Powerhouse Wave
I saw this one mentioned on a website so I thought I would check it out. There are a whole bunch of signs that say not boating, so I wonder if kayaking counts? Regardless, the flows were less than those I was on the website. This wave is coming out of Gardner Dam, about 1hr north of my wife's families cabin in Saskatchewan.
This is the play wave in downtown Missoula, Montana. For a town of 65,ooo they're doing pretty good. I wish we had such a wave in our town!
Well, maybe someday we can get something like that here. Any ideas?
5 comments:
Mark,
Great pic's - we've been curious about both locations.
Relative to Brennan's wave at Missoula, we should be easily able to produce a similar or better feature(s) at Boulder Run below the Oldman Dam. We should get on that redo project next year!
Stew & Di
hey paddlerz,
Paddling's not over yet. The diversion canal in Montana from the St. Mary to the Milk is being shut-off and this will increase the St. Mary flow substantially.
Di & I are paddling Thurs. during the day and might get out again.
Enjoy,
Stew
Well, it was low ... but quite good. About 10 cms (there'd been a surge up to 17 when the diversion closed, but then the Swiftcurrent release must have been cut back).
Di, Craig, Hubert & I had an excellent day (23C, no wind) and water was as clear as we've ever seen it. We could thus see the bedrock shapes that formed all the features.
Whitewater was small, grade I+ and II, with lots of small surf. My favorites were Cave Wave (river left, above the corner above Blender), Twisted Sister had a nice breaking wave with easy recirculation and there was a bonus wave a few hundred m below Double Troube - river left and good recirculation.
Quite worthwhile and with 22 to 26C forecast for the next few days, we'd recommend it. About 10 cms and thus below what we'd earlier thought was the 'minimal flow'.
I posted three pic's on the wiki.
Enjoy,
Stew
We enjoyed another paddle today (Tues) on the upper St. Mary - even a bit lower but generally similar. Small features, lots of grade II surf.
Cottonwood leaves are turning yellow and the shrubs are orange, etc.. Quite nice. Forecast for up to high 20's over the next few days.
Enjoy,
Stew
With continuing very warm weather, Di, Craig and I enjoyed a couple of paddles at Boulder Run. About 20 cms and fairly nice (grade II), with a few small surf features.
There's quite a bit of rebar in the ledge that creates the top wave ('turbo') and when flows drop more we should head out with a jack and try to remove - or have the hydro company remove these since they remain from the construction of the power plant.
Also, water's surprisingly warm. I suppose the Oldman Reservoir warms up over the summer and is mixed by wind so in late summer and autumn, the release water is much warmer than the river flows at this time of year.
With the inspiration of seeing 'Brennan's Wave' at Missouli in Mark's pictures, we really must get back into Boulder Run with a track-hoe and move some boulders to create some more focused wave/hole drops.
Stew & Di
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