Bloodvein River Solo 2015

Thursday Aug 13 – Day 18 Time: 5 hours 41 minutes Distance: 12.3 km I got up a bit after 10:00am to another cloudless day, a light breeze and perhaps not quite as hot. Usual tea & oatmeal breakfast followed by the usual slow get my stuff together. I’ll be leaving earlier than yesterday but it won’t be very early. I got away at 1:15pm; it was not far to rapid #52, a nice CII on the right side of a big rock. The wind had picked up and would be an annoyance all day, I’d swear there was current in many places but the waves were going upstream! The wind was more of a pita at the entry to the rapids, getting the correct angle of entry became a bit of an issue. #53 was a simple run, longer than most. #54 & #55 were both nice rapids, nothing at all difficult as was #56. At Rapid #57 the river splits with the main flow on the right and a smaller channel on river left. the wide but narrow island in between could be used to drag over. The main channel is a wide CIII ledge type drop with a mess of waves below. There is a wide area of flat open rock on the left side of the island and then the smaller sneak route next to the shore. I scouted the III; I knew I could run it if I hit the right spot but in this location the wind could present some problems. I didn’t like the odds much so I ran the small channel on the left instead. There was just enough water to slide through.

#58 is a nice single drop, would be a good spot to hang out and practice but I was looking to cover distance today. I scouted the hard right supposed CII sneak route, didn’t like the look of it at all but it seemed possible to line which I managed quite smoothly.

Canyon Rapids, #59 has portages marked on both sides with the RL trail more than 4 times the length of RR. I stopped on the right to have a peek; the short trail looked like it’s often under water, at the halfway point a mass of exposed roots just waiting to grab your foot and twist! At the levels I had it was easy to float up to the ledge and line over, in high water this option might not be possible.

At #60 I got out on river right to scout, once again the lining seemed to be the best option, had no trouble getting past the bigger (CIII/IV) top part leaving just a smaller section before the final run out. I got a bit lazy and let the canoe get out of control, the nose caught a rock, then the stern got lodged, the force of the water started to roll the boat, as water flooded in I could see the nose flex and then pop free, this allowed even more water to enter and in a flash the boat rolled over and was carried away by the current. At this point I still had the last foot or so of the stern rope in my hand, I made a futile effort to hold on but a fully loaded boat half filled with water in a strong current was way more than I could possibly hold on to. Fortunately there is a large eddy pool, the boat floated along the eddy line, I wasn’t sure if it would continue downstream or be pushed into the eddy. The boat was initially floating quite close to shore but the rock here was higher above the water than I felt like jumping unless absolutely necessary. Luckily the boat was no just slowly spinning, not really moving in any particular direction. When I got to a spot with good water access I jumped in and swam out to recover the canoe, I was thinking about any items I might not have had tied in (my mug!), some of my gear was floating around but were all still attached to the boat. My throw bag had been ‘binered to the bow, I grabbed the bag and swam back to shore then pulled the boat in. The semi-dry pants I was wearing were totally unsuitable for swimming by this point I was lugging around an extra 10 litres of water. I rolled the boat over and started to detach and remove the gear and get it up on shore, at the same time I’m doing an inventory, my mug, sunscreen, pump, cooler bag all were still sloshing about loose in the boat, even my GoPro was still on my head, hopefully it had captured the event for posterity. It took some time to empty the water, get my stuff together, get reloaded and examine the damage. A real kink in the right gunnel has left the bow with a twist to the left, this has deformed the shape of the hull which otherwise doesn’t seem to show any damage.

Next up about 600m downstream is rapid #61, Island Chutes, this is a big volume CIV, I drifted past the high water takeout and took out on the sloping rock just above the initial drop. The campsite is located on top of a huge rock outcrop which juts out into the river with 180 degree views of the rapids below. After the excitement of the day I was thrilled to be here in this A+++ spot, if there is any deficiency it might be a lack of quality flat spots but the small one that is there is plenty for a solo paddler! I carried a couple of loads over to camp and then dragged the lightly loaded boat over the rocks into the lagoon and carried the remaining gear up to the camp area. I fiddled about, pumping a bit of water, making tea, having a cheese and sausage wrap and taking plenty of pictures. I decided to cook a pack of Knorr noodles, as they were cooking the mosquitos swarmed in and I was forced into the little bug tent to eat. I wanted to do a garbage burn but it will have to wait until later when the bugs sort of go away. I passed some time clipping my toenails and pondering the odds of falling off into the river should I venture out. The big outcrop where the camp is located rolls off on three sides into the water, in the semi-darkness it would be easy to tumble over the edge which drops about 10 metres. Around 9:30 I went out to check on the bugs, spent the next 3 hours snacking, burning trash, staring at the stars and listening to the sound of the rushing water. I sent off a couple of emails, listened to some music, wrote up some notes and somehow managed to while away many more hours before finally passing out just before 5:00am.

 

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