We missed it, and went over the 3 foot ledge. No problem, other than a slight klunk as the keel of the canoe hit the sharp edge of the ledge. This had the additional bonus of enabling us to miss the haystacks at the bottom! Mike and Brent went over the ledge correctly, and then through big haystacks. They took on lots water. Alan and Darryl went through big haystacks, swamped, but still managed to paddle to shore safely. Good thing too, cuz we were getting too lazy to go get them. Just to prove that there is no justice in this world, the ones that screwed up going over the ledge were the only ones who came out dry! We set up camp river-left of the ledge. This was the first semi-clear spot that we had seen in three hours. Of course, the rain then changed to a downpour. While I set up big tarp, Rick and Brent sawed up and moved some big deadfall in order to give us enough space for our 3 tents. Life under the tarp was pleasant, with a large fire and dinner (pasta + carrots + onions + rice). Life Under the Tarp
There was no point in fishing. Of course, we had to go an try a little anyways, but knew that it was too shallow. Not even a nibble. The bugs got worse and we crawled into bed. The rain continued on and off all through the night. |
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