25-Nov-2007
Washago Black
Water Level: 7.75 on Washago Black gauge
I woke up at 05:30am after spending a lovely evening hanging with friends in Ottawa Valley. After checking my email and weather report I decided to hit the road early and head back to the Barrie area. I stopped for a quick breakfast at the Irving Truck stop in Pembroke and planned my route. FYI they have free wireless internet there and the food is excellent.
I decided to go back through Algonquin Park in order to head down highway 11. I was quite surprised when I came around a corner and saw a huge moose on the road. It ran off into the woods before I could get the camera out. I also managed to see a deer.
I decided to meet the group that was paddling later on at the Washago Black. I got there at 10:45. Greg and Gary were quite surprised to see me there. It was basically a WTF. I told them that this was just a pit stop for a couple of hours to stretch my legs and paddle. I also said well who else would be doing the trip report and they laughed.
The others started showing up in dribs and drabs. The paddlers today were Dan, Derek, Greg, Neil, Gary, Peter, Sean, Stephen, Kelly, and myself. Gary and Kelly had never been on this particular river before.
Gary was the token kayaker out of the group. He replaced Val for the day … oh wait a minute no he didn’t as Gary actually wanted to run the river instead of park-n-play. Val was apparently too busy using some excuse about having to put xmas lights up and therefore not coming paddling.
Kelly was from the Complete Paddler (http://www.completepaddler.ca). He brought up a Evergreen Solito ( see http://www.evergreencanoe.com/canoe_solo.html). He graciously allowed others within the group to try the boat through out the trip. This also gave Kelly a chance to try out a wide range of other open boats.
The river was up about four inches from the previous weekend. We all headed down river. Neil, Derek, and I had fun breaking the ice flow with our boats. The ice was about an inch thick in some of the flatwater sections. The higher water did make a difference as it was not as bony as the previous weekend. Everyone seemed to have fun warming up on the first couple of sets.
A lot of time was spent surfing on the waves above the lunch rock. There was actually enough water running over the ledge before the bridge to allow people to run it.
We finally arrived at Bell Ringer after paddling the flat water section. I ran it first and I think Gary and Stephen were just behind me. We then headed up to the centre channel for a quick look. The ledge looked runnable in one spot. The left hand line still looked too boney. The three of us carried up our boats. I then came back to shoot video of them only to see Gary run the ledge. Stephen apparently just put in above and kept paddling. I did my run and ended up swimming after having a lean on my right side and not enough time for a low brace. I felt like an idiot considering I had zero swims paddling the Main Channel of the Ottawa River the day before.
Gary and I carried back up into the main channel. I found out later that Neil had a bonehead swim at Bell Ringer. He apparently went over at the top and swam the whole way down. He was however paddling the Solito and tried to use that as his excuse but a swim is a swim!
We headed down towards Pinkies. I forget who was surfing the wave but Dan yelled upstream boater has the right of way and he did his normal wave hog slide onto the feature move. Well payback is a bitch as I was now the upstream boater and headed right for him. He said bring it on and I pushed him off the wave and paddled like hell so he wouldn’t push me over and make me swim.
I headed down to the last set and played for a bit. I then headed over to the take as I was getting tired.
I think everyone had a great day. I know I did. Dan and I grabbed some dinner in town on our way back to reality land.
Here is a short video
I did not figure out to have music in it yet. Maybe next time.
