Slave River Road Trip

The Slave River is a place I had never really thought I'd have the opportunity to venture to, only a river one would dream about when watching kayak flicks like Bigger Than Rodeo or YGP. Having a quiet rafting season in BC made me start thinking about post season kayaking trips and the possibility of going up to The Slave. Very little information about this river is readily available & the fact the Slave is over 1km wide meant more research was required for this trip. I searched Google for a couple of hours before coming across the Fort Smith Kayak Club website and to my surprise there is actually a Slave River Paddle Fest being held from July 31st - Aug 3rd 2009. I realized this was probably one of the only & most convenient opportunities I would have to experience this river as the Paddle Fest would orientate me to the river (as going down a wrong channel would be a disaster).

I contacted the Fort Smith Kayak Club and was given contacts for 2 kayakers from Golden, BC (Shane & Larry) who were also planning on attending the paddle festival (and spending a total of 3 weeks on the Slave). July/Aug being the busy part of the season in BC I was certain my boss would say no to this idea but in fact he welcomed it and was very supportive of the idea.

Shane & Larry as we are about to set off from Golden on our epic drive

So last Sunday (19th July) I made the drive up to Golden to meet Shane & Larry. We left first thing Monday morning to Fort Smith via the Rocky Mountains which is one of the most spectacular drives I have been on. We stopped to check out a few sites on the way, had lunch in Jasper and made a stop in Grand Prairie for supplies as we were expecting the cost of food to be inflated in Fort Smith being such a small and isolated town. 

Panther Falls, Rocky Mountain Ranges

Athabasca Falls, Rocky Mountain Ranges

The food shop was pretty epic as we had literally run out of space in Shane's truck so we had to unload and repack everything in the parking lot at Superstore at 10.30pm! Once this was under control we kept driving until about 3am before 'dirt bag' camping in a farmer's field just outside of Grimshaw for a few hours before setting about on our way again.

Trying to sort out the mess in Superstore carpark

The drive after the Rockies became very flat and once we were in the prairies all the scenery consisted of was green farmer's fields and tall green trees. Further down the track was even less interesting - tall green trees, flat scenery, followed by more trees and flat scenery.

Once in the North West Territories we had about 5-6hrs left of our drive to go so we broke it up with a visit to Alexandra Falls & Louise Falls. What you see of Ed Lucero (who was the kayaker who did a first decent of Alexandra Falls, however the world record title was later claimed by Tyler Bradt in 2007 as Ed Lucero's deck imploded causing him to swim) running this 107 foot waterfall in 'Bigger Than Rodeo' or Tyler Bradt & Rush Sturges in 'Source' doesn't give this waterfall the justice it deserves. Alexandra Falls is without doubt one of the most spectacular & most impressive sights of nature I have ever seen before. The water above the falls is so fast flowing and then gently goes over the falls like a silk sheet. Below the falls is almost completely still & the view down stream is like looking at a picture as everything is so still and calm. It's a sight that needs to be seen in the flesh to appreciate it's beauty.

Although not as high as Alexandra Falls, Louise Falls is just as spectacular and very unique in it's boxed-shaped formation.

Our last stop before reaching Fort Smith was Hay River, home of Slave Lake & also the last town with 3hrs left to drive to Fort Smith. 

Fort Smith is a town of only 2,500 people with the slogan ' easy to get to and hard to leave'. Within the first hour I could see how true this was. We were welcomed with open arms by local paddler Jon Blyth, who is endowed with the most knowledge and river experience regarding the Slave River. We were also warmly welcomed by his housemates Gen & Christina, John (another kayaker on holiday from Ontario) and Leif Anderson (Fluid Kayak Rep also on holiday). 

After the long drive (almost 38hrs traveling time total!), we pitched camp at Queen Elizabeth Campground and were looking forward to paddling with Jon, Leif and Ontario John the following day.

Day 1: Mountain Portage Rapids

Jon, Leif & John showed Shane, Larry & myself around on this section of river as we would have seriously got lost without the help of a local paddler or guide. Due to heavy rain in Alberta (mainly in the prairies) the river had risen to very high flows, 5300 cms! 

Our first mission was the put-in. At the put-in there are heaps of mosquitos, bull & horse flies so all paddlers choose to wear a dry top or long sleeve as well as splash pants & gloves despite the water temperature being around 23 degrees. Leif even walked in wearing a mosquito net over his face as the bugs were that bad. There are many log jams on this river so in order to put-in we had to launch off some floating logs about 5m from the shore. We then ferried across to the other side of the river (~20min) into a large eddy above 'Molly's Nipple'. Here we got out onto the bank then were able to walk across a log jam onto a rock island right beside 'Molly's' to scout the rapid. Unfortunately at this water level Molly's becomes a very large, recirculating, trashy hole whereas at lower levels there is a narrow tongue which leads into a large wave train so we all opted to portage this. However at this level about the 2nd last wave in the wave train forms a very large, crashing surf wave called 'Sweet Spot' which leads into a pillow wave coming off a rock island at the bottom (sort of like the 'Hump' on the White Nile). Jon & Leif were the only ones brave enough to attempt to surf this on this run down the river.

To portage Molly's we walked back to the bank where we caught the large eddy and walked down below the rocks and put-in again. From here we were able to ferry across a couple of small currents so we were right beside Molly's at the bottom of the first drop and watch Jon & Leif surf from the eddy here. 

The next rapid we ran to the right of the large island below 'Molly's' was called 'Traffic Jam' (named so due to a large number of kayakers swimming down this rapid at the same time on their first run down the Mountain Portage Rapids). 'Traffic Jam' consisted of mainly seam lines and boils. We then eddied out below this large island and paddled around the bottom of the island to river left and up the eddy of river left of this large island and were rewarded with a wave called 'The Forgotten Wave' ( a large surf wave, possible to do aerial moves and good eddy access on river right). We stayed a few hours here before running a wave train in the channel below called Avalanche. Avalanche is a nice big wave train which you can either run straight down the centre and carry on to another rapid called 'Land of the Giants' or as we did stick centre left (avoiding the sticky hole at the top on river left) and worked our way left into a large boily eddy. From here we then made our wave down to 'Chico' and making the eddy on river left before ferrying across to the next eddies on the left of another island so we could make out way to the next channel parallel to 'Chico' - 'Playground'

Waiting in line at Forgotten Wave

Leif on The Forgotten Wave

Jon on Forgotten Wave

Shane on Forgotten Wave

Playground is a great spot for beginners and there are many options here. This one channel has about 3 wave trains across the channel (2 great surf wave up top on centre right called 'Number 1' & 'Number 2' respectively). The beginners surf spot being 'Playground' located close to the bank on far river left, with a pretty flat run out and a large eddy on the left to paddle back up in. Directly above 'Playground' in the same channel is 'The English Channel' (named by a group of British paddlers) where the infamous 'Edge' is - basically the Edge is a massive hole and at certain levels kayakers who are game enough will surf the shoulder of this.

So whoever is reading this right now is probably terribly confused about the layout of the river and the Mountain Portage Rapids - that's okay, so were we and I think we still all are! You could spend a month here and still never paddle the same route down this set of rapids and this is only one of the 4 sets (still have Cassette, Pelican & Rapids of the Drowned)!

Day 2: Mountain Portage Rapids

Today we did the same route as Day 1 except Shane, Leif and John spent a fair amount of time surfing Sweet Spot before we all headed down to The Forgotten Wave. I managed to get a beating in the sticky wave behind the Forgotten Wave and was cartwheeled unintentional a few times. After spending some rest time on the rocks in the sun and having some snacks we made our way down Avalanche and this time skipped Chico and made a ferry across the next current so we could get all away across the river to be parallel to the English Channel so we could take a look at The Edge. The Edge was completely insane and even the hole above The Edge (Pre-Edge) was something I wouldn't want to find myself in! 

Leif surfing 'Sweet Spot'

Over the next few weeks I will be updating my blog to get as much information about the Slave out there to other kayakers as this river is up top with the Nile & the Zambezi. Unfortunately the Slave is also at risk of being dammed to supply energy to the oil sands and losing this river would not only be a loss for the paddling community, the locals of Fort Smith but also would wipe out the endangered White American Pelican population as their breading grounds are at the Mountain Portage Rapids. The more people who visit and utilize this river the less likely Trans Canada will get permission to dam this unique and amazing river.

For now some useful travel info:

How to get to Fort Smith: I drove up from Yale, meeting Shane and Larry in Golden so we could car pool for the rest of the journey. From Golden it is an approximate 27 hr drive but we had many stops along the way, slept during the night for a few hours and had a stop for several hours in Grand Prairie to get food supplies. The main airport in the NWT is at Yellowknife but flights can be very expensive so other foreigners choose to fly into Edmonton and hire a car, or hook up with other paddlers and drive the rest of the way up.

Where to Stay: There are many places where you can bush camp i.e. at the Mountain Portage Rapids, however the bugs are terrible at these spots and we have been warned that there are also plenty of bears in these parts. We have chosen to camp at Queen Elizabeth Campground located off the highway just before Forth Smith. Here there are powered or non-powered camping sites, toilets, hot showers, fire pits and a BBQ. I am also sure if is fairly easy to rent a room or a house in town if you are willing to spend the time looking around or are staying in Fort Smith on a longer term basis.

Food: We bought a dry-box and cooler filled with food we purchased at the last major town on the way up in Grand Prairie. Here there is a large Superstore, Costco, Canadian Tire, Walmart, London Drugs and any other store you could imagine. Costco and Superstore were great options for bulk buying drinks, granola bars etc but when we came into Fort Smith we were actually surprised that meat & vegetables were roughly the same cost as other large towns in BC so we could have potentially bought everything in Fort Smith instead without having a costly food bill.

Other concerns: It's important due to the bugs to bring long pants, long sleeve tops and any other clothing which may protect yourself from bites and stings. We all have bought with us those mosquito net jackets with the hoods. Although you may look like a major dork we are all very thankful we have these as sometimes the bugs can be too much to bare - especially if you have wet kayaking clothing on! We also bought a mosquito net shelter for which out kitchen/eating area is set up, without this I don't know how our food would survive without being swarmed by unwanted nasties! 

Be aware that there are bears in the NWT and to always keep food and toiletries away from your sleeping area, not to leave open food lying around, throw away your garbage in the bear bins on site, clean the dishes and empty grey water in the area provided and finally to always tie  the coolers and dry boxes with a cam strap so it is harder for a bear to open.

Clearwater River, British Columbia

This weekend Dan & I headed up to Clearwater in Wells Gray National Park, British Columbia. It was a pretty long drive and we finally arrived around midnight on Friday. Too tired to find any decent campground I half heartedly pitched my tent in the IWE car park and Dan slept in the back of his truck. 

Saturday we managed to hook up with Wavesport rep Kevin and some other local paddlers for a run down the lower section on the Clearwater River. It was quite an event as one of the kayakers was getting married that day and was having a pre-wedding paddle whilst the bride to be and wedding party members were on a rafting trip with IWE on the same stretch of river. The put-in for this section is either in a pretty horrendous looking eddy below the Kettle (an unrunable class 6 rapid) or at the rafting put-in just below the Kettle and another rapid called Three Fingers. Not willing to put in the sketchy looking eddy (more revolting than the Nile Special eddy) I opted for the rafting put-in. 

Straight away your welcomed with the 'Mosh Pit'. A nice bouncy wave train - but some of the waves can sometime 'mosh' you if your not on your game. Next up is 'The Wall or Hole in the Wall'. The line for this is left of the rock island. You start off the rapid by hitting the nice green standing wave facing towards the rock island. Once over this green wave you will see a tongue and start heading down towards the left, slotting in between two holes. The hit here is a nice and even if you mess up and hit it slightly off angle or go into one of the holes the water is quite forgiving here! Then again more big volume wave trains followed by 'Surprise Eddy' - I guess this gets it's name by paddlers like myself and Dan who don't know the river and ended up paddling into some big boils and whirlpools getting stern squirted and tossed around!

Around the next corner is 'Tsunami' a nice surf wave in the middle of the river. Be careful here though as behind the wave is a rock cliff in the middle of the river. Most kayakers choose to run left of this as there are 2 nice surf waves down here. If you end up getting pushed off to the right make sure you paddle far right as it is fairly shallow near the rock cliff and there are also a couple of strainers jammed into the rocks there. 

The next major surf wave downstream is Pink Mountain which was pretty hard and flushy to catch when we where there. This is located on river left. If you choose to spend some time here you can park and play by walking up the side of the bank to put in again for multiple runs of this wave.

There are a couple of eddy lines to watch out you don't get unexpectedly surprised by further downstream but the rest of the run is pretty much a float with the takeout being the bridge in town.

In the afternoon we were both fortunate enough to get a shuttle up to the Kettle with IWE. Dan & I bombed down this run after figuring out where all the surf spots were and both managed to get cleans lines down 'Hole in the Wall' without even getting out hair wet!

Today (day 2) we were again very lucky to get a shuttle with IWE to do the full-day section on the Clearwater River. By doing the full-day we were able to paddle one of the biggest commercially rafted rapids in BC called Sabertooth (be aware it is a lot bigger than it looks from the road!!!), as well as S-Bend and the Middle Canyon. 

Sabertooth gets it's name from a rock in the middle on the river which creates a bit of a roster tail. Approaching this rapid you won't be able to see much apart from a huge, meaty crashing wave to the left of this rock. Your pretty much going to be hitting this wave (if you want to get mashed in the meat of it it's up to you) on the right shoulder (and the Sabertooth rock will be on your right). You won't be able to see anything until you get over the peak of this initial wave and you will then be greeted by another large wave. The rest of the rapid is quite boily, and lots more waves but if you get mashed in the meat of it there's no need to worry, just take your time to roll. S-Bend shortly follows this and you can read and run this rapid pretty easily. Shortly after this you will pass the IWE lunch sport marked by a shelter on the right hand bank. From here it's another 20min paddle to the Middle Canyon.

The Middle Canyon is a nice series of class 3 wave trains. The entrance is marked by a creek which comes in on the left and on the centre/right there is a hole. The last rapid in this section is called Shane's Demise and there is a short flat section and you will see the take-out marked by a boat ramp on the right hand side of the river. Whatever you do, do not miss this take-out as 'The Kettle' is below this and is unrunable! The portage is about 1km and you will put in again at a trail leading to the rafting put-in.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend and it was a good opportunity for me to get my new Project 52 out on the water and to catch up with old friends from IWE who I've met throughout my travels in Uganda. Special thanks to Doug at IWE (Interior White Water Expeditions) for allowing Dan & myself get a shuttle up to the river on Sat & Sun.

Also for anyone who's interested the Clearwater Kayak Festival will be held this year July 31st - Aug 3rd 2009 which will include a downriver race and rodeo, preview of Jaunt (a film by Skippy Films), as well as Sweatshop Union playing at the Festival on the Sat night. www.clearwaterkayakfest.com 

Overcoming & Recognizing Fear, and The Lower Stein River

Yesterday my friends Matze, Jamie and Brenna decided to go out on a mission to the Lower Stein River (Stein Valley, British Columbia). Having only paddled once on the usual Nahatlach rafting run since smoking my face on Spuzzum Creek I was pretty sceptical about running it and was planning on doing video rather than running this continuous, solid class 4 run. However having another female kayaker (Brenna) made me re-think this and I loaded my baby blue Dagger Mamba 'just in case'

Last year during the rafting season up in Lytton (on the Thompson River) I made the drive up the Stein Valley multiple times and would scout rapids and walk along the trail wondering if I'd ever have the skill level to run a beautiful river like this. Last season none of the rapids made sense to me on the Stein and everything looked so big, intense and intimidating. It was so continuous, so many rocks....so many features which frightened me.

Every river I previously rafted or kayaked last season looks different to me now. They are less intimidating, they are fun and they seemed to have ''slowed down'' in terms of myself not having to worry about what is going on and that I'm actually thinking about how fun everything is.

I still consider myself to be a beginner kayaker in the fact that I am probably lacking a lot of confidence in my own skill level & ability to what I'm realistically capable of. Trying to make the transition up to be a solid class 4 kayaker can have it's set backs. One week it will seem as though I'm so high on the learning curve then the next week I'm making silly mistakes on rivers which I usually find very relaxing and easy, making myself out to be a complete ''gumbi paddler''. Then I become confident in my ability once more and am flying down the river with magic colours, a set back like a swim, missing a roll, missing an eddy, obtaining an injury such as my one on Spuzzum will push me back down that ladder and this is when the doubt can sometimes set in.

Being able to recognize the factors which create doubt in your mind is extremely important as otherwise if left unattended this can lead to irrational fear which can result in counterproductive outcomes such as a person making irrational decisions whist on a river (such as taking a swim even though they may be perfectly capable of rolling just simply because they are panicking about missing a roll or what may or may not be further downstream), missing out on running a river just due to lacking confidence in their ability, just coming up with the excuse of ''no I don't want to'' or worse....not enjoying the river or kayaking due to irrational fear.

An example of this was my first visit to Uganda in November 2008. I had previously been on the Zambezi River leading up to this and had been swimming between 1-6 times on the upper section (rapids 1-10). There was no reason for this because up until this point I had a bomber roll. Other skills started to fly out the window, I was paddling like a stiff robot due to shaking so much going down every rapid, I wasn't edging properly which lead to me capsizing. Other kayakers would just tell me I was a crappy boater or ''you need to learn how to roll''! It wasn't until I arrived in Uganda when things took a turn around. All it took was a couple of people to instantly realize it wasn't anything to do with my roll, it was the fact I was panicking when I capsized. They set about to find out why this was happening and I guess it was due to me being frightened on the unknown, being upside down and hitting a rock or not being able to roll up. They gave me the confidence within myself by asking me the question ''ok what's the worst thing that can happen here'', my answer was ''a swim'', not so bad really. Then the next thing was a little push from some friends saying ''you can roll, we've seen you before, you actually have an excellent roll!'' Within no time my swimming stopped, I stopped paddling like a stiff robot and I was able to enjoy the river, enjoy kayaking and make new goals for myself to achieve so I could become a better kayaker.

Yesterday on the Stein I felt some of this doubt re-enter my mind. Ideally I would have liked to do at least a few more easy runs before attempting a harder run which was going to test me. I knew if I let this doubt take a hold of me I would not be capable of running this river. I also didn't want to miss out on the perfect opportunity of having 3 experienced kayakers to take me down this run as the opportunity might not come by again. In the car ride up I tried to visualize what I remembered of the river, what to do if I missed a line etc. We eventually arrived at the carpark and rather than making a decision then and there I walked up to scout a few of the rapids nearby the carpark. I was pretty amazed. Instantly I thought ''these rapids are doable, they are good to go''. I made the decision to give it a go but still had some doubt in the back of my mind as I wasn't sure what was further up top.

We hiked in for about an hour or so before coming to the rapid ''Touching the Void''. Straight away I thought ''no way'' and knew I wouldn't even bother scouting it as I could see a put-in just below. I was happy with this decision, I didn't feel fearful but just a little unsure of the unknown which I guess is a good thing as it keeps you on your toes. The others continued up the trail another 20-30min and put in below the ''Devil's Staircase'' while I waited for them to come down. Most of the way down it was a series of continuous boulder gardens and holes, in some parts there were some nice v-shaped crashing wave type hole features which were non-retentive and fun to smash into. There were a couple of moments when I missed my line i.e. I got pinned on top of a rock and started to slide unstably over it's edge (somewhere I really didn't want to be the wrong side up!), in this situation I remained calm and leaned into the rock hoping I would slide off which is exactly what happened. I also got surfed in a few pour-overs/holes on the way down which where hard to come out of, the combination of the hike in and having to take a few rolls and brace took their toll on my stamina. I was able to deal with each situation and move onto the next part of the river. It was only above the rapid you can see from the carpark when I finally wore myself out and got re-circulated in yet one more hole and didn't have the energy to hold on anymore and chose to swim out. I'm sure my mates were pretty annoyed with me as who wants to rescue a boat and person, really? I didn't let my swim get the better of me, I was at my limit and tried what I could before taking that swim. 

Straight away walking back to the carpark on my own I reflected on my day on the Stein which was probably the biggest step up for me so far. I thought about the factors which placed doubt in my mind: not confident making tight eddies, not having efficient boofing technique, feeling as though my roll may not be as great as it was a few weeks ago (due to not paddling). I then thought to myself if I improved these factors will that relieve my mind of fear? Yes.

So what now? Obviously I want to run the Stein again (soon!) but I want to run it well. To do that I've established working on a familiar river and doing ''eddy hopping'' sessions will improve my confidence and spending some time with a more experienced paddler who can give me feedback on boofing will improve these factors. As for the roll, remember Uganda, it's all in the mind, I've got the roll just need the confidence:)

I'm sure there are other kayakers out there just like me who are trying to take the step up to the next level but are struggling with the mindset. Just remember it's important to boat with positive people who will encourage you no matter how many swims or tumbles you take along the way - patience is key and so is positive feedback. Visualize yourself performing a task, running down a certain rapid down the line you want to take. Set goals for yourself and break these goals down into steps so you can analyze the process and give yourself feedback. If you miss the line you want to take don't panic, read what coming ahead and take Plan B. And most importantly if you take a tumble, get back on that horse!