Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Trips May 5 to May 11

It looks like the local rivers are coming up. The belly is good, the Castle is good, the Middle Fork is great. Other Montana runs are in, and the Upper Saint will soon be in decent shape.

10 comments:

chris g said...

Looks like a Cameron run is shaping up for me Friday afternoon when the weather is good. I am hoping to check out the bottom section as well.

Also next week I am going down Two Medicine to check out the falls whether or not anyone else is interested. It will probably be Wednesday as I am gone Thursday evening and Friday.

chris g said...

Oh and I will be camping in the Castle area and may be able to join people for at least part of their castle run. If anyone else wants to camp out, let me know. I may also go up and try to have a look at the upper Castle falls, upstream of the ski hill. It looks pretty good in the pictures I have seen.

Nathan said...

Belly was fun on Tuesday. The water was up and a little swirly/pushy for us beginners, but we still tackled it a few times... it tackled us most of the time :-)

Chris, I'm hoping to have my creekboat by early next week... If you need someone to do Cameron with you, I'm your man (or should I say swimming partner?).

Mark, are you still thinking about a Castle run on Saturday?

Anonymous said...

One of our favorite 'warm-up' runs is the Crowsnest from below the Falls (except for Chris) down to the bridge below Highway 3. It's a short run with small ledges and friendly surf in a small canyon - a very short shuttle and easy public access. Nice Grade II with II+ features that's paddlable at about 7 m3/s and a preferred flow of about 13 m3/s. Current flow is about 11 m3/s and thus very good.

We'd highly recommend it for boaters looking for convenient access and a nice transition back onto the water - guided novices and up.

chris g said...

It sounds like aaron hemphill is hitting the lynx and carbondale. They are doing lynx at about 1:30 on sat. I will join them for that run. I will be camped at the Lynx creek campground just above 5 alive.

Nathan said...

Mark Iwassa is going to take a group of us on Castle, some easy class iv from Mark's point of view... I hear that Mark is a little more believable thatn Chris when it comes to gauging a river's toughness :-). We plan on meeting at the (Shell?) gas station on the North end of Pincher Creek at 10 am. Any paddlers up for the class iv adventure are welcome. Good times... good times...

Mark said...

Sorry for the totally unrelated post, but Nathan, do you know a good exterior painter in Lethbridge?

Nathan said...

Mark, my brother Janson (who is now Orka VP) painted with me for a year, and he is going to work with a guy named Doug Nelson for the summer. Doug does good work and is fair, but you'll have to get his number from Janson (894-7773).

Good luck.

wilco said...

Doubt I will get out on the river before the long weekend (Castle would be greate right now). I've got one last masters course to do. I'll be in Blairmore though this weekend (Sat/Sun). (Hopefully a mixture of mountain biking, work, and relaxation). Mark, Chris, Stew If you are in the area stop in saturday evening. We are on 17th ave blairmore between 134 and 135th street. White bilevel (a block or so from the turtle mountain trailhead. You'll see my vw. Feel free to call me on my cell 394 5444. Cant wait to paddle

chris g said...

Clay, myself, Aaron Hemphill and Martin ended up on the Lynx creek to do some woodchopping. I think even a Quebec lumberjack would find cleaning that thing out in its entirety challenging.

We moved a couple of logs until a minor accident resulted in a good puncture wound to Martin's leg. He hiked up and out to the road. We continued on. The first large drop was similar to a larger version of the last one on Five Alive. The pool was a bit swirly and could be bad at high water. It was ringed with dead logs. There was another chute that was fun, but whose landing was again bounded by logs. The last big drop Clay ran, neatly demostrating his backwards kayaking ability. Hopefully pictures will follow.