Located 15 minutes north of Naksup St.Leon Creek is one of my favorite runs in the area. This is a bold statement considering the plethora of nearby creeks but I know St.Leon has the goods to back it up. On Tuesday night I drove up the Slocan Valley to meet up with Hayden, Randy and Carl who were fresh off a first D attempt of Caribou Creek, they walked out when they reached a unportageable 90 footer. We congregated at the St.Leon Hot Springs which also happens to be the put in. From the road you walk 500 meters down to the creek. The first few corners find you bashing over rocks and under logs until you reach the lip of a fun slide into a 10 footer. There is a large rooster tail in the middle that is so inviting to boof off of but it pushes to either side making it a difficult undertaking. Hayden went first and had a good line down the right, I followed down the right and also had a good line, afterwards Randy and Carl proved that the left was really fun as well. On my second run down I chose the left line and was able to get my bow up on the rooster tail for a big boof. I then continued straight into the next rapid which was a clean 10 footer into a 20 foot slide. The line is too boof the middle of the top and run anywhere on the slide. We completed several laps of both drops before continuing down the run.
About 500 meters downstream the river takes a left hand turn and drops off the face of the earth. This marks the top of Super Slide, a steep, smooth 80 foot slide. Almost any line goes but the left or right are the preferred routes. Hayden being the young ripper he is was super stoked to go first so I climbed down to the bottom to set safty and video. Hayden chose the right line and made it look easy, Randy went next down the left line making that look easy too, Carl and myself quickly followed Randy super stoked to get to paddle that rapid. It is amazing how easy that rapid is for how big it is and it ranks in the top 5 of my favorite rapids.
The next section contains some fun little slides and ledges before you reach a long straight section with almost no eddys and a right turn at the end. This marks the beginning of the mini canyon and St.Leon falls at the end. Knowing that there was wood in play I just picked up my boat and started walking towards the falls. Randy Hayden and Carl went for a scout, Carl and Hayden decided it was good to go. They were able to duck under the wood and bounced through the canyon without incident. The Canyon flows out over a perfect 25 footer into a big pool, it is the perfect finale to an awesome day. At the end of the long day Haydens inexperience started to show just a bit, first he was a little energetic over the falls and landed on his head. Then he was in the pool I was talking to him and he failed to get to shore and just floated into the next ledge which we had yet to scout, this was a monetarily lapse in concentration, something you can't afford when creeking in B.C. luckily he was fine.
Everyone else followed with clean lines and Hayden walked up for a redemption run and did much better the second time down.
Unfortunately St.Leon Creek has an application for a Hydro development. If that were to go through it would drastically reduce the number of runnable days in a year on that run. I am extremely opposed to the privatization of hydro in B.C. but at the very least hopefully we can fight to get scheduled releases and a gauge on every affected river.
Mikkel on the first drop
Mikkel and Hayden and the second drop
We filmed a bunch on this trip
Super Slide
Randy
Hayden
Carl
Mikkel
Carl dropping into the canyon
Randy on the falls
Mikkel
Hayden
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