Bloodvein River Solo 2015

Sunday Aug 9 – Day 14 Time: 7 hours 4 minutes Distance: 18.1 km Slept solid, woke up after 10:00am to the now expected blanket of grey. Feels warm, over 20 and the wind is back although never much of an issue over the day. Had the usual breakfast and organized for the day. I should have been underway but the mediocre weather was making me even more lethargic than usual. I finally left at 12:50pm, there were blue patches now growing and progressing to mostly sunny by late afternoon. I paddled up to #29; Goose Rapids a 3 part rapid consisting of two adjacent CV ledges near the top with a series of well separated CII's to finish. I had a good look at the two ledges I would not be running then took a load down the easy 100m portage trail to the sheltered put-in, a small cove with a bit of coarse sand and a big pile of driftwood. The initial CII part looked fairly simple from a distance. I brought a second load over then returned for the “green monster”. I had taken just a couple of steps away from the boat when I spotted a snake slithering across the rocks in front of me! It was a fair sized garter snake with a firm grip on a large frog. The frog was flailing about and being flung about by its captor. I ran back to the boat to grab my GoPro, the snake had moved up into the trees, a few stunted jack pines. The entire process took about 17 minutes, as the last toes went down the hatch the snake flicked it’s tongue, burped and slithered away to cover. This is something I had never seen in the wild, especially cool to get it all recorded. I finished taking the last load of gear over the trail then returned to drag the boat over the mostly dirt path. I ran the series of CII's that followed without issue.

On to #30; Round The Bend, there is a portage here over a small island, the left channel is a CIII/IV ledge, the smaller right channel is a CII/III. I pulled into a small bay on river left to have a look, there is a small ledge on RL at the top, past that there are some obstructions on RR to avoid. I had a smooth run other than taking on a bit of water that required sponging. After the rapid there is actually a stretch that I could drift along on the current, yes that’s right actual current!

Rapid #31 follows about a km downstream, I pulled in to the pool on river left to scout. The portage is very short but the rapid looked like a simple volume CIII, straight with no obstructions to avoid and easy at these levels. I had no trouble but once again did take on a bit of water due to waves.

In this section the river narrows somewhat and feels much more closed in by the high rocky banks, approaching Crater Rapids, #32, there are sheer cliffs of rock, the portage takeout is on river right well upstream of the start of the rapid. It’s very steep with very little space for unloading, possibly none if the water was higher. I grabbed the green monster and headed up the trail to scout the rapid. The well-worn trail is narrow as it wends its way through very thick and tall undergrowth. About two thirds of the way the trail emerges into a small clearing with a fantastic overhead view of the rapid perhaps 25 metres below. I continued on to the end and dropped the load by the water, a large calm pool. The rapid, a CIII/IV is not visible from either end of the trail, barely even audible which seems a bit odd. I headed back, taking a few more minutes to scout my route from the campsite lookout, while the site is nice, it’s shady and relatively small by Bloodvein standards. I plan to follow the suggestions of previous paddlers by lining the top of the rapid from the left and going down as far as necessary before running the remainder. From the high view it looks like it should be fairly easy to get around the boulder CIII/IV top part and paddle at least the bottom half along the left. Water levels could have a big impact on this particular rapid and how to approach it, for me at low levels it was easy to paddle along the river left cliff face to a pile of rocks jutting out into the river, from here the lining started.

It was fairly easy to work my way around the top section and find a good launch point to run the bottom half, although it was very bouldery I was able to pick my way through without messing up too much. If there had been another foot of water I might have been able to run the whole rapid, as it was it just seemed too rocky, the risk of getting hung up too high given that any type of pin when solo can go bad quickly.

So far it’s been a good day, a number of portages avoided and rapids run, combine with nice weather and scenic surroundings, all the ingredients. Ahead there are just a couple of small rapids, and mostly continuous narrow river, the shoreline alternating between rock and areas of reed and wild rice. It’s about 8km to the confluence of the Gammon River which enters from the South. As I paddled the sky ahead turned dark, they passed quickly with only a light sprinkle of rain for a couple of minutes before the sun returned. There are some nice cliffs at the Gammon especially in the late day sun; I was able to spot some faint remnants of pictographs as I floated past. There is a campsite here but I planned to continue on 2 or 3 km to the cabin mentioned in HW’s guide.

The river turned to the west and the fully exposed sun now low in the sky was blinding me. This is a common situation for me when I find myself on river flowing to the west, I remember from a previous trip on the Berens and Pigeon having this same issue. Obviously it wouldn’t happen if I was finishing my day a bit earlier but my chronic late starts and my love of the late day light…..

I paddled on, I was slightly fearful I might miss the cabin, 45 minutes later I spotted it on the left shore. I landed and jumped out to check. No one home thankfully and a very welcoming cabin, the Stagger Inn as the folk art style sign indicated. It was 8:00pm, I quickly moved in, getting set up and relaxing for a couple of hours before thinking about dinner. After 10:00pm I finally started, sautéed yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, basmati rice and a pouch of Splendid Peas & Cheese, a fine (east) Indian meal.

I’ve decide I’m not on any kind of set schedule, I have plenty of food reserves and really no set date that I need to finish on so I can make this a late night. After dinner I fiddled around listening to some music, updating my journal, looking at maps and coming up with a plan for the next few days. After several mugs of tea I started to review some of the video I had taken over the previous days, charging various devices and digging out some fresh memory cards. I had been thinking about getting as far as rapid #44 or #46 tomorrow, which seems somewhat doubtful. It’s now 6:00am; I step outside for a bit of air and check out the pre-sunrise glow, I must get off to sleep!

 

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