Family Camping: Creek Walking

Stories
Family

Photo: Scott MacGregor — Family Camping: Creek Walking

Long before I should have been out of a booster seat, I’d go on rides with my dad in his transport truck. Perched high above traffic in the air-ride seat of his freightliner, I’d watch him double clutch and shift through the gears of the 10-speed fuller transmission. I even had a belt buckle that read, “My Daddy’s a CBer” to hold up my Toughskins.

What does driving an 18-wheeler have to do with family camping? I’m sure taking me on rides was my dad’s way of giving my mother a break, but my parents were inadvertently planting seeds. The seeds I’m talking about are the early experiences that grow with us as we become teenagers and adults.

At age 18 I wrote my truck-driving licence and put myself through school by rolling up and down North America’s highways. It’s been 10 years since I’ve been a driver, yet I maintain the licence, mostly for nostalgic reasons. I love the smell of diesel fuel, the PISSSST sound of air brakes coming on, and the blue-collar charm of truck stop waitresses everywhere who always ask, “What can I getya Honey?”

Much has been written about Richard Louv’s sociological book, Last Child in the Woods. Louv writes about why our children are losing touch with nature and what it will mean for nature as today’s children become tomorrow’s recreationalists and environmental policy makers. He asks, if kids don’t care about wilderness now, why will they care later as politicians, developers or parents? Louv asks critical questions and explains societal influences but offers few practical tips for parents and educators who wish to reverse this trend.

CREATING TOMORROW’S ADVENTURERS AND STEWARTS

This winter I received an advance copy of A Natural Sense of Wonder by Rick Van Noy. Where Louv looks at the problem, Van noy offers solutions in an easy to read how-to guide. The book is a series of essays about how he engages his kids in nature. My favourite of his essays is “Creek Walking.”

My kids were playing in creeks long before they could walk. As a paddler I had my kids in canoes and kayaks and floating in rapids soon after they were born. When you’re two-feet tall even a small river is an ocean—too big to understand and too dangerous to explore on your own. But a creek is perfect.

Our creek adventures began as a game. I’d gather rocks in a bucket for them and they’d bomb stick boats anxiously floating below.

As soon as they could walk this progressed to full-stream-ahead exploration. Gathering rocks turned into finding critters underneath them. Pockets are now for frogs and buckets for minnows. rubber boots last as long as their first soakers and then they’re stripping their clothes and turning a shallow pool into a gravel-bottomed bathtub. Do I care if my one- and three-year-old are buck naked in Little Eneas Creek? Not one bit.

A Natural Sense of Wonder is a practical guide for parents who want to get their kids playing outside and off concrete. Creek walking is just one of Van Noy’s suggestions. He also writes about the almost forgotten joys of walking to school, skating on ponds, building tree houses and getting dirty.

To me it’s a gardening book; a book about planting seeds and growing healthy and happy wildflowers. I hope my wildflowers grow up to be lifelong family campers, adventurers and stewards who will appreciate the natural environment the way I do a plate of greasy bacon and eggs.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Skills: Lining Rapids

Skills

Photo: Richard English — Skills: Lining Rapids

Think of lining rapids as the great compromise. Lining lets you avoid a rapid that is too shallow or tight and technical to paddle, without having to shoulder your load and hit the trail. When lining properly, you use ropes and the force of the current to steer your canoe safely down sets.

Set Up

The ideal rigging requires two 20-metre throwbags and a bridle consisting of a three-metre length of rope with a loop tied at the halfway point. Using a bowline, tie one end of a throwrope to the loop in bridle, slide the bridle under the hull and tie each end off inside the gunwales at a thwart or seat. The loop should be near the keel line and at least a metre from the stern of the canoe.

With this bridle set-up you can control the canoe from below the waterline. Though lining a canoe with the stern line attached to a grab loop near the deck is possible (not to mention common) a strong pull on the grab loop from an angle can flip the canoe (many readers are nodding knowingly right now). The bow rope can be attached to the grab loop of the canoe since it will only be used to control the canoe angle.

If you don’t trust yourself to re-pack throwbags after each use then use a fixed painter on the bow. It should be of large diameter (so it is easy to grip) and both buoyant and free of knots (to reduce the chances of it getting jammed between rocks).

Safety

Whenever rope and currents mix you need to be prepared. Both paddlers should have a knife handy in case the rope gets tangled. Leave any excess rope in the bag or in loose coils in your hand. You should be wearing a PFD and if you trip with a helmet there is no sense having it in the canoe and not on your head while you scramble over wet rocks.

Starting Line

Push the canoe out into the current and let it float downstream until the stern rope becomes taut. Try not to let all the rope out. By pulling on the downstream rope while the upstream rope is taut, you will set an angle just as you would in a back ferry and the boat will ferry away from shore. To move the boat toward shore release the downstream rope and pull in on the upstream rope. The canoe’s angle will change and the current will push the canoe toward you.

By keeping pressure on the downstream end you can have the canoe ferrying as much as 45 degrees out into the current below you.

Adjust the angle until the canoe is lined up, then slowly walk downstream while keeping the ropes taut to control the angle and the canoe’s position.

Too many people risk broken ankles and capsized canoes by relying on luck and quick feet when lining. With this under-the-hull bridle set-up, lining can be less about speed and recovery and more about control and finesse.

Mark Scriver is a Black Feather guide and the author of Canoe Camping, An Essential Guide.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Rhyme and Reason: Predicting the Weather

Stories

Photo: James Smedley — Rhyme and Reason: Predicting the Weather

As dozens of folksy sayings attest, you can make your own weather forecast from easy atmospheric and environmental observations. Because you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Wind from the east, weather a beast; wind from the west, weather is best
Changes in wind direction hint at coming weather. A counter-clockwise shift in wind direction (“backing” in mariner parlance) predicts approaching low pressure with its attendant low clouds, strong winds and miserable weather. A clockwise shift in wind direction (known as “veering”) is a sure sign of approaching high pressure, with fewer clouds, lighter winds and pleasant weather. Wind typically backs from west to east and veers from east to west.

Mackerel sky and mares’ tails make tall ships carry low sails
Mottled, fish-scale altocumulus clouds indicate increasing moisture in the high atmosphere and rain within 24 hours.

Sound travelling wide, a stormy day betides
Humid air is better at transmitting sound waves.

If the moon has a halo ‘round, we’ll soon tread on deluged ground
A halo around the moon or sun is caused by light refracting through the high-altitude cirrus clouds that precede a warm front. A halo is often the first sign a low-pressure system is approaching and that rain is 18 to 36 hours away.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight
In the evening, red clouds above and to the east mean the sun is shining through clear skies in the west—the direction of approaching weather. Conversely, red sky at sunrise from a clearing in the east means good weather won’t be sticking around for long.

When smoke descends, good weather ends
Your campfire provides a reasonable forecast for the next 24 hours. As a low-pressure system approaches, smoke absorbs humidity in the air and sinks, enveloping your campsite in an ominous pall. In stable, pleasant weather, campfire smoke rises in a vertical plume.

When leaves show their undersides, be very sure rain betides
Leaves grow in a pattern influenced by prevailing winds. When storm winds blow from different directions they disturb the leaves and expose the pale undersides. The anxious fluttering of poplar leaves is fair warning to set up the tarp. Similarly, plants will close their flowers to protect pollen as adverse weather approaches.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Betcha Didn’t Know About the Hudson’s Bay Company

Stories

Photo: Algonquin Park Archives 5573 (MNR) — Betcha Didn't Know About the Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) is the oldest incorporated merchandising company in the English-speaking world. When you buy socks at The Bay you’re continuing a 338-year-old tradition.
During the first half of the 19th century, the HBC held sway over 1/12th of the earth’s land surface—allowing HBC overseas governor Sir George Simpson to be introduced at a fancy 1838 dinner as the “head of the most extended dominions in the known world, the Emperor of Russia and the Queen of England excepted.”
Although HBC are the initials of English heart-throb actor Helena Bonham Carter (who has never portrayed a beaver but did appear as a chimp named Ari in Planet Of The Apes), HBC also once stood for “Here Before Christ” in the minds of traders frustrated by the company’s monopolistic ways. Those who found themselves inside isolated fur trading posts often left thinking HBC stood for “Horny Boys’ Club.”
In a related story, it is rumoured that Sir George Simpson sired 70 children between Quebec and the Pacific during 40 years with the HBC, lending legitimacy of a sort to his title of father of the fur trade.
The original Latin motto of the HBC, pro pelle cutem, meaning “a skin for a skin,” sounds benign enough for a fur trading company, until one realizes that these words were interpreted by employees to mean that to join the fur trade they had to trade their own skin for the brutal and short life of a fur trader.
The iconic voyageur canoe paintings of Frances Anne Hopkins notwithstanding, after 1820 most HBC freight was carried not in canoes but in boats fashioned after Orcadian dories that were rowed, not paddled.
Though many assume that 19th-century Canada was buzzing with folk-song-singing French-Canadian and Métis voyageurs, 80 per cent of HBC employees at the time were stolid Scots from Orkney, who had as much trouble carrying a tune as they did their heavy dories.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Editorial: The Right to Bear Paddles

Stories

Photo: Gary McGuffin — Editorial: The Right to Bear Paddles

Imagine a smiling figure walking to the front of a crowded hall. Those nearby slap him on the back while the rest cheer. Stepping onto a stage he squints into rapid-fire camera flashes.

He grabs a paddle, raises it above his head and tells the crowd that if someone wants to take the paddle from him they will have to pry it from his “cold, dead hands.” The crowd roars; the politicians fall in line.

You probably have an easier time picturing a gun-toting Charlton Heston—movie star and former president of the National Rifle Association—in this situation rather than Paddle Canada president Richard Alexander. Here’s hoping Paddle Canada finds a way to put a little NRA firepower into its organization. The time may be coming.

As reported in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots, Paddle Canada has entered a braided section of river and chosen what it hopes is the channel with the strongest current.

At first we were gun-shy about reporting on Paddle Canada’s political manoeuvres. Paddle Canada owns Kanawa magazine and the Waterwalker Film Festival, two ventures that compete, however politely, with Rapid Media’s magazines and our Reel Paddling Film Festival. We were wary of being seen as biased, but in researching the story I came to appreciate its importance.

BRINGING IN ADVOCACY AND LOBBYING

Paddle Canada was formed in 1976 to promote four pillars of recreational paddling: instruction, safety, environmental awareness and appreciation of our paddling heritage. It had struggled lately and some doubted it could continue fulfilling any part of its mandate. The 2006 sale of its member-built Ron Johnstone Paddling Centre headquarters and the liquidation of its inventory of boats, computers, staplers and a few paper clips fuelled the worries.

Alexander told me Paddle Canada will run a surplus this year for the first time in five years. He understandably feels a huge sense of accomplishment and credits the strength of the money-generating instructional program. But when I asked about the other quarters of Paddle Canada’s mandate the conversation slowed while we checked the website to remind ourselves what they were.

“Advocacy and lobbying are not primary purposes of this paddling organization,” explained Alexander.

Perhaps not now, but if Alexander continues to strengthen Paddle Canada, why couldn’t they become more a part of its purpose? Imagine for a moment if paddlers had a vehicle for wielding political influence. That’s where the famous scene with Charlton Heston comes in (the one from the NRA convention, not when he finds the Statue of Liberty on the beach in Planet of the Apes and goes ape).

The NRA marshals more than four million members, claims an 86 per cent success rate in helping the politicians it endorses get elected and is routinely ranked by members of Congress as the most powerful lobby group in the United States.

Paddle Canada could be similarly influential. After all, if the NRA can convince politi- cians not to renew a ban on semi-automatic assault rifles, which it did in 2004, then surely an activist paddling organization could lobby for more palatable things like fewer dams, more parks, rights of access and a halt to the creep of canoe licencing fees.

If we found our voice we could have politicians pandering to canoe-owning voters by promising chain gangs for portage clearing and long weekends every other week from May to October. Wide-brimmed Tilley hats would become a symbol of power and prestige.

What’s more, if we model ourselves after gun owners, our bumper stickers would become way more interesting.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Off the Tongue: Rivers Without Borders

Stories

Lasy fall I rode my first ever conveyer belt to the top of the river. It was so intriguing I rode dozens of times. I was riding on a dream, the dream of every long-time whitewater boater. “Dude, what we need is a river that goes in a circle and we end up back where we started.” But none of us dudes ever thought it would happen, nor did we consider what it would do to the sport.

The fifth annual Whitewater Symposium was held in McHenry, Maryland, home of Adventure Sports Center International and America’s newest and most technologically advanced circular river.

The Whitewater Symposium is a gathering of like-minded river professionals who come together on a yearly basis to plan the future of the sport. Many see these whitewater parks as the saving grace of declining participation. They say they are the climbing gyms of whitewater.

The theory goes that more climbers on safe and attainable plywood walls morphs into more climbers on rock. More climbers on rock leads to a healthier industry and stronger stewardship organizations like the Alpine Club, or in our case American Whitewater.

There was plenty of talk like this at the Whitewater Symposium. But no one had the answer to my big question, Is this true? Do more gym climbers lead to a healthier rock climbing industry and community?

Afterward, I called David Chaundy-Smart, the editor of Gripped, a magazine similar to Rapid but for climbing. The similarities and growing pains of the two activities are strikingly similar and his advice about what to expect from whitewater parks was simple: “be prepared for massive change.”

Paddling, like climbing, has traditionally been made up of guys like me—a homogenous group of white, outdoorsy men sworn in to the fraternity by like-minded, scruffy-bearded brothers. We learned the hard way. Long drives, frigid swims, blackflies and hiking out after dark were just part of the adventure and the culture. And for the most part we liked it that way. Whitewater grew slowly.

Climbing gyms and whitewater parks on the other hand distill everything that is fun about the sport, taking away the unpleasant stuff like risk and personal discomfort. At the ASCI course you can be on the water right after dinner, paddle a few circuits on the sweetest waves and be back in the chalet slamming gin and tonics by eight-thirty.

Do climbing gyms create more climbing enthusiasts and environmental stewards? David thinks yes, but not the way you might expect.

He estimates that a big climbing gym in a major city puts 300 new climbers in harnesses every week. Fifteen years ago that number would have been true for the region’s entire outdoor climbing season. That one gym would introduce 15,000 people to climbing a year. Even if only three per cent of those become climbing enthusiasts—the type who climb outside on real rock—that’s 450 new core climbers coming out of one gym, every year.

Whitewater Parks are Rivers Without Borders

This trickle-down, small percentage of the bigger number appeals to me most. This issue of Rapid we’ve called “Rivers Without Borders,” and in a way whitewater parks are rivers without borders. Parks open the floodgates so wide virtually anyone can try whitewater. We’ll have a wider, healthier cross-section of paddling enthusiasts including some who’ll bring their gangster rap persona to the river, but also soccer moms and soccer teams, steel workers, lawyers, environmentalists and politicians—people with money and power.

Some of them will buy a lifetime family membership to the Action Sports Center. I hope others will take their $5,000 and give it to American Whitewater for the preservation and access of real rivers, so they’ll run free longer than just our lifetime.

This article on whitewater parks was published in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine. This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Standing Waves: Boundary Creek

Trips

Photo: David Faubert — Standing Waves: Boundary Creek

Across most of the continent, the 49th parallel fuses two political siblings–Canada and the United States–like Siamese twins. Other than a line on a map and a few well-guarded crossings, it’s not much more than a toe line in the soil.

In Alberta’s Waterton National Park this political boundary becomes more than just a fantasy fence line. Tucked into the extreme southwest pocket is Boundary Creek, a liquid no-man’s-land that skirts back and forth along the two nations’ border. It has never smelled smuggled tobacco or twisted a barrel of bootleg moonshine because this Alberta-to-Montana crossing is self-regulating: it’s a class V run.

“Running Boundary Creek is a full-day commitment,” said Spencer Cox, one of a team of four who were the first to storm the border in the high spring runoff of 2006. “To get there you have a long flatwater paddle, a longer slog up a horse trail and to end it all, an illegal border crossing.”

Cross border kayaking

Like any crossing, you have to go through Customs first. That leads directly into the full-on class-V Cavity Search; eddy left at the bottom of the rapid and this is a straightforward domestic run. Eddy right and you’ve just paddled into foreign waters (unless of course you’re American, in which case you’re home).

“The scoured bedrock drops and crystal clear blue water make it a classic example of steep creeking in the Canadian—or is that American— Rockies,” Cox says.

The creek ends four kilometres later when it spills into the U.S. side of Waterton Lake. Paddling down the lake a few hundred yards gets you back into Canadian waters.

Chris Goble, who discovered the run, managed to enlist Cox, David Faubert and Joel Fafard for a first descent of the creek in spite of the international security risk. Now with the initial run made and passport laws relaxing ever-so-slightly to allow those wonderful, tiny, waterproof driver’s licence cards, the Treasure State of Montana could see a rash of border jumping creekers paddling toward her other jewels.

This article on running Boundary Creek was published in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

River Alchemy: Mystery Moves of Squirt Boating

Stories

Photo: Paul Villecourt — River Alchemy: Mystery Moves of Squirt Boating

The Tao Te Ching (pronounced something like ‘Dow De Jing’) is perhaps one of the oldest known books. As mysterious as its author Lao-tzu, its exact origins are unclear but likely date to before the time of confucius (551-479 b.c.). translated literally, the title becomes The Book of the immanence of the Way and how it Manifests itself in the World or, more commonly, The Book of the Way.

Translated into dozens of languages several times over, the Tao Te Ching is a book of wisdom; an instruction manual on how to navigate the forces of the universe. Its most oft-quoted line is likely familiar to all river people:

Nothing is more soft and yielding than water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.

Lao-tzu’s philosophy is based on one of softness, and the giving up of control. One must understand and harness the forces of the universe rather than being rigid and fighting them, he suggested—common in the practice of Zen, t’ai chi and aikido. Throughout the years the Tao has been mined by hippy spiritualists, yoga instructors, high-powered management gurus, and squirt boaters.

Seen by the general paddling public, squirt boating is viewed as either confusing or passé… and totally awesome, on rare occasions. Unanimously regarded as the parent to modern playboating, pure squirting enjoyed its heyday in the early ‘90s on big-water rivers such as the Gauley and Ottawa.

The tight-fitting, custom-built, surfboard-like kayaks were designed for neutral buoyancy—half way between floating and sinking—and to tap into un- derwater currents. Back in the day, moves like pirouette squirts, cartwheels and blasting were radical and completely out of the realm of possibility for the voluptuous plastic boats of the time.

The last of the purists (all 70 of them) still gather every summer on the river-left eddyline above McCoy’s on the Ottawa for the infamous Jimmy Cup. The event’s namesake is, of course, Jim Snyder, the Lao-tzu of squirting.

His The Squirt Book is both a manual of squirt technique and an unintentional river translation of the Tao Te Ching. It is as instructive in the art of living as it is in squirting, and as relevant today as when it was first released in 1987 (Menasha Ridge Press).

Even though the moves seem quaint, it is worth re-visiting Snyder’s words at a time when freestyle kayaking is moving about as far away from the Tao as possible.

With pure squirting all but gone—stern squirting in a plastic playboat is incredibly uncool, I’m told— and freestyle defined by aerial acrobatics—getting as far away from the water as possible—softness and “going with the flow” are gone.

The similarities in message and style between the Tao and The Squirt Book are striking. Approach, humility, and control are a few of the many parallel themes.

Like the Tao, Snyder’s guiding philosophy is what he calls charc; the angle of one’s approach to the current dictates the outcome. Charge in and we will be rejected; look at the current and work with it, and we find the “power to apprehend the slipperiness of freedom for those few fleeting moments and to let it soak into our souls,” Snyder writes.

The Tao speaks of this, but refers to an approach towards life:

Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion,
You ruin what is almost ripe.

Ultimately, squirting is about humility and respect

Snyder writes, “Our attitudes are putty in the hands of the river… almost everyone went through the stage of being an expert-turned-beginner. Expertise re-emerges as an ability to learn, to listen to the river and our friends.” While Lao-tzu wrote simply:

All streams flow to the sea. Because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power.

Snyder’s approach to squirting, rivers and life mirrors the Tao every step of the way. Snyder’s book, while setting the stage for much greater things in kayaking, speaks louder now as a comment on putting the river, current and universe first. It stands in contrast to the bounce and bravado in today’s kayaking, approaching the timelessness of the Tao Te Ching’s verse and message.

But if both of these philosophers are right, and time seems so far to have proven it so, it is worth noting these two final thoughts:

“The best way to affect the outcome of an event is through its beginning” (Snyder).

The master takes action
By letting things take their course.
he simply reminds people
of who they have always been. (Lao-tzu)

Do you think they know where kayaking is going in the future?

Jeff Jackson is a professor of Outdoor Adventure at Algonquin College in Pembroke, Ontario

This article on squirt boating was published in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Hell Bound and Determined on the Huallaga River

Stories

In the heart of the Great Bend, the entrance to the most constricted stretch of the Huallaga, the river-left wall rises straight up 2,000 metres. Photo: Todd Gillman & Andrew Oberhardt — Hell Bound and Determined on the Huallaga River

Disappearing into a deep canyon abyss just downstream of Huanuco in northern Peru, El Rio Huallaga carves its course around the base of a massive Andean peak, and doesn’t rejoin a road until it drifts into the steamy jungle town of Tingo Maria nearly a hundred kilometres later. The Department of Huanuco considers this River Styx unsafe for travel and the U.S. State Department forbids its employees from visiting it. The jungle surrounding the Huallaga’s lower reaches bubbles with malaria and besides Kurt Casey’s original attempt of the Huallaga in 1999, few Westerners have ever peered into the canyon’s depths.

On July 10, 2007, Andrew Oberhardt, Todd Gillman, Shane Robinson and I boarded American Airlines Flight 827 bound for Lima, Peru. Our mission: attempt the un-run stretch of the Huallaga that Casey’s team was unable to complete. Our team, The Range Life, was selected by the Vacation to Hell steering committee and awarded $12,000 to explore and document this last major un-run tributary of the Amazon.

It’s easy to see why the Immersion Research Vacation To Hell board members decided this would be the perfect holiday.

The Huallaga is a logistical nightmare. Situated in northern Peru’s Department of Huanuco, it is far better known for its history with the Maoist rebel group The Shining Path, and for coca production, than as a kayaking destination.

Research leading up to the trip had yielded scant results beyond ’70s topographic data, Kurt Casey’s failed trip report, and plenty of horror stories about the cocaleros and the Shining Path.

After arriving in Lima we made our way towards Huanuco, where we connected with Peruvian whitewater guru Piero Vellutino, who proved invaluable. Few locals knew anything about the deep canyon’s lower reaches. Pilots in Huanuco and Tingo flatly refused our requests for an aerial reconnaissance mission. Hiking the canyon with the help of a pack string was said to be impossible.

After 10 days in Huanuco, the sum total of our preparations was trumped by a couple hours of Piero’s research. We learned that there was in fact a trail some 1,200 metres high on the river-right canyon wall that offered possible egress in the event of a bail-out. Still, we were left with little other option than to just head in.

Late in the afternoon on July 22 we piled four Jefes and Piero’s H3 into the back of a worn Toyota pickup and headed off to Puente El Rancho to put in on the Huallaga.

It was just our second day on the river when we reached the towering gorge that forced the Casey expedition into a multiday evacuation. By sending one team high to scout the lower portion of the gorge and another at river level on the right to scout the entrance, we managed to put together a safe line through a series of blind ledges, dropping ever deeper into the canyon. Only strong teamwork made it possible for us to make good time through innumerable unseen and gorged-out rapids.

On the afternoon of our third day, one filled with endless boat-scoutable class IV–V rapids, the character of the river began to change. The canyon walls closed in dramatically and we had considerably more volume than when we started. The dense vegetation hanging from the gorge walls meant we had made the descent into a new climatic zone, la selva.

We were deep in the section of the river we’d referred to in our planning as the Great Bend. It was here that the river takes a 90- degree bend to the left and the canyon walls soar to more than 2,000 metres. That night in camp Piero, Andrew, Shane, Todd and I pored over the 30-year-old topos trying to count the gradient lines in the next 30 to 40 kilometres. The 1:100,000 maps were as good as we could get but lacked the detail we needed to be certain of what lay ahead. They were littered with wide swaths of white space and the words “datos insufcientes.” Insufficient data is the last thing you want to see on a topo when you are trying to reason your way through a potentially unreasonable river.

We woke up the next morning to a muddy river. The overall mood had shifted from stoked to somber. Knowing that we were about to paddle into a cavernous dirty gorge that dropped several hundred feet per mile, we pushed on cautiously.

The river disappeared into another, even more committing gorge

The Huallaga cascaded down a very marginal, sieve-laden rapid before disappearing under a huge chock stone 10 or 13 metres high, and then into what appeared to be an unscoutable, unportagable canyon. Scouting river left was impossible due to the gorge wall that shot up 1,500 metres from river level.

Todd and I volunteered to scale the steep and densely vegetated right wall to gain a vantage of what lay downstream. Beating our way through vines that would silently wrap around our ankles and any exposed gear, pulling us to the ground in an instant, we finally reached a high point on river right after about an hour of jungle bushwhacking. Unable to see into the canyon, we dropped down toward the gorge rim and belayed Todd over the edge to inspect.

From what he could see, the rapid under and just downstream of the chock stone might go. The crux being the exit rapid which had a super boily entrance with compression wave features, then a fast, narrow tongue down the middle, over a steep vertical ledge with massive holes and pockets on both walls. We felt good about it, but the problem was downstream.

Even if we were able to deal with this canyon, the river disappeared into another, even more committing gorge. From our perch, we could see that there was an eddy at the lip of the drop leading into the gorge, but from there, if we didn’t like what we saw, there were no options for egress right or left. We headed back to the rest of the team to give the grim details.

Piero, Shane, and Andrew sat on the rocks deep in discussion with the topos, GPS, and SAT phone littered about. Our plan B of accessing the old Inca trail 1,200 metres up on river right would disappear if we pushed on. We still had 60 kilometres left of the steepest and most committing section of river, and we had only travelled one kilometre in more than three hours.

Our river senses were telling us to get out. Slowly we came to the conclusion that we had to, at a bare minimum, hike around what lay below us. Shane described it as “this feeling of relief where you decide to go with your instincts of survival and judgment, versus your ego to want to complete something big.” None of us wanted to leave the river.

Piero and Todd bushwhacked ahead with the machete to scout a possible evacuation route while Shane, Andrew, and I began roping boats. It was slow.

In two hours we moved the boats only about 400 feet up the relentless terrain. Then Piero returned. “I hope you guys have insurance, ‘cause we are going to need a helicopter to get out of here.” As he was dialing numbers on our satellite phone leaving messages with his family and any other helpful connections he had, the rest of us hacked out a base camp on a thin, rocky jungle ledge above the churning, victorious Huallaga.

Fighting fierce ants we camped and waited. Our gear was soiled in mud, we were battered and demoralized. As we awaited rescue or finding our own escape route, the reality slowly set in; we were not on an ordinary summer vacation. We were at the gates of Hell, temptation trying to lure us in and divine judgment telling us not to look back.

This article on the Huallaga River in Peru was published in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Standing Waves: Wanderlust

Trips

Photo: Tore Meirik — Standing Waves: Wanderlust

To truly know someone else, walk a mile in his shoes; to truly know one’s self, huck a mile’s worth of waterfalls.

For no other reason than to test their mettle and prove it can be done, two Norwegian and two British extreme paddlers are teaming up to conquer just one mile in one month. Not impressed? Consider that it’s a more upright expedition than most, as the team attempts to drop 5,280 vertical feet (one mile) of waterfall in just 31 days.

Bliss-Stick team paddler Mark Burton, Liquidlogic’s Martin Vollen, Dagger’s Ed Cornfield and Pyranha’s Per Christian Pedersen will have to maintain a 170-foot per day average as a group. A 50-foot waterfall counts as 50 feet toward the goal, but only once. Then, the group has decided, they must move on to find another drop.

Waterfall, free fall road trip

Although still plotting the course and schedule the foursome has chosen Norway for their free fall road trip. Burton explained there are plenty of suitable drops all within short distance of each other, many close to the main roads, eliminating the need for time-consuming portages. He said there could be a couple of first descents, but for the most part all four paddlers will know the drops already, cutting back on time needed to scout unfamiliar runs.

“The big thing for us is time. we all love to huck, so getting us off the edge won’t be the problem, it’s the travelling between,” says Burton. “I’ve always enjoyed running drops, but I want to see how much we can do physically and mentally; I think we are going to learn a lot about ourselves.”

“And I love the fact that for a month I don’t have to work my ass off to get someone to go hucking with,” adds Vollen.

This article on waterfalls in Norway was published in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

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