So the other weekend we all headed over to the kayak movie night hosted at the Corner Bar and Grill. Breaking away from the trend of movie nights at the Glebe location, this year’s event was held at their new pub in Westboro.
Level Six and Five2Nine sponsored the movie premier of “Reimagined”. The funds raised from the movie night went to First Descents Canada, a program that empowers young adults fighting and who have fought cancer to regain control of their lives through things like paddling and rock climbing.
There were lots of prizes raffled off including a dry top, lifejacket, t-shirts and even a boat; our own Ebony even won an H2O paddle! YAY! All in all it was a great night of drinks, paddling movies and great friends, Awwwww.
As for the pools sessions, we’re going to continue having them into exam season to liven up your dreary study days with some kayaking fun before you head home to all those Holiday treats and gifts wrapped in ribbon.
These are pictures from the Oct 29th pool session. We have tons of pool sessions this year almost twice a week. Check out our pool session page where you’ll find all the information about our pool sessions and schedule.
This summer I came back to school after spending an amazing season working on the Ottawa River. As great as a summer working as a Raft Guide could be, I got to paddle everything the Ottawa has to offer, which in a full spring to fall season is quite a damn lot (note that I could of easily made a pun but chose not to!). However, I got back to the city this September and had an itch that needed to be scratched. This summer I didn’t get to go out on nearly enough new rivers as I was hoping to, and knowing that the fall has some epic festivals going on down in the states, I decided to make it my mission to get down to two in particular. Gauley Fest in West Virginia, and Moosefest in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State. This blog is going to be sharing some of my stories from those two festivals. Now some of these stories might be leaving out a few things, so if you want the whole story you’ll have to get them some other way.
Every year on the second weekend of September the Gauley River hosts the world’s largest white water festival. The campground is based at a baseball/football field in the town of Summersville. Now stating that this is the world’s largest white water paddling festival, which includes kayaking, canoeing, and rafting, doesn’t give you a whole lot of context. To put it more in perspective, the local highschool football game draws about as much attendance as this festival, but to be fair, West Virginians loves their football. So needless to say, there were a few familiar faces down on those country roads.
Now all this beginning said, my adventure really started off the night we were leaving for the road trip. It was about 8 o’clock at night on Thursday by the time we collected everybody from Ottawa and the surrounding area and loaded our trailer with 8 boats for 5 people and all of our gear. At this point we were ready to make the 12 or so hour drive down to America’s near south. There are a few things in particular that pop out in my memory as I sit here writing about the drive. The first thing we did as soon as we crossed the border into Ogdensburg was stop off at the Wal Mart 15 minutes from the bridge crossing, a case of “when in rome”. We indulged our selves in cheap junk food, memory cards (which made the few photos of the trips possible) and prepared ourselves for the late and long drive ahead us. The cashier found out we were from Canada and asked us why we decided to stop off at the Walmart 15 minutes away from the homeland. My response was that Canada closed at 8:00 pm, and well, she seemed quite content with that answer and didn’t ask any more questions. On a side note the parking lot at the Ogdensburg Wal-Mart has horse hitches for buggies. Apparently the Amish shop at Wal Mart too. About half way through New York we managed to take out the king of all porcupines with the front bumper of the Honda Pilot. However, the thing that stands out the most in my mind from the drive is a gas chain that we stopped at while heading down to West Virginia. It was about 3 or 4 in the morning and I was sleeping in the back seat until I was woken up by blaring polka music coming from the speakers of some gas station in The Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania!
We rolled up to the town of Accident, Maryland at about 5 in the morning where we made camp next to some sort of silo guarded by barbed wire fences in a field off of a sideroad. By camp I mean we slept inside the car. After everybody got a few hours of shuteye, we woke up and continued our trip to the first stop of Friendsville, Maryland where the plan was to run the Upper Youghiogheny (upper yough) river. This turned out to be my first real creeking experience since I pretty much figured out how to actually kayak. The river was continuous class III-IV, and weaved its way through boulder gardens. I had an absolute amazing time on this section of river. Never having run anything as continuous as this before, the challenge came not from the difficulty of the white water but the consistency of it. You could only find rest in the eddies you would catch. Don’t get me wrong, this section wasn’t cruisy boogey water it had some serious drops and features that could get you into quite a bit of trouble. This was for me a totally different experience than the Eastern Ontario runs where it’s drop-pool style and if you screw up you can pick up the pieces down at the bottom. Here the bottom of the rapid was a couple kilometers down.
After the rapids were over we floated down the rest of the way into Friendsville where we parked our cars and with a bit of confusion as to where we could ‘legally’ exit the river (Americans really really don’t like it when kayakers use private lands to get back to their cars) we managed to get back to our vehicles. We got back onto the road but not before a town counsel representative rolled up on his yellow Kawasaki crotch rocket and reminded us that the street infront of the town’s local gas station was not a change room (oops). Also on a side note there was a ‘Phil’ spotting… Yes the same Phil who is responsible for the naming Phil’s Hole on the Ottawa River!
After we used the mean streets of Friendsville as our own public change room we got back into our car and drove off to our final destination of Summersville, West Virginia. Along the way we stopped off at yet another Wal Mart, enjoyed American fine cuisine at Burger King, and I purchased an infamous jug of corn whiskey at an American drive through liquor store (who knew those actually exist!?). We got to the festival grounds at some point in the night, that whiskey made my memory a little hazy, and continued in our night of merry making. The festival itself was nothing like I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of white water fanatics camping out in whatever patch of grass they could find, and tens of promoter’s tents set up (in terms of paddling festival that’s a lot). Fuelled by whiskey, that night got very hazy so for this blog that’s about as much as I’m gonna share about the night’s festivities.
The next morning we woke up groggy/sore/light sensitive/and still a bit ‘fuzzy’ and we got ready to paddle the upper section of the Gauley, the main reason as to why we came down to a region where something called ‘grits’ is actually a breakfast food. Before I came down to the Gauley River I was told that the river was very similar to the Ottawa, so I was expecting big wave trains and not much else. Turns out that what I’ve heard about the Gauley was all lies! In terms of volume, yes the Gauley is like the Ottawa. However, in terms of technicality the Gauley has so much more going for it. The most intimidating thing about the Gauley was that above every rapid the person who was leading us down would stop and explain the line (btw there was no scouting on this river, ‘ignorance is bliss’), but in every description of the major rapids it included something like this, “Stay away from the side walls/rocks they are massively undercut, people die there”. Then there would be a final head nod to reassure everyone understood, and we were off. It was pretty much understood to assume all the rocks and all the walls, which there were a lot of, were undercut and you should stay well the hell away. Despite the river’s very serious consequences it has become probably my favourite run to date, with 2 rapids in particular, Pillow Rock and Broken Paddle, being on top. Unfortunately I have no pictures from that day due to the fact we put on at about 3:00 pm and we were chasing sunlight the entire time.
The next day I was hoping we would be running the same section again, however, with three loooong nights and 2 long days of paddling the group opted to run the lower section of the Gauley river which this time was not as challenging but was equally, if not more gorgeous than the upper section, and was a definitely more relaxed, which was a good fit for what everybody was feeling. The day started off with a bit of a gongshow on our group’s part. During the extended amount of time it took our group to wake up/get ready/get packed the other groups which we were paddling with had left to go run the river. They did however leave us a map on how to get to the put-in, which we followed to some sort of success. We ended up putting in on the ‘middle’ section, which extended our run by an hour or two. We got on the river by ourselves, hoping that the person in our group who ran the river 5 years ago remembered where the take out was. Turns out he didn’t, but luckily we met up with the others, and after a 2 hour surf session we stopped surfing and realized we were at the point where we would be chasing sunlight, again. We took out with about 30 minutes of sunlight left (success!). The unfortunate thing was that it took about 2 hours to run shuttle for everyone so it was 9:00 pm by the time we left the take out. Once the shuttles got back we drove out of the put in, stopped at a Wal-Mart, got some Taco Bell, and spent the night in motel. The next morning we bailed on our plans to run the New River Gorge (Which is a gorgeous class III run). We decided it was in our best interests to drive the 12 hours back to Canada and get home at a reasonable time. And so ended my first Gauley Fest. I had an amazing time considering everyday seemed to be a gongshow, which was pretty much typical of most paddling trips.
And so few weeks passed until last weekend (Oct 15-17), when I got all my gear packed up and we yet again hoped back into our cars and drove down south of the border, only this time the destination was a little closer to home. The 4 hour drive down into the Adirondack Mountains got us to the town of Old Forge New York, where we stayed in a motel for the weekend of Moosefest. It’s a pretty sweet experience staying in a small town during a paddling festival. During festivals like Moosefest it seems just about every car has a roof rack stacked with Kayaks and every one is there for the same reason – run some gnar and have a good time. I have even fewer photos of this weekend because well just about every rapid I was seriously worried about swimming/some how eating shit, so I didn’t bring my camera. So yeah, that should give you guys an idea about the style of river. The Moose River is a class IV-V run, especially at the water levels we had that weekend of the festival. The following morning we woke up and heard all sorts of rumours about what level the river was running at. From what I gathered that morning it was some where between 5 and 8 on the gauge, normal running flows for the Moose are around the 3 mark. That in itself was not making feel any less nervous about running the river. As it turns out the river was at 5.3ish. We were running the Bottom Section of the Moose and this section does not start off with a warm up.Fowlersville Falls was the first rapid and was the biggest thing I’ve run to that point, so I was a little bit more than scarred. The great thing about festivals is that if you’re worried about running a drop you can watch as many people as you want run the rapid and hit the line so you can build your own confidence, or watch people not hit the line so you know what not to do. After watching about 15 people run the massive slide with most people nailing the line I decided to hop into the eddie above the drop and wait with about 20 others till it was my turn to run it. That being the downside of festivals, when it was my turn to go I hoped that I still remembered the line and went for it. Since I don’t have pictures of it, I found these videos from this year’s festival on youtube,
This one has a lot of go pro footage which is really cool!
The first drop is Fowlersville and then it has a bunch of the other rapids. We continued down the river where the drops got bigger and scarier. My fears of swimming held up and I ended up swimming at the bottom of a rapid called Sure Form. The drop was another Slide type rapid and the line I picked had me going over a bunch of manky rocks and rooster tail kickers in which you had to paddle over to get to the left side which set you down a chute and that was the end of the rapid. I however, underestimated the speed at which I would be going down this thing so I didn’t set my angle soon enough and it sent me into the middle where it dropped me over sideways into a very large very sticky pour-over hole. I managed to keep myself in a controlled side surf but after about a minute of battling this thing, and have 3 other kayakers ride over me while I was getting pounded, I decided it was time to pull the shoot. I crossed my fingers hoping that it wouldn’t suck me back in and I swam to freedom.
The highlight of the day came at spot called Ager’s Falls. Apparently its tradition (at least with the group I was with) that if you’re running the river for the first time you have run the rapid blind (i.e. without scouting) and so I did running the 20 ft drop into more waves and holes down below successfully. I had an awesome time running it so I decided to hike back up and run it again. This time with less than perfect results as I ran the second half of the rapid upside down on my head sliding on rocks, but I was perfectly fine (thank you full face). This is a lot more than other people can say. After we ran the drop we hung out at the bottom and watched a shit show of swimmers run the rapids below the falls. Now I know it may be bad river karma to laugh about people swimming but we were down at the bottom for about 30 minutes and watched about 20 people swim. People ran the drop ducky style and it seemed that one by one they were all pulling their skirts and swimming. As boats and people floated past we did our best to help with the clean up effort down at the bottom. There were people bumping and grinding their way down rocks and slides. There was another spot with a 6-7 foot drop that people were swimming over, some headfirst. At one point there were 3 people sitting on rock ledge in the middle of the river with nowhere to go. After realizing the only way to go was down and with what seemed to be a communal understanding of “Fuck It!” they jumped down the drop and swam the rest of the way. But my favourite group of swimmers were those that held onto their gear, hopped onto top of their upside down Kayaks and rode them the rest of the way down the rapid. They only needed a cowboy hat in one of their hands and it would have been perfect. All jokes aside though, after all was said not everyone’s day on the river was as successful. After witnessing a very serious and scary near drowning further down stream it put a bit of a damper on the rest of the day. After we took off the river, tales of carnage started to be told at the take out and at the bar. More than 5 hospitalizations, a bunch of dislocated shoulders, knocked out teeth, a few more near drownings happened the day we ran the river, however saddest of all, a death on the river occurred the following day. Going out on the river is great fun and pushing and scarring yourself is incredibly rewarding, some people get unlucky, but knowing your limits should always be in mind.
The night was continued with bar shenanigans that paddlers always seem to provide. The next morning the moose was running even higher and it was decided to go run the Independence River which was short 1-2 hour creek run. The day was more of a relaxed for me, as I opted to walk a big stacked slide called “The Fat Lady” and we headed back to Canada yet again.
So now that I have these two festivals checked off my list and its started to get cold outside I can finally stay in the city and maybe start focusing on some school work!
This September CUKC splashed its way into a new school year with our biggest trip yet!
We left the CU parking lot Friday night to barge our way onto the River Run camp site. River Run happened to be the chosen setting for a wedding. Yes, we are all certified wedding crashers and, being the classy kids we are, we shared a bag of wine with one of the guests and yelled the chorus of “500 miles” into the late hours of the night.
On Saturday we awoke to a lovely breakfast of bread, bagels and milk-less cereal set out by Amy and Alberto. Some of us opted to snag some coffee and tea from the wedding party.
After breakfast, 40 of us hit the water while Farzona and Dave travelled down the river hunting for photo opportunities.
We had 16 rookies brave the Ottawa River under the wings of Billy Harris, Graham Ball and Cheryl McGregor. They spent the day at the put-in learning the basics and playing in the mud. The rest of us ran the main, catching surfs and cliff jumping. We definitely had more swims than the beginners – although a lot of that was me having disagreements with the rapids and my boat… not to mention loosing my paddle at Garb.
I did get it back after the river thanks to Dave but Juraj let me borrow his paddle while he ran the rest of the river without one – no big.
When we got back to the take-out the wedding party had kicked us out of our camp site and we were forced to carry tents on top of cars up the road to a new location.
We got a little bit of rain Saturday night but nothing too big to scare off the partying, booty beers, star-spinning and guitar playing.
Sunday morning was a foggy one but that didn’t last long – much to the dismay of a few rosy noses.
The beautiful weather made way for a stellar day of kayaking with less swims than the day before; YAY! And the beginners got to test out some whitewater on the middle!
After all was said and done I saw nothing but smiles leaving the river, chatting about their adventures. We packed up camp, ordered up the well-earned booty beers, and headed home from a successful weekend of paddling.
CUKC would like to welcome all of our new Frosh students to the university and to the club! We have a big and exciting year upcoming for everyone so make sure you stay informed. CUKC will be running two major trips to the Ottawa River again this year, take people out to movie nights, and attending many community kayaking events throughout the year and especially in spring time.
For all of you who don’t know, the main form of communication with our club members is through the mailing list and this website. If you haven’t already, please take the time to sign up to the mailing list.
We can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook, just search the Carleton University Kayak Club and you’ll find us in no time.
So you’re part of the club, now what? Well we have a couple events planned already that are right around the corner: We have our big CUKC Fall Trip weekend at the Ottawa river on September 23, 24, and 25th. It is a whole lot of fun and very affordable. For more info and registration please see our events page.
If you cannot make the weekend trip then no worries. We will be running a beginners lesson day at Mooney’s Bay in September. We will also be starting up our Saturday evening pool sessions on October 1st. There will be many other small events run throughout the fall and winter to give everyone an opportunity to participate and learn the sport or meet new people.
All the info for the above mentioned will be sent out to our mailing list to remind everyone. However, if you have any questions before then please do not hesitate to contact us at info@cukc.ca and we’d be happy to answer your questions.
Well another trip has come and gone for CUKC, but as always, it was an amazing trip. It was full of booty beers, sweet surfs, smiles, and some good swims
We stayed at Owl Rafting for the weekend with our good old exec Juraj. It was a great location for camping because it provided breakfast in the mornings, free lemonade all day, good night parties, and good campsites. From the campsite we only had a short drive and then we were at the river ready to put-in!
The rapids were enjoyed by all during the weekend. We had some people run McCoy’s Rapids and punching straight through Phil’s Hole…way to go guys!! Then we had one of our awesome beginners go right into Horseshoe, get flipped a couple times, flipped back over with half his skirt on and surfing without a paddle! You’re our hero Emmett!! Awesome moment that we wish we had on camera. We got some good surfs and relaxation at Babyface, but eventually the rafts got annoying enough that we headed downstream.
Events downstream were amazing for the rest of the weekend as CUKC saw huge improvements in the beginners and intermediates that were on the trip. We had some great first surfs on Garb (Mitch, Emmett, and Alberto!!!) which were also on video for the proof. We had some of our new beginners also surf Pushbutton (way to go Bryana); and we had everyone make it through Normans rapid without flipping. Very good job everyone!
There were also some good swims, but the best were the intentional swims without bailing from the kayaks: We stopped at Braindusche for a little while and had some people pencil diving in to see how far the current would take them. For those who don’t know, this rapid consists of whirlpools that suck whole kayaks underwater, so you can imagine the downtime someone would get diving into the whirlpools….especially while holding rocks to weigh them down (Juraj and Mitch you guys are crazy!!)
Our other good swim was in the pour-over at the Garborator wave. Again, this is fast moving water coming over a rock (pour-over to be exact :p) and if you get close to it, you’ll be sucked under and pop up downstream a bit further. It was good fun, and good practice for seeing how a undertow/hole feels.
All in all, good weekend as usual and we hope to have many more. Upcoming next is our trip back up to the Ottawa River for the King of the Clubs weekend on Sept 2nd. Hopefully many can make it, but if not, we’ll keep you updated with another story
On August 21, 2011 Carleton Kayak Club made their first Tunnel mural. Last weekend on our first CUKC Summer trip our president Mathew Tasson informed us that the club had been approve to make their collaboration to Carleton’s artistic tunnels.
Yesterday Mat and my self (Alberto) went down to lay the fist layer of white paint, we though it was going to take a couple of hours for it to dry, but due to the high temperatures in the tunnels it dried in no time. So we though that today it was going to take us about 3 hours to finish the whole painting.
The day began at eleven a.m as Mat, Caitlin Lousie, Kayla Bear and myself met in front of the Uni center and headed down into the tunnels. We started by projecting the CUKC logo onto the wall, because of the size, the logo was split into four quadrants as proceeded on sketching the outline. After 45 min later the logo was starting to take shape.
Then, the unanticipated long painting began, we first started with the red color which involved many, many, many small time consuming drops around our mascot the raven and our sweet kayaker. Time continue to pass as the temperature kept rising. Finally at six thirty the logo was finish and just detail finishes were being apply to erase the pencil tracings, meanwhile Caitlin was writing “Carleton University Kayak Club”. Hard work and exhaustion was slowing the crew down but then Bryana Beange arrive with lots of energy and enthusiasm which push everyone else to continue working on our pice of art.
At nine p.m sharp the mural was finish , after 10 long, hot, sweaty hours the hard work had paid off. Final pictures were taken and the closing of the video was recorded ( expect a fast forward making of the mural video soon). After enjoying the new CUKC logo for a while our five members: Mathew Tasson, Caitlin Lousie, Kayla Bear, Bryana Beange and myself Alberto Martel headed out to rest.
Schools out for the summer, but CUKC is still running strong! We have run a couple of summer trips so far for 2011 and will continue to run more up until September. Here is a recap of what CUKC was involved in throughout the past few months:
Hell or High Water (HOHW)
This year CUKC formally put a trip together to get people aware of the Hell or High Water event. In brief the event is an initiative to bring awareness to the Petawawa River in attempt to save it from the proposed hydroelectric dam. This year we had many of our members come out to see the event. We even had our very own VP Events Juraj Kobzik participate in the kayak race down the river. He did a great job and represented our club well!!
The event was a huge success bringing out many people and clubs to the event. CUKC had a great time watching all the carnage and “relaxing” around the campfire during the evenings. For more information on saving the Petawawa River please visit: www.savethepetawawa.ca
CUKC @ Palmer Rapids
Our next trip was off to Palmer Fest which takes place on Palmer Rapids on the Madawaska River. This is a fun festival that is known for its great bands that come on the Saturday night and the great clinics and instructors. The rapids are mostly class III rapids which help with the whole learning environment of the festival.
CUKC took some people to the festival this year to learn how to kayak and try out some new whitewater. We got some people to get their rolls for the first time ever and got some people to learn how to surf river waves! Then, what better to end the day relaxing in a hot tub, eating steaks, and having milkshakes!!!! It was definitely a good day!
Then for the second part of our trip we headed over to the Ottawa River where we all ran the Middle Channel. The weather started out a bit gloomy, but then it cleared up to yield a very nice day. The larger rapids of the Ottawa River did send some nerves through people, but all in all everyone very much enjoyed the day and all the swims Our most notable swim of the day (which should be given an award) started after a bail at the top of Lower No-name. The bail occurred on river right, so our fearless swimmer had to boot his way across the entire width of the rapid to avoid the nasty Vampire Hole and other features. After making it across and down the whole rapid, he was tired, but ok…….and now he has an epic story to be told everywhere!!!
CUKC Hits up the Gull
Our most recent trip occurred this past weekend with a trip to the Gull River in Minden, Ontario. This is a very technical Class III+ river with some very interesting features. It is also a very shallow river (watch out for those rocks!!). CUKC spent 2 days at the river teaching some people how to further improve their whitewater skills and teaching some brand new beginners how to whitewater kayak.
Despite having such a wide variety in the skill level of paddlers that attended, everyone learned something new by the end of the trip. While some learned how to throw down some moves in Earl’s Hole, others learned the techniques to entering and exiting the current with a kayak. Lastly, some people improved their rolls and got them pat down even in the current!! Bravo!!
Yet again another good trip and some more good carnage. Due to the shallowness of the river the group had some cuts and bruises from different swims, but nothing serious and everyone was still happy by the end of the trip! And, as always, CUKC ate well during the weekend with a feast of steak, souvlaki shiskabobs, chinese, roasted potatoes and lots of ice cream throughout the weekend!! Also, as a side, we got to do some other water sports too which included water skiing where Mitch and Shawn showed us how its done with slalom skiing while holding the handle with one foot!!! Well done guys!!
So that is what CUKC has done in the summer thus far. Don’t worry if you missed out on the above, because there are still lots more trips to come for the year. Keep updated on our Facebook page and we will let you know when the next CUKC summer trip will be. Or feel free to email us with any of your questions at info@cukc.ca
Here are some photos of the trips for your enjoyment!!!
From Left to Right Top Row: Alberto Martel, Amy Robichaud, Kayla Callaghan, Allie Wilson, Ebony Griffin Middle Row: Mathew Tasson, Wade Lazarus, Rebecca Wylie, Cheryl McGregor, Mitchell Broughton, Michelle Kovesi, Joel MacWilliam, Conor McCrea Smith, Curtis Johnson, T.J Scull Bottom Row: Ben Tasson, Emmett Proulx, Juraj Kobzik, Caitlin Louise, Jared Props Evans, Dan Flaherty
About 2 weeks ago (I know its a bit late for posting a blog, but its been a busy couple of weeks for me) CUKC held our annual spring trip. This time we decided to have the trip over a 2 day 2 night period which turned out to be a great success and probably our best spring trip to date. The trip started off in the parking lot of Carleton University in perhaps what was a less than speedy exit, either way were off to our destination, the liquid skills cabin on the banks of the Ottawa river just up stream from the first rapid on the river. After we showed at the cabin we continued in the skiddish manner in deciding how were going to go about getting food into everyone’s stomach. It was Good Friday in the Ottawa Valley, and finding a restaurant that would be open was thought to be a bit of an issue. Either way we decided to head out and check out the nearby town of Cobden to see if the standard “go-to spot” was open. The crew headed out all in convoy, minus a few exceptions who chose their own adventure to the restaurant, and upon arrival sat down to a banquet hall sized table and proceeded to get fed. We got back to the cabin and opened the nights festivities with a bon fire. Now, the thing with the fire pit is that it was also combined with a mud pit, with the days leading up to the trip being very rainy the low lying fire pit was very bogged down. In the scramble for seating around the fire pit we used the white wicker patio furniture as seating around the fire pit, and it seemed like a great idea the time. The night progressed smoothly with the added lubrication of the slick mud. Guitars, drums, and harmonicas made appearances, bets were won and lost… and that’s as much as I’m saying the subject, and all in all the night was a muddy good time.
The morning after, we woke up to grey and wet conditions that were not very conducive to newbies going out on the water and having a good time. It was cold and wet and miserable, and although some of the newbs were very keen to get out we decided that it was the best idea. After breakfast was served and conditions looking like they weren’t going to improve any time soon, we decided that we would all take a mini field trip to check out high water coliseum and see some our more experienced members run the gnar. As soon as we got back into our cars the weather broke and the sun and the blue sky emerged and what looked like a day were the first day of kayaking was going be canceled it turned into a gorgeous afternoon perfect for an intro to white water lesson. That night after we got off the river we flipped some burgers got the crew fed and the night which was looking like it might turn into a bit of a mundane night at the beginning due to a recovery from last night’s festivities turned into one of more merrymaking and rowdy good fun. Starting off with a threepeat of the whitewater paddling classic “valley high” which turned into a pretty great drinking game. Guitars were then busted out, songs were made up and rollers were steamed. If you’re wondering why the bon fire didn’t happen the second, the patio furniture that we used sunk into the mud and we may have broken the legs on it, but more on that later. We spent the night inside the cabin, laughing, singing, and steamrolling. The morning after the second night we flipped some breakfast burgers and went on getting everyone organized for their second day on the water. Before we got on the river, Mat and I were dreading the talk that we were going to have to have with Joey Hitchins, the main guy at Liquid Skills, and the guy’s whose white wicker patio furniture we no longer made white and stable. Joey came by to check in on us at some point in the morning and Mat and I went over to give him our sincere apologies and receive his words of ‘what were you guys thinking’. Much to our surprise and relief, Joey didn’t care! instead of ‘what were you guys thinking’ we got ‘I’ve been meaning to remodel the place, burn em’. So burn em we did. After the patio furniture fire we had everyone run the middle channel of the Ottawa. After the first day of lessons with Billy Harris and Graham Ball, we took the crew out the next day with Billy and Michele to run the river. We had every one put-in with Billy and Michele at the cabin while those more experienced would set up shuttle and meet up with them. The shuttle run was a little bit of a gong show, with blame on my part, a weekend of partying and sun took its toll on my personal organizational abilities and gear was forgotten at camp, but in my defense I was not the only one! So myself and the others who already knew how to paddle ran down once all the gear was collected and we met up with the crew of newbs down below butterfly, the third rapid on the middle section of the river.
Up until this point the crew only had 1 or 2 swimmers. Which was excellent because those who were supposed to be cleaning up swimmers weren’t entirely missed. We made it to Garvin’s rapid where Jared nutted up and ran Elevator Shaft and the Dragon’s Tongue lines on the rapid and the others played below on the Garvin’s waves. After our break/play session at Garvin’s we ran down to Lower No Name, where those low swimming numbers sure enough expanding and we made up for all those people managed to stay dry. During the swim fest at Lower No Name, I went to go for a heroic rescue which involved me ferrying out after the swimmer into the current and as soon as I got into the current flipped over, carped on my role attempt no less than twice and then with my tail between my legs went back up the eddy and stayed behind with some others to surf big smoothie while I got some space between myself and everyone who saw Rescue Hero Juraj in action. Getting back to shore we had the swim team do their rightful booty bears and then we headed back to the Cabin clean it up so that it would be in some sort of respectful condition. After which we headed back to the city and so was another weekend of getting a wonderful group of newbs introduced to whitewater and everything it has to offer.
A big thank you has to go to Billy Harris, Graham Ball, and Michele from OKS for helping out instruct our Newbs and get them safely down the river. Also another big thanks to Joey Hitchins who let us rent out the Cabin and be super cool about the destruction of his patio furniture in the mud pit. And one last big thanks to everyone who came out and helped make the trip run as smoothly and perfectly as it did!
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