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.