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The Kelsey Kayak Glub abandoned us this year. Somehow, the Saskatoon group was not included... so, we had our own trip. But we couldn't stay at CanoeMeadows, being forced out into the common campgrounds, in this case EauClaire. Not a bad site, but quite a different experience from CanoeMeadows.
Tents and Kayaks on gravel instead of grass :-( But, we did have a good group:
Kelly, Doug, ?, Bill, Aaron, Melanie, ?, Brad, Kim, Warren This is a before shot... just in case we lost somebody in the river. Somehow, Jackie didn't get into the picture. Nor Sandy, who was also along for a some mountain biking. She had some pretty good adventures too...
Jackie, ?, Bill and Sandy. Bill was just like one of the girls! We trundled down to CanoeMeadows for our first put in. Since it has usually been a year since we have last paddled, it is smarter to start off in the easy stuff.
It is always alarming just how much gear you have to put on... Then we all got into the water and paddled around the bottom of the technical course. Looked good, so a quick lunch...
Then load up the canoes and head up to WidowMaker.
Melanie, Kim and Aaron milled around in the pond below WidowMaker while I got ready to go.
Sometimes you go down WidowMaker and everything is easy. This time I powered down, then sat back and surfed across the waves as the bottom.
We then continued on down to Good Humour. The goal is to do something like this:
Warren buries the bow, hoping for an ender... or here is Kim sneaking up to the hole..
And then dropping into it sideways, with a good downstream lean!
Kim drops into Good Humour for some side-surfing However, what frequently happens is this: the kayak gets snapped around and:
Warren about to lose it. Paddle is going to bury on the upstream side. Here is another sequence of Aaron demonstrating the same sequence of events:
I can only assume the red face is from lack of air... Then we bounced on down the river to the technical section. We have very few photos of this section because it is tough for spectators to get close... and there is nothing really worth taking photos of. The Green Tongue is the beginning of the technical section.
Warren, bailing out after an unsuccessful something.
Warren and Aaron, circulating around, trying things. Once around the corner, spectators have this view of the technical section. Click on the photo to see the large version. It is well worth it. See if you can find Warren, Kim, Melanie and Aaron, along with seven other kayaks.
Of course, it is a little different from the kayaker's perspective. This is a little lower down the course.
Finally, day was done. Here is a final group photo:
Chad, Brad, Aaron, Bill, ?, Jackie, Melanie, Kim, Warren and Sandy In the background, you can see Aaron's ex-CNRailway crew cab pickup truck. Room for 6 people, 10 kayaks and all gear. All for the low, low cost of 5 mile to the gallon! The IDEAL kayak-group vehicle. What a hoot. I have to do more of this again... |
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Click on images with a border for a bigger photo! Please send all comments to warren.long@shaw.ca |
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