Revelstoked!

Mikkel and Ben during the Callaghan Race

BC is my favourite place to paddle. Ample water from April til October, tight canyons, big waterfalls, large rivers and even some good playboating make it an ideal destination for every type of boater. Especially if you're like me and you enjoy all aspects.

I met up with Rush Sturges, Baby Bird Ryan Lucas and Ben Marr in Banff for a night on the town before cruising to BC to see what rivers we could find to paddle. We started slow with a warm up run down the Lower Kicking Horse. After a good night's sleep we got serious, hitting the Middle Kicking Horse the next morning. The middle is a 3 km section of large volume steep rocks and is tons of fun. Benny called it the Canadian Fork of the Payette.

That afternoon we headed for Revy. We found ourselves at Sutherland Falls with Sherpas Cinema, famous for their ski movies, for a few days of shooting on their Reds. With the light failing we did a lap of the top drop and the lower before bailing for the night. The next morning we came back for more and Rush stepped up and threw a Hail Mary. It was pretty nerve wracking to witness a Hail Mary off a 60 foot drop, despite some slight over rotation he was fine and super stoked. I can't wait to see the footage. Before leaving Revy we rallied the Box Canyon of the Illecillewaet (ill silhouette) River and a big volume rapid on the Incomappleux River before filling our hucking quota on the Whatshan River's Hurly Burly double drop waterfall.

Mikkel on the Whatshan

The next day we woke up in Nelson completely exhausted but feeling good from three successful days of rallying big volume rapids and waterfalls each day. We decided to take a break so we headed to Trail to hit up Industrial Wave for some playboating. The level we had was exactly like Skook at 12 knots, a perfect way to re-energize after three days of intense boating.

That evening Benny and I left the others and rallied to the Callaghan Race where we paddled the run four times in 24-hours including the race. The Callaghan has one of the best courses with pretty much non stop action packed into a 16 minute race run. Finishing 13 seconds off the pace put us in 3^{rd –} not bad for only a few practice laps and the exhaustion from the previous week.

Thanks to Steve Rogers, Matt Baker, Ryan Lucas and Ben Marr for the photos.

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