After spending the last week and a half teaching and guiding on the fabulous Slocan river I was chomping at the bit to get on something harder . Don't get me wrong I really like teaching, I just also really like creeking. After meeting up with Kelsey Thompson and Scott Feindel we ran into Joel Fafard and Dave Dickson, who were headed to the Perry River so we jumped at the opportunity to paddle a new run. The run was mostly boogie water with a couple of harder boulder drops. If you want the most bang for your buck the bottom 5 k or so is where you want to go. The last rapid out of the canyon is a long technical rapid with three distinct ledges ending in a big hole in a tight canyon.
That evening Billy Harris who had a free day and was cruising through town tracked us down to go creeking on Monday. With a solid crew of four and hearing that both Sorcerer and Jordan were at good levels we decided to try and get both runs done in a day. We started on Sorcerer and found lots of clean ledges in a really tight canyon. We had a great group dynamic on this run with everyone taking turns leading, making for a super smooth descent even though we were in an unfamiliar canyon.
After a quick lunch we made the short trip out to the Jordan. I had one run down it two years prior which helped make it a quick descent. Realistically you probably want to scout everything your first run down but if you were feeling on your game and knew the lines you could run everything blind. We ran the first drop without scouting and only Kelsey was able to clean it. The second drop was looking OK at the current water level but Scott stepped up and showed us how to do it. Kelsey tried a slightly different line and nearly lost it part way down the slide but was able to pull it out with a cool wavewheel move. The third drop had an awesome slalom type move between two rocks before boofing a nice clean ledge at the bottom. Then you come to a great 25 foot slide into a fun rapid. Here the valley opens before narrowing back down for two more great rapids just above the takeout bridge.
Two great days of paddling; three great class 5 runs within 45 minutes of Revelstoke with good flows in late August, only one log to walk around and all rapids good to go. I can't wait to get back there to paddle those three runs again as well as the Illecillewaet, Downie and explore the numerous other possibilities in the area.
Billy Harris did a write up of our runs here.
Billy running a fun drop while Scott looks on
Scott running the second drop on Jordan
Kelsey pulling out a wheel into the hole
Mikkel (me) at the bottom of the slide
Kelsey running the last rapid on the run
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