Creekin’ in BC – August 2005

Despite the fact that all of the stars seemed to be lining up, I still had some doubts about the trip. First of all, I had never boated with James before and we were planning on running some creeks that were out in the sticks, far from help. So, in order to feel more comfortable about the situation I wanted to invite a few of my own boating friends along who I knew and could trust to get things done in an emergency situation. I tried to get my friends Brian, Jon and Nate to come up with me. Immediately, Brian said he could not go due to work. Nate held out for a few days saying he could go until he found out otherwise from his boss (however he did let me borrow his BC guide book by Stuart Smith that I have yet to return…). Jon, on the other hand, flipped sides on me a few times: first saying he could go, then saying he couldn’t because of how hectic it would be trying to get all of his stuff moved into his new place and getting ready for school in the few days before we left. This situation got even more difficult since we were coming back the night before school started! However, after much nagging and calling of names on my part, he finally gave me the words I wanted to hear, “Screw it, I’ll just do it all when I get back.”

So, the plan was set. Jon and I would drive up on Thursday, August 18th and meet James and Bob White (henceforth known as Superbob) in the small town of Skookumchuck to camp and run Skookumchuck Creek the next morning.

Day 1: The Drive and the Dent

Jon and I woke and met early (around 7am) to start our drive so that we could arrive plenty early to get some food for the three days at a grocery store and to get some Canadian beer at the liquor store. After a final check to make sure we had all of our gear we loaded up my Subaru Outback (henceforth known as “the subie” pronounced “soobie”) and took off for the 6-7 hour drive. The border crossing went surprisingly fast considering that I was using a photocopied birth certificate that had been in my wallet for about 6 months and was about to fall apart! We arrived at the town of Cranbrook around noon with plans of getting lunch, groceries, beer and some info from any local boaters (if we could find any).

Things looked good rolling into the town, we spotted several good looking, greasy spoon restaurants and a gear shop with a kayak in the window. Perfect! We could get our lunch and beta right here on the same block; this was much easier than I thought it was going to be! We came around the block looking for a spot to park among the spots lining the street. I spotted a car leaving a parking spot right in front of the gear shop and stopped to wait for them to finish backing out when all of a sudden my car shook and there was a loud crashing sound. I looked over to see the back of a Ford F-150 right up against my passenger window and Jon with a look on his face like he had suffered a coronary. The Ford had backed right into the side of my car! Luckily the guy who hit it was very nice in taking the blame and giving out his insurance info. Unfortunately, my passenger door had a dent that was 2 inches deep and my side mirror was hanging by the wires that controlled it…. great start to the trip. Nevertheless, the gentleman who hit me directed me to a friend of his who worked for an auto body shop who was able to duct tape my mirror back in place so that we could finish our trip.

After my car getting hit, I was in no mood to get anything productive done for the time being so we had a quick, greasy lunch and headed for the grocery store for our food for the weekend. We were in such a hurry to get out of town that we forgot to stop at the liquor store to get beer (blasphemy, I know)! Luckily for us, we were able to find one last liquor store that was basically run out of someone’s house about 20 miles or so before Skookumchuck, and John and I were able to pick up a case of my favorite Canadian beer: Okanogan Spring Ale (it’s a shame you can’t get this in the states).

Because of our early start and the situation in Cranbrook we arrived about 2 hours before the scheduled meeting time with James and Superbob and decided to take a quick drive up to the creek to check it out. What we found was a creek that looked fairly low and a long, dirty shuttle!

Skookumchuck Creek Take-out

After driving up the put-in road for a little while, we discovered that the road doesn’t come back to the creek for about another 15 miles. Since we didn’t feel like making the whole hour-long shuttle drive that night, we snapped a quick picture of the surrounding valley and headed back to the meeting spot about 30 minutes early.

After a short wait, a car pulled up with a kayak on the roof. The gentleman stepped out and identified himself as Alex. Apparently Alex had received the post that James put out about our trip and had driven all the way up from Portland to meet us. Since I was from the area (Kelso, WA) we were able to find common runs to talk about and I immediately took a liking to him because of his humorous personality. This was starting to shape up to be a good trip (despite my car troubles) with some good people! Soon after Alex arrived, Superbob and James showed up in James’ Winnebago. James turned out to be a nice guy and I already knew Superbob from a swift water rescue course, so the table was set. We drove up the creek road to check out a campsite Jon and I had seen earlier. Fortunately, the site turned out to be right on this amazing little lake, so it was a good night of tasty food (James baked a pizza in the Winnie) and beer. The next morning, it was off to creekin’, I could barely sleep!

The lake we camped at on the first night

Day 2: Skookumchuck Creek

From sleeping in the Subie it was easy to get an early start on the day because we knew that we had ample time for this one. The shuttle is 22 miles on bumpy gravel roads with your top speed around 30mph. Plus, the run was listed as 19 Km long or about 12 miles. We knew it would be a long day! After driving down to the take-out, we determined that the Subie would shuttle us to the put-in because it didn’t make much sense to take the Winnebago.

The Subie ready, if you look close you can
see the dent on the passenger side door!

After the hour long ride to the put-in, you can guess that we were pretty excited to finally get on the water and experience this run that was listed in Stuart Smith’s favorites in his book. We dressed quickly and put on around noon. The creek looked pretty boney but we were sure it would gorge up and become deeper. After putting on we were forced to scrape down shallow, rocky sections (at times having to push with our hands) for almost 2 miles!

The start of Skookumchuck: good scenery
but not enough water!

Just when we were starting to get irritated with the lack of water and the feeling a bit foolish at having to push our boats down the creek rather than floating, we started to see the gorge narrow up a bit and see some rapids.

Alex running a typical boulder garden in the first part of the gorge.

Once the gorge formed, the rapids started coming in hurried succession, too many to make note of. Most of the rapids consisted of boulder dodging and small 3-4 foot ledge drops, tons of fun! However, once in the gorge we also came across a few log jams that needed to be portaged, so if you run this river keep your guard up!

The author putting in after a log portage.

James running a small ledge after the log jam.

Alex doing a little log limbo about half way through the gorge.

Just when we thought the rapids had to be coming to an end (due to how long we had been in the gorge) they started getting a little bigger!

Jon running a typical drop on the middle/lower canyon stretch.

Finally we came to, according to Smith’s guide book, the hardest drop on the run called “shot in the heart.” Superbob got out to take pictures while James opted for the portage. This drop isn’t really that difficult (only a class IV) but if you miss your line, it can get ugly quick. Basically the slide leads into a little kicker that will send you into a boulder if you hit it. Once past that, you have to bust hard left because of a log in the river that you have to be on the left side to get under. I took a look and liked my line that I picked and opted to go first.

The author hitting the line, the log is just out of the picture.

After I went Jon, Alex and Bob went without incident.

Jon’s line through in the Mafia.

After this drop I was following James and Superbob down the next drop when all of a sudden they split and went different ways. I was following too close and took Superbob’s line and should have noticed he was going into a pretty bad spot. He squeezed between two boulders forming a two-foot drop and barely made it through without getting stuck. I went next and didn’t fare as well. When I went over the drop I was wedged sideways and my bow hit a rock on the bottom pinning me in the drop. Luckily, I was able to keep my head forward to create a pocket of air while Superbob ran up and pulled my stern out to free me (I believe I still owe him a beer for that one!). I was shaken up but feeling good enough to finish the run.

After about another half hour we pulled over to a small beach thinking that the gorge was coming to an end and that the run was almost over (after all, we had been on it for over 4 hours, only taking a 15 minute break for snacks and water). However, at this point we decided not to take any more pictures and try to make a straight shot to the end. It turned out that the river gorged up again for another couple miles with a few drops even bigger than “shot in the heart!” I wish we could have taken a few more pictures because some of the drops were sweet. One was about a 7-foot slide after a long boulder garden and another was a 3 and 4 foot ledge drop one right after the other. After a couple more hours of boulder gardens and ledges the river finally eased up for the last mile to the take-out.

This creek ended up taking us about 6 hours to do and, once it reached the canyon, was pretty non stop-until the finish. At the flow we ran it at, low according to Smith’s book, the river was mostly technical rock dodging. We all agreed that this run could have used a little more water but not too much. As it was, there were tons of pin spots and while I was the only one to get outright pinned, everyone else got hung up on the rocks at least once. Smith rates the river a class III-IV at this level and we would definitely have to disagree and give this one a solid IV. There were plenty of bad consequences for swims on this river and getting someone out in an emergency would be very difficult due to the remoteness (the town of Skookumchuck is pretty much a gas station). That said, this was one of the most fun runs I have had the pleasure of doing. It kept you on your toes but was not overly difficult, so long as you have solid class IV creeking skills. With a lot more water this one would become a solid class V because there would be pretty much no eddies and any logjams would be disastrous.

We “quickly” (about an hour and a half) finished the shuttle and drove north to the town of Radium Hot Springs to recoup and camp for tomorrow’s trip down Dutch Creek. When we arrived at Radium Hot Springs we had two options: get some food and brew or relax in the hot springs. Time was an issue so we could not do both. Superbob and James opted for the hot springs while the rest of us, who didn’t have the luxury of a traveling kitchen, opted for the food. We stopped in at a nice pub and had bacon cheeseburgers and a few pints before meeting up with Superbob and James again to head out into the dark and find a camp. Nobody in the group had any idea where we were going to find a camp in the dark around this town, so we decided to try to find a camp around the take-out for Dutch Creek. After about 4 wrong turns in the dark we finally just turned down a gravel road in hopes that we would discover a turn around or place to pull off rather than somebody’s house. The road seemed to end in a turnout, so too tired to do anything else, we set up camp and passed out within about 5 minutes!

Stay tuned for Part II of "Creekin’ in BC".