"After two great days on the water we arrived at the first big rapid of day 3... This thing is runnable (and I think it's been run) but none of us wanted a piece of it... Maybe at a different water level you could make it through the top hole but it was a big risk with high consequences. I started to walk up to portage around the beast when all of a sudden I saw Katie's boat floating down the rapid! It appeared she had not pulled it high enough up on the bank and a surge took it away... We spent 15 minutes scrambling downstream to try and catch it but were too late... Her boat was gone...
Remote Class V kayaking requires extreme caution as EVERYTHING you need to survive is in your boat... Sleeping bag, tent, food etc. At the point where Katie lost her boat we were a 10 days hike from the nearest settlement. After some debate, we decided to use Darin's SPOT device to call in the Search And Rescue to get Katie out of the canyon. (thanks Shannamar and sorry for the stress this caused you) We feared she would be stuck with a serious bill... However, Canada is much cooler then the states and they charged her a grand total of 0$ to be rescued. Not really sure if this was a special price for the young lady or if us boys would have received the same treatment... After Katie was lifted to safety the rest of us continued downstream.
After 4 days of wilderness boating we arrived at the ocean where a float plane landed to meet us. This river has great whitewater with a few commiting canyons. On 3 different occasions we were in walled out, vertical gorges with no way of portaging or scouting! However, beyond the whitewater my greatest enjoyment was the setting... We saw several Grizzlies and got within 30 feet of a few... The final gorge of this section is class 3... Willie Kern named this gorge "Inner Peace." I can't think of a more suitable name...."
- Rush Sturges
Check this video from Charlie courtesy of Caliproduct.
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