16/17 June 2007
Water Level: 93ish
Saturday:
The weather was gorgeous.
This is a combined two day trip report from the Post Palmerfest and the run down Lower Madawaska river.
So lets get the info straight. Yes I did not have my throw bag Saturday morning and yes I did not wear my PFD on part of the Lower Mad flat water paddle. There. Its done … get over it.
Ok where do we start. Oh yes … the participants for the Saturday portion of the Post Palmerfest Paddling weekend was Neil and his younger brother Noel (first day in white water), Stylz, Dan, Greg, My girlfriend and I.
I finally got my butt up to Palmer around 11:30ish. I was on my way across from Bancroft where I ended up getting delayed by a OPP Ride Program check at the intersection where you would go to the Pancake House on the way to Hass Hole. There had to be at least eight cop cars there. I guess they must have been cracking down on the locals as this was just before lunch time and not a donut shop in site.
I met up with the gang at the chutes. The place was not as busy as the previous weekend. There were a few courses going on. We played around a lot before taking a run down river. I managed to unexpectly get some excellent side surfing in at the last hole and I did not even swim. I was busy setting up my tent while the others chowed down and partaked in lunch and a few various forms of bud related products.
After that it was back up to the chutes for more fun in the sun. I managed to take a few different boats out for some spins and had a blast. I also managed to test the new pump system in my boat. All I can say is thank you Geoff Kee and your right there is no going back. I like running all the juicy wet lines now … wooo hooo!
Dan and Neil teamed up for some tandem action. It was pretty amazing to watch them roll a tandem boat together and still paddle it to shore while totally submerged (see picture). After that the place just became a big boat swap. I tried Dan’s Zephy. I got about 3 feet from shore and said no frickin way …. Tooooooo tippy for me. I managed to try a Caption and a Mad River Canoe of some type. I had lots of fun considering the were big tandem boats and I was paddling from behind the middle thwart with now straps, etc. I swam once and Dan emptied my boat and I hopped back into in while in the river.
Greg, although he always looks so dam serious, looked like he was having fun. I think everyone I saw today had big smiles on their faces.
Scotty B put on a good show while executing some loops in his kayak (I will make you guys up a DVD email me your snail mail address).
It was getting late in the day. Dan and Greg already bailed on us. Greg even remember to take his Guiness out of Neil’s cooler (Neil looked like a sad puppy dog as he was looking forward to it). Before heading down we all took runs down the river right top chute. I was getting some excellent air and ran it four times. After that is was our final run down the river for diner.
The fire was started and hot dogs were roasted. Some of us had key lime pie for dessert. Out of the blue this little girl comes up to us with a container of cooked sausages. They were leftovers. All I can say is they were frickin awesome. They got them at “Royal Meat Products” in Mississauga (905) 279-3261. I have to check out that place some day at lunch. I also spent time during dinner transferring todays pictures onto my laptop. It was a slow day only 330ish pictures were taken.
During the evening festivities I played a slideshow of todays pictures and the best 500 pictures out of all the ones I took at worlds. People seemed to enjoy them. During the slide show this real big guy comes up to me and says “Are you Colin”. All I could think of was uh oh I am going to get the crap kicked out of me. But as it turns out it was another Val and his friend Ivan. They wanted to run the Lower Mad with us on Sunday and we said sure the more the merrier. We did however warn them about the take out road and the 4km flatwater paddle from the putin to the first set of rapids at Hass Hole.
I crashed around 10ish after a long day.
Sunday Lower Madawaska River:
I managed to sleep in until 06:30 which is an extra two hours for me. I waited for Neil and the gang to start moving. I decided to have breakfast in town with the standard “Number 5”. We started to break down camp after breakfast as we still had to wait for Val and his faithful sidekick Tonto to show up. Val was on a work release program from the “Fun Sherriff” for the day.
So todays participants were Neil and his younger brother Noel (first day in white water), Stylz, Dan, Greg, Val R, Val number 2, Ivan, My girlfriend and I. I piled all my crap into the back of Neils truck (I refuse to take my POS car down the logging roads as I would ground out). Unfortunately my girlfriend had to ride up top as there was no room in the vehicle (in case you have not figured it out yet my girlfriend is my boat). We all headed down to the putin. The putin road is way better than it used to be. It is actually quite nice with the new culverts and grading of the road. You just have to be careful dodging the cutup logs that are all over the place. It looks like there was another storm and someone was busy unblocking the roads.
Ivan and I headed down river once most of the boats were taken down to the shoreline. It took us about an hour to do the 4 KM paddle down to Hass Hole. I jumped out and started taking pictures of Ivan. We met up with the Outward Bound Instructors group. All I can say is open boat carnage, I took lots of pictures of that and will try and post them later on.
The rest of the gang finally showed up. We spent some time playing around and it was a blast. I took the wet juicy line right through Hass. It was a blast. Most of us started heading down river. I asked Neil if he told Val that we were leaving (nope). We looked way up river and all we can see is Val hopping into another boat. It turned out that Thom had a Fluid Nemesis with him and Val could not turn down a free ride in a new boat. We waited and waited and waited and finally I paddled back up to get him. I decided to see if I could get on the first wave. It looked pretty steep. I turned the pumps on, slide on, and immediately slide right down the foam pile and the first six feet of my boat were submerged and all I could see when I looked back was water gushing out of the boat via the pumps. I managed to slide back up and off the wave. It was definitely interest fun.
I forget what happened the rest of the day. I know we got some good runs in at Rifle Chute (I took the juicy wet line and got some air). Neil and Noel took a run down and got nailed at the hole. Neil was quite used to having to roll up the tandem boat after Noel went for a swim. He managed to do roll the boat back up while going through the hole upside down.
I also managed to catch a nice eddy on the way down of some other rapid, peel out and do a semi jet ferry peel in to the other side ( Greg see the cross forward stroke in the picture … no changing of hands) before peeling back onto a big wave and heading down through the hole. Neil was taking pictures of me and told me to try and surf the hole. I got on it a bit before peeling off. I also had to rescue Stylz boat after she tried to get on and surf the hole as well. It was the first time in a long time where I had to do a canoe over canoe rescue while floating down in the middle of the river. I towed her boat back to shore. Everyone saddle back up and head down river.
Val, Ivan, Val, and I took the river left route through can opener (or canoe eater) at raquette. Neil pointed out that the river right route was the chicken route. Well it turns out that it wasn’t and they realized that about half way down when Neil and Noel got semi-pinned.
After that is of off to the bug infested takeout … back to the Paddle Coop for final pack up and goodbyes.
I think everyone had a great run down the river.
I managed to get home around 8pm. I offloaded the car and started the trip report.
I will leave the pictures up for a few weeks.
Link to pictures at Palmer Rapids
Link to pictures at Lower Madawaska
