After a long summer of boating, instructing and chilling on the Ottawa River, that familiar itch started creeping back in ... it was time to get some creeking in. Thankfully, we have some friends that decided to give us the perfect reason to head out west, and so it started ... The Whitewater, Wedding Tour! Someone very smart once said “All good adventures start with a hangover”. It was meant to be, we started our trip off by celebrating the union of our close friend, and Grotto alumni, Colin, to his college sweet heart Ashley. The next morning we jumped in my fully loaded (Lu, Blake, myself, 5 kayaks, and a bunch of gear) wagon and started the 3500+km drive out to beautiful British Columbia. Arriving in Golden we met up with James Roddick and Lisa Scott and got straight into some paddling. Somehow, there was still a bit of water coming out of the mountains so we were able to get a fairly medium/high run down the Middle Kickinghorse, followed up by a run on the 7 Canyons of the Toby. After another run on the Horse, we made our way to Revelstoke to meet up with more friends. It was borderline but we managed to make it onto the Jordan for a low water run down with Johhny Maltais and Kate Devine. This is such a wicked river, with 6 major rapids, all scoutable / walkable, and a bunch of continuous cl 3 in between. It was pretty impressive to see the giant salmon trying to jump up a large slidy water (#4). We paddled another couple easier runs in the area, the Box Canyon of the Illicilliwet River and the Tangiers River. From here we made our way over to Jasper for the main Western event, Matt and Meg’s wedding. Meeting up with pretty much the entire Grotto Crew (we missed you Cam & Collin) we bunked down in the most amazing cabin on a pristine mountain lake for a week of boating, biking and the odd Party ... ha ha the Jasper crowd didn’t see what hit’em. During the week we managed to paddle the Maligne and Fraser Rivers. A highlight of the area is definitely hucking off Overlander Falls. Also a bit gutting was seeing Beauty Creek too low to paddle, it looks like an amazing stretch of whitewater. After the Jasper bender we reluctantly left and headed to the coast, where we spent 5 days at Skook (See Skookumchuck write up). After skook we headed up to Squamish for some boating. Our first stop was a beauty little double drop park’n huck on Britannia Creek called the Olsen Twins. Going with the theme of the trip we randomly met up with some old friends and had good times. While in the area we were able to paddle the Callaghan and Checkamus Rivers, 2 very classic runs in the area. Unfortunately, the Ashlu was too high for the Box. Starting to get a bit run down, it was time to start the push homeward. Before getting too far east, we were convinced to come check out a section of the Clearwater. This turned out to be one of the best runs we did out West. It started out with a couple warm up runs on Baily’s chute, then moved down river into Gattling Gorge. The first gorge is a unbelievable! It is about 200 m long and drops a considerable amount of gradient for its high volume, constricted and committing nature. Basically you drop in on a big ramp around a rock and play dodge the massive holes, lateral waves, seem lines and terminal eddies for the next minute or two with the only reprieve at the bottom. The exit to the gorge is the most constricted spot, only 20 or so feet wide, and calls for a deep breath once out of. There is one more big volume canyon just down stream then the rapids turn ledge / slide in nature. Dave Crerar managed our only swim of the trip in a very sticky hole on the lower section of this run. All was good and bootie beers were had. If you have the chance to do this section and you are comfortable with big, pushy water I highly recommend it. Passing back through Golden on the way home, BC had a sweet little going away gift for me ... the Spillimacheen had come down to runnable levels, High, but runnable. The rest of the group opted out due to a mixture of high water levels and hangovers, so myself and ........ had the river to our selves. The river turned out to be amazing, after a bit of trepidation above the crux move “One in the Pink” we made it through sweet and onto our Happy Ending. So I ended a month of boating on a perfect 20ft waterfall, a great way to wrap up another amazing trip. Oh ya then there was that short 3 day drive back across the country. Tyler Fox Photos: Tyler Fox, Louise Urwin, Blake Mahoney, Skookumchuck.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0
 
Epic storm on drive West
Mt. Robson
Lu & James on Bridge drop, Middle Kickinghorse
Blake & Lu avoiding some wood, Middle Kickinghorse
Tyler dropping into the Jordan
Lu on 1st drop, Jordan
Blake enjoying being forward
Lining up the 3rd drop on the, Jordan
About to catch some sweet air on # 4
Lu and Kate Devine tagging the 5th drop, Jordan
Boofing into the last drop on the Jordan
Lu getting amongst it, Jordan River
The main drop in the Box Canyon of the Illecilewat River
The heart of the Box
Takaka Falls
The crew heading into the Maligne
A low water cruise on the Maligne
Matt Staneland
Johnny Maltais
Kate Devine
The Bottoms Up Kayaking crew, Maligne River
The Crew
James Roddick Hitting up the right line on Overlander Falls
Tyler following suit
Scouting the shiz’nit
Having a peak into the Spillimacheen valley
Tyler on the 1st of the Olsen Twins Drops, Brittania Creek
Dave off the lip of the Second Olsen Twin
Seriously the put-in is just over there, follow the rainbow
Avoiding the wood Callaghan River
Clearing the pole
a beauty look back up the Callaghan
Lights ... Camera ... Action !!!
Blaker ripping up the big guy on Callaghan
Top drop on the Checkamus River
Lu about to plug a big hole on Baily’s chute, Clearwater
Sam heading down the big ramp into Baily’s chute
Dave dropping in, about to get the smack down
Happy to come out  the other side Sans smack down