Boundary Trip Report

BOUNDARY CREEK REPORT

June 25th
medium (ideal) flows
Cameron at medium low, Pass creek at Medium

Joelle, David Faubert, Spencer Cox, & Chris Goble


Paddle about 5 km down to the boundary marker on the west side of the lake. Hike up a game trail up the boundary cut to have to look at water levels and to scout most of the canyon.

Follow the trail south, crossing the creek on a good bridge.



The Boundary creek trails heads up a short way past this. Hike for 3km until you get to the foot bridge. Put in just above this for a bouncy warm up drop.

The start has a canyony feel to it, but doesn't have any big drops. A log 1/2 down this section may present problems at high flows. Several worn branches extend down to river level, but you should be able to thread through these with some care.



Expect class III paddling in this section.




The river begins to open up. An open hillside on the left signals the first real drop.



Scouting is easy due to the boundary cut on this side. Customs is a 10 or so foot drop with a sharp turn off the top. There is a large pool after this, and some wood down stream.



The next drop has some funky pillows and deep water eddies. A log in the drop in addition to the undercuts could be serious. We ported on the right by following the boundary cut back down to the river.


The river now enters the canyon. The left side is steep slab. The right side often has breaks and ramps that separte the pots. However scouting and safety oftens involves hiking up and down the brushy hillside to make it to the next buttress. The next major drop is a 20 foot corkscrew melt. About 20 feet below the drop current feeds into a 3 foot undercut. Although it appears to readily push through good safety may be wise.



A small 4 foot pour over is next. Just below this is a potentially dangerous drop.



A slanting ramp feed into a series of undercut sides. At ideal flows there is a fun sneak line on the right that bounces off a ledge staying away from the caves.



Some scrambling may be required to set up safety and get a good scout. A 50m canyon section follows with a class IV entrance.



A good slide comes up next with a vertical drop of 10 feet or so. It is followed by a 6-8 foot drop with tight recirculation and a big cavy eddy below on the right, At high flows this could be unfriendly.



Eddy out after a short pillow drop, as the largest drp on the run is only a few pools away.



This drop is visible upstream of the foot bridge. A horrendous bushwack is required to get down to scout and set up safety. The drop is a 30 foot cruncher into a slot. It is a fun ride with a fair bit of time to brace for the impact at the bottom.



A large rooster tail belies a decent class IV drop. A log is present far off to the right in the pot below, but this should present many problems except at high flows. From here the foot bridge is visible with a foamy undercut on riber left.

Kayak has been found

Well you can say that I am a happy camper now. I was informed today that my kayak was found and has been well preserved over the weekend. Thanks to the wonderful people of Magrath it has been returned to me!!! I am very excited to get back out on the rivers. Thank you to everyone that was helping me with the process of finding my boat and gear, I am very grateful. This is just a thought, but maybe everyone should think about putting some type of identification on their gear and boats!!!! It might be a good idea incase anything like this happens to anyone else.Thanks again and see y'all back out on the river. SBWW

Trips June 23rd to June 29th

We got some paddlers excited to start posting for the next week. Fantastic! Many of the flows are still great although they are coming down. Let's take advantage...

Just Off of Whoop-Up Bridge

The flows were sitting pretty high on wednesday night when Mark, Clay and I went out to the weir on the old man river just south of the whoop-up bridge. with these high flows the weir changed into a more pleasant surf wave. We had a blast and we only had to travel about ten minutes from our homes to play around in our boats. Mark was showing us his tricks and having a great time doing it.
The flows were still just not high enough to really keep you in the wave. As you can see in the above picture the water would build up then crash over the top over and over again, but could not maintain a constant curling to help keep you in. So it was a little difficult to try any tricks and stay in the wave. You would get flushed out pretty quick. BUT with a little more rain it would be awesome. More towards the middle of the weir was a spot to side surf. There is alot of moving water in this area to kick and bounce you around as you side surf. Clay showed us how to do it and made it look fun. Ethan was our great photographer who was there to support and keep us safe if we needed it, But all these photos were made possible from Ethan. Who would of Kayaked with us but didn't have his boat in Lethbridge. But we appreciate his efforts to watch and take these shots.

Lee Creek

Looks like Lee creek is up pretty good with the rain. You can paddle it from 10cm up, but 30+ is optimal. All images are from a flow of 2 cms.



The narrows up by Beazer is a good section. There are two ledged that are class II to III depending on flows. They are by the mini trailer park and cabin about 1km down stream of beazer.



Then things straighten out. At the narrows the big hazard is a log jam on an island that some current feeds into. The channel on the right is fun. Expect class III.


the entrance to the narrows


the cannal after the narrows

If you take out at the bridge on the Beazer highway there will be a fair amount of flat water until then. Watch out for a barb wire fence just under the bridge. There are lots of logs, but few river wide ones. From the beazer bridge down through Cardston there are a number of fences above the golf course that make things hazardous.

Kootenay Fest

More info on the begginer / intermediate festival on July 1st and 2nd here

Trips June 16th to 22nd

Post them here.

For locals it looks like swiftcurrent is flowing. It can be run above 600cfs. Lee creek is also going, although you should be comfortable with wood for that one. The drywoods should be pumping. Cameron is big. The mofo is up to high again. The lower Saint is up to 80cms which is a medium. The belly is high, making a fun run. Blackiston is at medium, but as always check under the church camp bridge for logs.

Two medicine is getting big near 2000cfs. Chances are it will just turn into a flush down low.

Rain Wave

Stew sent me the following info on the surfers who headed down to the saint.

Dave Roscoe is a UL student who's been board-surfing up on the Kan with the group there and wondered about local waves down here.  I provided directions to Rain Wave and the result follows.



The Rain wave was awesome this weekend! The flow got up to almost 90 CMS
and the wave was great on a surfboard. I've attached a couple pics of my
friend jake and I. thanks again for the advice and directions.

Sheepish

This weekend Clay and I hooked up with some Calgary paddlers for a run down the sheep. We put in at Bluerock amidst the crowds. Clay met us at Sheep falls. The first section down to Bluerock was fun and quick. I would say it was one of the challenging sections of the run - fairly continuous class II+ to III-.



After that is Bluerock, a class III+ 5 foot pour over that seems to trash those that can't boof.



Next comes sheep falls. This is a classic tall pour over. The pool is pretty safe although there is a large flume just below it. A nice pic nic area is nearby

A few minutes downstream is the first of the class V's. Tiger jaws is a frequent port. People may run it once, but due to a rock fin just below the drop that has injured several paddlers, most people will only run it once and consider it done. Clay ran it and luckily got just enough lift to avoid the trashing. RIght now a river wide, submerged log is around the corner



Around the corner is the S-bend. This is a fun, fast section of IV+. The middle line at the bottom will bury you in a seam. After Clay's boat ran away from him from shore, I tried to catch up to it. This meant I forgot to tie my helmet on as I rushed to wait in line for put in space. After some last moment river signals at the lip of the drop, I ended up on the middle line, sucked into a seam and had my helmet sucked off. Banging into the wall meant a swim was in store. The crowd in the eddy nicely dragged me to shore and rescued my helmet.



The next drop is triple ledge. More people run this. It is three drops close together. The top one is very fun, but it tends to squirt. This messes up the next line, and can feed one into the room of doom - a bad undercut on the river right. An 8-10 foot ledge slide is the final step.



Lower down on the river there is a small version of S-bend called Landslide. It is easier than it looks which is good, because it looks pretty nasty. From here there is a small canyon with no real rapids. Lots of fun though.

Miscellaneous Updates

I have finally updated some of my web pages on kayaking. The best location is through the site map. I included more details on Two Medicine, some extra pictures of swiftcurrent and sulphur creek. I also posted the information on Gold creek. Boundary creek should be coming sometime soon - once it is run.

Nathan has also made world fame with his post and photo on Jackson Kayaking.

Clay ran the right side of Lundreck falls the other week, and Chris ran the left side this week. Flows were pretty low - 11cms

Magrath Triathalon Needs Kayakers

Magrath is having their annual triathalon July 29 and are asking for our help. They have done some research and have found that kayakers make for the best rescue craft for triathalon swimmers. They are hoping for as many able-bodied kayakers (meaning kayakers that would most likely not create a need for rescue themselves... you should have a roll) as are willing to volunteer. This years Magrath Triathalon has a cap of 200 participants, so there will definately be a need for more than a couple of boats. It should also make for good PR for ORCKA.

The commitment would be from 8 am to about 10 am at St Marys Reservoir, and I was told that we would get t-shirts and possibly food out of the deal. What could be better than a t-shirt? Well, I asked the rep who asked me for help about the possibility for relasing the damn for their kayak volunteers. She said that she could talk to the guy responsible for release as she figured that might be more motivating than a t-shirt and doughnut. We could warm up for a short couple of hours in the morning on flatwater, get a cool t-shirt, and make a fun Lower St run.

The Lower St might not be an option, so we could try another club run elsewhere afterwards. If you are interested in helping out, please let me know, so I can get back to Magrath with approximate numbers. Thanks.

Trips June 9th - June 15th

It sounds like rain for the weekend. You're gonna get wet anyway, so why not have fun paddling in it?

I will be paddling Upper St. Marys Saturday morning with my bro and a beginner. It will be a great opportunity for those who are just learning some river-running skills to get some extra direction and practice on a fun class II river. If you are interested, leave a comment, and I'll get some more specifics for you.

Happy paddling.

Awesome Kayaking Courses!!!

This was one of the great and exciting adventures that Nathan and I were able to take part in with Chris Goble in his intermediate course that he is providing. The main part of this last session was at Blackiston creek, but thankfully Chris gave us the opportunity to push ourselves to new heights. These courses are great learning experiences. If you are ever given the opportunity to take any course with Chris, or any other instructor, DO IT. You'll learn alot really quickly and your confidence level will sky rocket. So Learn all you can because I never thought learning could be so fun....SBWW

More pictures


Janson on Deja Vu


Nathan on Deja Vu


Nathan on the flat rapid in the argillite of Blackiston creek - class III-


Ethan practicing surfing on the Blender at St. Mary's

more pictures will come this afternoon

Trips June 2nd-June 8th

Everything looks like it is flowing. I am in Waterton this weekend and will be doing an exploratory run on Boundary creek on Saturday. It will be a 5km flat paddle and then a 5km hike in.

Blackiston is at medium flows. The logs under the bridge have been cleared. Cameron is at medium to high flows. Drywood should be flowing.