I really have to apologize to Geoff. We all met at the putin around 10am. He was hoping to be on the water by 10:30 and be off by noon due to some school work he had to do (teacher). Well we ended up scouting the river and we did not get gear up and paddling until sometime after 11ish or later which only gave him one run down the river before he had to leave.
Ok back to scouting. Derek, Neil, and I basically went holy $h1t when we saw the level. It was almost 8.8 on the gauge which would make it the highest that we had ever paddled it. We took a look at the river from the top all the way to the bottom. Everything above the falls including the falls looked really pushy and scary. I opted to leave my camera in the car for the first run as I wasn’t sure if it would end up in a swim or not.
We had a little safety briefing going over what would happen in the event of a swimmer. I really did not want to swim as I was the only one not in a drysuit. Basically it came down to swim like hell to the closest shoreline and don’t worry about your gear. We decided to put in just below the falls.
I think Derek, Neil, and I were very surprised at how pushy the water was on our first run. I told the others that the first run down scared the $h1t out of me more than my paddling day on the Ottawa back in November. I did not try and catch too many eddies or play much as I was more concerned about staying upright and dry as possible.
Everyone but me decided to play at the bottom wave for a bit. I walked back up to the car to get my camera and that is when I ran into Val. I went back down to take pictures of the gang. Dan ended up swimming down as far as the river left summer tree strainer. I know that Derek and Neil ended up going for swims as well. The three of them set up a safety system where there was someone down below on both sides of the river while the other played on the wave. They took their turns playing and rotating through the safety net. It was better to be safe then sorry when it came to swimming with the possibility of getting hypothermia.
The four of us headed back up to the foot bridge with our boats. We then headed up to the cars to figure out lunch. The others headed into town to pickup subs and would bring mine back. I stayed to keep an eye out for Val when I noticed that Martin had showed up to paddle as well. Martin and Val putin just below the falls.
I headed down to the bottom to get setup for pictures. It was then I saw Val standing on river left way below the last surf wave with no boat. He was blowing his whistle. Martin started looking up stream as he thought I blew the whistle until he realized it was Val. He paddled over to talk to him. I saw his boat way down in the lake. I went back and hoped into my boat and ran the river from the foot bridge out to the bay to get Val’s boat. Martin was already there with his boat in tow. I asked if he wanted me to tow it in but he said he was fine. I was totally amazed at how fast Martin could paddle in his glass C1 slalom boat. Val’s boat and paddle won todays swimming for distance award. Val got his boat back and paddled back over. He got out on shore and said he was done as it was not his day to paddle. It turns out he swam down the Otter Slide which was at a real high level. He also said he had a hard time pulling his skirt off as he had mitts on and ended up having to take one off while floating upside down at a high rate of speed in order to pull his skirt. I don’t blame him for packing it in as I would have done the same.
The rest of the gang had just got back with lunch and we chowed down. Dan and Martin decided to do another run while we finished lunch. We put back in and paddled across the pond to put in at Cave Eddy. Dan and Martin came up for another run with us. Neil decided that he was going to take some video of the next run. Dan, Derek, and I were waiting in a holding pattern waiting for Martin to get back into his C1 while being bumped up and down as it was push. It was entertaining to say the least as he was slumped over a tree with his body trying to get his safety belt and skirt back onto the boat. Well it wasn’t funny as he was really trying very hard but water kept getting in to the point he said screw it and fell over getting out of his boat and getting back into it up on shore.
I ran first. I ended up trying to get in the first river left eddy and I actually ended up doing a whole bunch of cross forward strokes which surprised both Derek and Neil to say the least. I did not get into the eddy fully enough before sliding back a bit and then I headed down river trying to make the last river right eddy by the foot bridge and waited there. I think Dan was next and he did fine as usual.
Derek was next and was doing better then me catching eddys until he ended up swimming into the last river left eddy before the drop at the foot bridge. I did a quick ferry across to see if he was ok only to have too much tilt and ended up out of my boat in the same eddy. Emptied up the boat with my pumps and jumped back in. Derek and I headed down to just below the foot bridge and then he said he was done. I waited for Dan and Martin to catch up before completing the rest of the run with no problems.
I decided to pack it in as my feet were getting cold and headed back up to the car to change. I met another kayaker who just arrived in the parking lot (forgot his name). All the others were coming back up to change. Dan decided to stay and run the river with the other kayaker as safety of two is better than one.
Derek, Martin, Neil, and I headed off to Tim Hortons for a hot chocolate. Thanks Martin for treating us to a hot drink.
All in all it was a great day to go paddling. It would have been nice to get some night skiing in but the conditions for that totally sucked.
Link to pictures
