I spend a month on Vancouver Island, from Dec 16th to Jan 15th. Had the pleasure to meet a lot of local paddlers, paddle with the UVic kayaking club on a beginner run, run the first descent of Museum Creek, and of course, paddle awesome class IV-V runs.

One of those awesome rivers was the well known Granite Creek. A class V steep creek. It is actually packed of waterfalls, from 10 to 40 footers, separated by class IV rapids and some class V ones.

We were super lucky to hit the creek at a prime flow, which was 7,2 on the put-in gauge. We were 5, Shayne and Steve had ran before while Alex, Kevin and I were first timers. It took us about 6 hours to run mainly because of the portages caused by log jams. I wish I had a good camera to record from the shore, but all I had was a GoPro. The edit is pretty good for GoPro footage only ! Check it out :

About a month after, Frank and I have 9 days off to spend kayaking. The first think we thought was : Pacific NorthWest !  We then drove down to Washington/Oregon to paddle the beautiful canyons and clean waterfalls ! Metlako was the first thing we went to see; it was low, but still OK. Frank went first and had a super good line and hand rolled against the wall at the bottom. I then went for it, chucked my paddle and tucked way too early, still on the lip. It resulted in an overflip and a pretty violent impact at the bottom that poped my skirt and made me swim. The bootie beer was sooo nasty, next time I’ll wait mid-way to chuck my paddle and tuck forward.

Here are some shots:

Beautiful Metlako scenery

Frank with probably what was the best line of the day

We also paddled the Sultan, the White Salmon, the Lewis and the Wind, all great runs.

Can’t wait for my next road on the coast!

Raph

Hey i’m Raph, and as some of you guys may know, i’ve joined the whitewater community 2 years ago by beginning a raft guide training. Right after, i bought a playboat and started to follow the rafting trips in my boat whenever i wasnt guiding. At the very end of that first year, i bought a creek boat and waited all the 2009-2010 winter to try it. When spring time arrived, i discovered ALOT of new rivers near Quebec City.

However, the real class V creekin for me began on the 7 Chutes of the Saint-Anne River. That section was a legend for most of us quebexicans. When Francois and me decided we wanted to fire up that section, lots of people wanted to kick our assses for being stupid ignorant kiddos. So we went only us both. Frank had his pro camera so we took some souvenir shots.

Here’s the best one:

Frank kickin it on the first drop.

Some days after we went down on the moose river for the Dashboard Empenada premiere with the demz boys. Frank and me decided to follow Chris Morelli who was driving south to NC. We ran the Upper Yough and then the Green. That’s where I know Brenton from. That dirty south week was epic.

By the time we were out of the country, our friends realized they were also able to run this section. We brought them and took some sick footy to let everyone know what are the 7chutes all about. After 7-8 hours of editing, Emrick and me finnaly got that edit rollin :

Some weeks later, we decided to fire up the well known Mastigouche Nord river. Once on the water, we were kinda surprised how high the water was. We shot everything once again and made a second edit. We had some serious ass kickin on the rapid just over the big ass slide. We can’t see it because i stoped shooting but, Emrick (pale blue jefe) was roped out right after he swam but his kayak didnt have the same chance. His boat ran the Chute Du Calvaire from top to bottom! haha fortunatly it had lots of scratches but nothing serious.

Here’s the edit :

And now, my newest edit i made especially for the “local edits part” of the WildWater Premier in Québec City i organized on feb 12, THE 2010 BEATDOWN edit. This one made lots of people laugh and i hope it’ll do the same for you! Enjoy.

I’ll keep posting lots of sweet shitz that are goin on up here in quebec! cya folks, SPRING TIME SOOON !

Raph