05-Aug-2007
Water Level:12 – real frickin low
Saturday 04-Aug-2007:
Well I had to work today. This is the only weekend my co-worker or I have to work each year. He did it last year and therefore it was my turn which kind of sucks as I had offers to paddle the Ottawa or Gatineau rivers this weekend.
I showed up at work with my boat on my car at 04:30. The plan was to drive up to Palmer Rapids if I was out of work by 6pm. I stopped for a nap at a picnic area on the 401. I had the crap scared out of me when I awoke all of a sudden as I thought I had fallen asleep and immediately went for the brake peddle as I thought I was going to crash into a tree to only realized that I was in park with the engine off. Talk about losing a few years of my life span.
I also stopped a few times on the way up to take some really nice reflection shots. I managed to leave at 5:30pm and rolled into the Coop around 9:30ish pm. Alex was nice enough to give me a cooler after a long day. We hung out at the fire for a while but I was toast and went to bed around midnight.
Sunday 05-Aug-2007
The weather was gorgeous.
I ended up going for a number 5 and a flushy at the local reataurant. I could not handle eating the oatmeal crap for breakfast.
I headed over to the portage spot by the river and started outfitting my girlfriend. Low an behold I had to wait like an hour for the others to show up. I thought they were going to paddle up and low and behold they drive into the parking lot.
We had a blast up at the top river right chute. We kept running it over and over trying to catch as many eddys as we could. It was amazing to see how many people were actually at the river. The Coop and MKC had some courses. I know there was a kids camp from Kingston way plus the regulars. Our group turned out to be AnnaLisa, Neil, Derek, and myself. Derek’s wife Julie was taking a dark side of the force course with the Coop.
We played around at the top for ever before heading down river for lunch. I have never seen the river so low. There were lots of eddys to catch and it was amazing to see how many rocks and logs are in the river. After lunch we headed back up to the top for some more fun. I decided to hang back a bit and take some close up pics of Ashley and Suzanne as they both had reflective sunglasses on.
I joined the gang back up at the chute and we ran it a few times while Derek was shooting video. I was only paddling with bare skin with my PFD on (yes I had shorts on). I asked Derek if the camera really made you look like you gained weight only to have Neil yell out it did not make a difference in my case. Thanks buddy.
After that it was swim time. We were trying to swim from river left to the eddy in front of Piano rock. Derek and Neil finally made it. I kept missing it by a hair. After a refreshing swim we all headed back down river. For a final run. I then went loaded the boat on the car and head off to pack up my tent and stuff. The others showed up a little while later. Good byes were said and that’s all she wrote.
Pretty small trip report this time.
Here are some of the pictures I took today (except for the ones of me of course).
Links to pics
