Monday, May 09, 2005

Horsethief Creek

This weekend I went over to Radium to check out a few rivers. Horsethief seemed like the best bet. The run was supposed to have class III rapids with two single shot IV's. There was also a huge VI falls in a small canyon. With cloudy weather, a 16km uphill bike shuttle, no partner, and no trespassing sings over the entire run preventing my usual pre trip scout, I didn't do the run. Perhaps I should have. According to Spencer's site it looks great.

However, I did manage to sneak down in one place and check out some of the rapids that sounded large. The water was approaching high flows. The rapids didn't seems too bad from where I looked. Of course, I missed the S-bend holes, and the ending of the canyon with the big falls I mentioned.

Any one up for some grade III creek next week? I would love to get on a number of nearby runs as well.







The exit canyon where the river is wide open an flat looks beautiful! There is also a flat water paddle similar to the Upper Saint without the big rapids. It is the lower Forester's creek. It looks short and goes to a nice camp site. Radium hot springs are about 5minutes away, and are nicer than I thought they were going to be. Of course that may have had something to do with that cute French girl in the black bikini!

2 comments:

chris g said...

Just got some Beta from Bruce about Horsethief.

Horsethief is a nice little run. The falls are fairly obvious when you're running the river (suspicious blind corner, portage on right), S-bend wasn't a major terror when I ran it, but people keep babbling about "river wide holes" and long swims at other levels. I don't know if I trust my sources or not, so that's worth confirming with someone more reputable than who I ran the river with.

Sounds like a nice beginner /intermediate creek run to me. Saturday? Or is anyone intersted in the commute down to the Bitterroots by Idaho.

chris g said...

Also some info on Bobbie Burns (grade IV), which from Kayak west and the guide book sounds a bit rough. Sounds skooky to me.

Bobbie Burns should be bad. It might be at flood but I've done some medium and highish runs down there and found it fun. There are few major features on the continuous part so it's mostly read and run. But you need to be fairly solid to boat there (not necessarily a technical boater, just someone who can stay upright and roll if they flip). We met a guy last year that had to hike out after losing his paddle, and then losing his boat and the breakdown (2 swims). You just don't want to play that kinda game. The waterfall can be run but is alot of water, then after that the ledges are easy to run or portage.

I say we go for a full day on Sat. How about a couple of different runs that day? Either warm up or finish on Horsethief? Or is that asking too much?