St. Leon Creek: First Run (Swims) of the Season

As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid putting on a grade IV+ creek after 2pm. Post lunch blood sugars begin to run low, circadian rhythms start to shift, sloppy paddling takes fold and minor incidents lead into epics that bring you back to town after the beer stores have closed. An exception to this rule is when one rises at 1pm after working a night shift with plans to run one of the West Kootenay's most notorious steep creeks the first time this season. Furthermore, I would be joined by two good friends, one of which who had yet to see, let alone run the goods on Nakusp's St. Leon Creek.

Having spent many hours in the weeks before clearing new deadfall after a particularly heavy winter, St. Leon Cr. was good to go. And with local weather finally warming up, St. Leon's low volume, big drop character had also ripened up to a primo level. Thus on Tuesday, May 10, our group of 3 would be the first to chase this Kootenay classic, but not without a wee bit of a post 2pm paddling shit show.

By the crack of 3pm, Hayden's VW van had made the push through the unexpected spring logging road mud bogs to the upper parking lot. While Phil and Hayden unloaded I instantly launched into lumberjack mode clearing a proper put in trail that I had been meaning to make over the past 4 years. 45 minutes later covered in sawdust and sweat, our group was ready to fully gear up. Before long I realized that a communication error with Hayden had left me without my paddle – this would become the first sign of trouble brewing on our group's horizon. Thankfully, I had brought my spare breakdown; however this upset would leave our group without an extra blade should anyone happen to drop their paddle over the course of St. Leon’s short but bumpy descent. Thinking nothing of it... we turned on our game.

By 4pm we had bobbled down to the edge of St. Leon's classic first double drop feature (still missing a creative name). Having yet to venture this far up the creek during my wood clearing efforts, we discovered that a new river-wide cedar had blown over into the pool between the two falls making any attempt to run both drops in one clean sweep frustrating. We thus spent the next 20 minutes lowering the height of the fallen tree with a strategic cut to allow pulling ourselves over it without getting out of our boats. A return trip in the coming weeks will attempt to fully remove this pesky new wood.

By 4:25pm Hayden had just boofed the stylin’ centre line with impressive results. This was Hayden's first time back on St. Leon since summer 08 when our crew was filming with Mikkel for his premier ECE film. Needless to say, Hayden was beaming over the notion of being back on St. Leon Cr., one of countless BC waterways currently being assessed for the potential of independent, run-of-river power production. Following Hayden, Phil and I's lines were less impressive but equally enjoyable after we both missed the centre boof ramp, getting heavily whitewashed by the left side curtain.

Cleaning the 2nd section of double drop and cruising over a few 100 meters of uneventful boulder bashing goodness, our group had now approached the infamous Super Slide feature, first discovered by fellow ECE mates Randy Speers and Chris Ryman during their inaugural exploratory descent of St. Leon in 2005. Seeing as this was Phil's initiation run on St. Leon, I was looking forward to see what reaction Super Slide would produce in him. Smiles aside, it was obvious Phil's French-Canadian ass was puckering to the point of pushing poutine out of his cold, constricted pores. Did I mention that we were all under dressed for this first time out occasion? Having lightly layered up in the hot sun before descending into St. Leon's cold, shady bottom, this mistake would prove to be yet another sign of danger looming on the horizon.

As expected, Hayden manned up first running the unorthodox, double kinking centre line where a cash-n-carry sale on spinal columns was beckoning him in a pool of Cyclobenzaprine deep at the bottom. As Hayden plummeted, Phil and I heard three distinct sounds high up from our photo vantage point. Two being his boat bumping huge out into mid air and the third, a visceral tone emerging from Hayden's body coming to rest after landing this stout drop.

Feeling my spine’s maturing age, I opted for the more (now considered less) conservative right line that still manages to dish a fine lumbar squishing upon landing, an impact that can by reduced considerably by inflating my Jackson Happy Seat bean cushion. This little trick allows me to keep running this crazy drop with minimal back injury.

Phil, the last to go, followed suit styling the much preferred right line but landed in the pool with more bow popping speed than a rear wheel drive, V12 powered rickshaw running on nitrous-oxide. Wildly out of control, Phil skipped across the pool and straight into a downstream rock, coming to rest in an upstream broach position. Left without his breath from the drop he just blasted out of, this new found predicament quickly flipped him over in the rapid, loosing the grip on his paddle and opting for his skirt pull strap. Like a beaten up spawning Gerrard Trout, he slapped around through the downstream rapids as his boat was cast adrift. The entire scene was pretty hilarious but knowing that a dangerous wood choked corner was awaiting him I quickly signalled to Hayden that it was time to reel this big fish back in. Phil's swim now became the first of many mishaps that would follow him through to the end of our run.

Once the pieces had been thrown to shore, Phil informed us that he had banged his knee pretty good during his swim. With my boat and paddle just downstream, I kindly offered to make the short hike back up borrowing his paddle and running his boat down to him. Little did I know that Phil uses a very awkward left twist feather that once on the water, quickly turned my strokes into blade skulls and braces into blade cuts. With Phil and Hayden rooting me on as I messily paddled by, I attempted to eddy out just above the dangerous corner in question but instantly ended up capsizing on the calm eddy line. Fearing any attempt to roll would waist precious time and send me into the wood filled drop I instinctively pulled my deck and scrambled to shore. Grabbing Phil's boat, I was unable to hold his screwy paddle and watched it disappear over the drop. Now things were getting stupid. The time was nearing 6pm.

Wet and cold, increasingly hungry and cursing at our double misfortune, we began to assess the situation. Without a spare paddle, a bummed knee and a steep hike out, Phil considered the idea of hand paddling given that only a few more features remained between our group's position and the final slot canyon about 1km downstream. Furthermore, I assured Phil that my recent wood clearing efforts would make the option of hand paddling less stressful for his sake. Just then I caught a micro glimpse of a faded blue Werner blade from under the water's surface before us. We still have no idea what was holding it there but we thanked our blessed Saint Leon for handing back Phil's lame paddle and allowing us to continue on with our grinding journey.

By this time, we had been on the water far longer than expected. Our levels had also risen considerably given the warm late day sun was doing a good job of attacking the surrounding low elevation snowpack.

Now there is something to be said about paddling a rising flow compared to a more predictable, post peak descending flow. Aside from all sorts of new wood debris joining you in your downstream descent, the water's hazy brown colour becomes more difficult to read and omni-present flow fluctuations influence bizarre disturbances. This realism made St. Leon's less favoured boulder mank a hectic mess that tested our now cold, shivering bodies. Within 200m's of starting again, the stream’s increasing pushiness had once again caught Phil's boat control off-guard, flipping him upstream into a set of rocks that resulted in him taking another short swim and loosing his boat to the strong current. Having luckily chosen to wear his drysuit this day his spirits were still heavily dampened. His entire body aching with newly forming bruises and a message broadcasting "Tabernack" throughout the entire forest, Phil was now forced to walk the canyon’s edge as Hayden and I plundered on. We eventually re-united our pea-soup eating friend with his hung-up boat a couple hundred meters downstream.

With sponges squeezed and skirt rands snapped, we were back on the water, but not long before Phil had found a hole with long, horizontally submerged piece of wood that propped him up in a contorted side-surf position. Sensing another swim on the horizon, Hayden jumped to action, pulling to shore and freeing Phil with a quick rope toss. Paddling to shore and throwing his gear into the woods with anger, Phil was done like a day-old beaver tail pastry.

Choosing to walk the rest of the way out, Hayden and I were left to clean the remainder of the run up until the final slot canyon where some treacherous wood still remains despite my efforts to partially bust it up the week before. I anticipate the high run-off flows expected this season will soon blow this wood out given that I was able to cut into a few key pieces, fingers crossed.

Once reunited, our group walked another freshly cleared portage trail around the final slot canyon with Hayden and I opting to run the classy 25' exit fall. Hayden was again overflowing with excitement to get a feel for boofing this beautifully clean waterfall in both his new Prijon Pure and his tiny JK Allstar that he had energetically carried up to the falls from the take at the start of our day. His determination to boof a playboat off this drop had long since been crystallized in his DNA, thus no one interjected when he set forth with this ridiculous idea. And frankly, I wanted to see what would happen to the bugger while pulling off such a stunt. His final execution however proved uneventful aside from resurfacing with a partially imploded skirt that wet his new robin's egg blue Sweet fleece jumper suit. I was more than happy to document the event with my new camera but quickly learned that it had been water logged after Phil's 2 swims. It appeared that after handing it over to Phil above the Super Slide he had closed my pelican case with the carry strap in the rubber-seal thus allowing for some water to leak in. Fearing the worst, I chose not to turn the camera on and promptly pulled the battery. The unit is currently sitting in bowl of rice with more fingers crossed that it fairs out all right.

As Phil walked the rest of the trail to the car, Hayden and I shot the remainder of the run without a hitch. I chose to grant myself some serious style points for nailing a new boof out onto a hanging log that I intentionally left in the 6' pool drop proceeding the waterfall (see the pic below from our 2008 trip to get an idea. The log is shown in the bottom left). With a higher flow one is able to pull off this impressive boof to log-slide maneuver; however, a longtime river-wide woodpile in the pool after forced paddlers to take a more conservative line in order to avoid getting stuffed. Thanks to my recent wood clearing efforts, this final drop has now been resurrected.

All in all, our first run of the season down St. Leon proved to be a real workout resulting in 3 short swims, one wood encounter and 3 very cold and tired boys. Paddling St. Leon creek at the highest flow I have yet to sample, our group is excited to return when things begin to settle down out there in those mountains. In the meantime, Phil is going to work on his boat control, Hayden his play-boat boofing and me, my left-twist, slalom paddle strokes. Over and out amigos.

Carl, ECE paddler.