Paddlers: Greg Paul K-1, Craig Sowers K-1, Mike Huber K-1 &
Jay Venable OC-1
Shuttle Bunny: Max Venable
In a word........WOW!! The whitewater opportunities in and
around Jacques Cartier Park are astounding. As most of you know
West Virginia offers some of the best whitewater opportunities
anywhere in the USA simply because it sits on top of a high plateau,
has a lot of gradient all over the state and receives a whole
lot of precipitation which ends up in the creeks & rivers.
You think West Virginia has got a lot of these ingredients try
Quebec. There is a whole lot more of all three.
The two biggest drawbacks to paddling Quebec was enormous
shuttles (way bigger then even West Virginia) and the language
barrier. Even though I've planned this trip for two years and
accumulated a library of guides, topo maps and personal paddling
acquaintances the logistics were as aggressive as the water.
Max & I got to Quebec a full week before the group and
established camp about 10 miles north of beautiful Quebec city
and Appx. 20 miles south of Jacques Cartier Park. This location
became our home base throughout the entire trip. For a full week
I drug my poor wife across wilderness areas of Canada that were
so remote that even the Moose needed topo maps. After 3 tanks
of gas and hundreds of miles of tourtureous dirt roads we were
able to cut or hit list of runs from 30 options to 4 choice runs.
Day 1 of paddling featured a 6 mile stretch of the Montmorency
river. The section we paddled was at the far upper reaches of
the river and was very creek like. The source of the water was
ice melt from still frozen lakes at a 2800 ft elevation. The gradient
on this stretch was appx. 80 ft. @ mile with continuous class
3 to 3+ boulder gardens resembling the Savage in Maryland or The
Deerfield in Massachusetts. Along the way we did encounter 2 leggy
drops in the 6 ft. + category with a great deal of eddy &
ferry opportunities throughout the run. Looking back on this run
it was a perfect warm up for what we were about to face on our
next two runs. And believe me, we needed the warm up.
Day 2 was somewhat rainy, windy & generally too crappy
to paddle so we used this day to hike, bike and do some tourist
things around Old Quebec. Yes we ate French cooking the whole
time and enjoyed the rich history & culture of the most beautiful
and clean cities I've ever been in. After a week in this section
of Canada Greg commented that he saw 1 beachball floating down
one of the runs and it turned out to be the only debris spotted
by any of us the whole time.
Day 3 the weather improver a little so the call was the Cache
River. After we discussed run options with our Canadian Friend
Sebastian he recommended this to us as aggressive, challenging
and beautiful. We got all three. At a whopping 150 Ft, @ mile
gradient, this run turned out to be the steepest creek I've ever
run personally. The 7 mile run started on a 20 ft wide creek littered
with boulders providing excellent eddy & ferry options. It
ended in the last mile that way also. But Oh @#^* the middle 4
miles was a pure creekers heaven or hell depending on how you
felt that day. It turned out to be heaven for all of us as it
consisted of 3 to 6 ft ledges, boulder drops, tight eddys and
must make ferrys the establish precise lines. With a lot of scouting
and a little luck the whole group looked like the Canadian Slalom
team. It was one of those days where everything was perfect and
on that run we needed perfection. I cannot compare this run with
anything I've been on . It really was more characteristic of steep
western whitewater that just keeps coming at you. It was kinda
like taking all the pools out of the Lower Big Sandy, doubling
the gradient, cutting the creek width in half and reducing the
cfs levels.
Day 4 was a day that I for one will never forget. We decided
on the Du Goufrie river 75 miles east of Quebec. The gauge readings
indicated high water, however, our Canadian advisor assured us
that we would encounter a 3+ high water run that we could all
manage. What we got was 5 miles of 125 fpm gradient with at least
3500 cfs flowing on a river that was up to its banks with no eddy
opportunities as everything was covered.
It is characteristic that Canadian Rivers turn sharply and disappear
into life threatening sieve's or waterfalls. Knowing this we were
aggressive on scouting anything we could not see down. As it turned
out, trying to scout this river was a nightmare since the only
eddy's were very tiny calm spots on the edges which required grabbing
tree limbs to stop and then trying to get boats and bodies into
woods that were so thick that a human had to wiggle sideways just
to take a step. Even with my bony ass it was a challenge. As we
would look down this river all you could see was boiling churning
water that just kept going as far as the eye could see. We all
agreed half way thru the run that this was way more than we wanted
and we all became very concerned that a swim in this relentless
volume would have probably resulted in at least a lost boat. This
was a real concern as we were miles from anything with no walk
out options. However, in the true spirit of the Conewago Canoe
Club we huddled together, worked as a real team and got down this
raging torrent. Personally I felt compelled after completing this
run to kiss the ground, kiss the feet of the other 3 maniacs I
was paddling with and to kiss my wife. Not in that order of course
as Craig's paddling shoes left a bad taste in my mouth. Upon reflecting
on this run I can say that this run was way beyond anything I
thought I or the group could personally handle, however,we did
handle very well and truly discovered the upper limits of our
paddling skills. It truly was a great team effort in the greatest
teams sport in the world.
That run earned us another day off which we once again lavished
in the food and tourist opportunities this part of Canada has
to offer. We even ended the day with a lobster dinner cooked over
charcoal with all the trimmings provided by our favorite shuttle
bunny. What a woman.
Day 4 of paddling was a day of contrasts. As a group we wanted
to go on a wilderness expedition in the class 2/3 category. After
100 mile one way shuttle, 30 miles of which were on dirt road,
we got our wish. The Malbaie river is a well known river in this
part of Canada, but the section we paddled was at the upper headwaters
having a frozen lake as a source. The run was truly wilderness
miles and miles from anything. For the most part we did get mostly
class 2/3 water water, however, there were 2 noteworthy drops
which were in the class 5/ 6 category. Words could not describe
these chasm's so I'll leave that to our cameras and another day.
All in all we did have a great time paddling very aggressive
& different water in a great location. There are literally
hundreds of paddling opportunities in this area of Canada which
we could have also chosen. Logistics dictated our runs but we
could not had better choices over the 4 days we paddled.
Jay Venable