The Clendinning: Best Weekend of 07

Let's rewind back a couple weeks ..

While still in the midst of our 3-day Stein trip, Jeff Robinson, Ryan Bradley, Jenni Pelc & I had already started planning our next BC fly-in mission. The core group was formed & plans solidified when old friend Colby Mackley joined in shortly thereafter. Within a week, we had enough peeps (seven) to fill the Otter, the normal way to access Clendinning Lake .. A week later, with the addition of TRL'er Bryan Smiff & his lovely wifey Lise-Anne, momentum was shifting toward taking an an A-Star instead. Considering the huge time savings acheived by being able to fly a heli from the takeout (as opposed to a plane outta Whistler), when the price difference between the two options came in as "neglegible", the call was an easy one to make ..

We had 14 people at this point, & at the very last second added this goon, meaning that, apart from the obvious comedy that comes with Schertl's inclusion, we now had three FULL 5-loads on the chopper, & that total cost would be minimized. That made FIFTEEN PEOPLE in one group on one creek! .... And not a single hiccup; it worked out flawlessly, which is all about the team we went in there with.

So my favorite river trip of 07 has to be the Clendinning. It may come as somewhat of a surprise that a "backyard" 2-day class IV run would take top honors over an all-expenses-paid exploratory mission in South America. Peru will definitely go down as an all-time favorite & even a life-changing experience .. but our 2 days floating through Clendinning Provincial Park's wide open vistas, hanging glaciers, towering waterfalls, old growth stands of cedar & fir, and incredible granite walls, all with an awesome crew is pretty much THE perfect mini-vacation river trip .. and is probably my highest recomendation for a quality float trip in lower BC.

Also, I'm pretty proud to say that we run with a damn solid crew of female boaters out here. I love the fact that we had couples on this trip & that the ladies totally kept up with the fellas entire time. Don't let the "class IV" thing mislead either -- with the Elaho hovering at above 100 cms, there is plenty of challenging whitewater to keep an expert boater on his or her toes (it's BC class IV, after all). But this trip is all about the overall experience; the camping, the views, & the company you keep.

Shane sez:

Floating out the final clicks of the Clendinning, Todd asks me in a rather questioning tone, "How come you never talked more about this run???" After a long pause, pondering the question myself, I answered, "Well, how do you even adequately describe it? I do remember telling you that you MUST do it."

And he's right. This is a tough run to put into words, & one that you simply MUST DO .. so with that in mind, will start with some old low-flow FOOTAGE we posted forever ago .. and then here's about a bajillion nice photos from our trip. If these images don't get you totally stoked to pack up your boat for a proper river trip, well then ........ you may just be a playboater.


TG photo


TG photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


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TG photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


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TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Jeff Robinson Photo


TG photo


TG photo


TG photo


Jeff Robinson Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


TG photo


Jeff Robinson Photo


TG photo


TG photo


TG photo


TG photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


TG photo


TG photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Jeff Bellis Photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


TG photo


TG photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Steve Rogers Photo


Jeff Robinson Photo


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TG photo

--- HUGE THANKS to Darren at Black Tusk for working out the somewhat complicated logistics & pricing with us! Helis are obviously a decadent mode of transportation, but it doesn't get much cooler than flying over god's country in slo-mo, & then landing so deep in the backcountry that it takes a couple days before you see signs of civilization! ---

--- HUGE THANKS to Steve Rogers of Bread And Butter Media for the use of his incredible photos. ---

A Prayer For Daniel

Listening to an especially good PATAGONIA DIRT BAG DIARIES PODCAST I was reminded of a certain friend and a certain photo ...

When Daniel DelaVergne passed, I put a picture of him on my computer.

And one up on the magnet board above my desk. At some point I contemplated taking them down, but decided that he would stay until we finished the Rio Huallaga and returned safely, all the while providing motivation and inspiration just as he always has.

Then, at the first camp on the Huallaga, Bryan pulled out the same picture I had above my desk and explained to the group that Daniel was with us in more than just spirit. Every camp, we would pull out the photo and find a good spot for him.


We returned from Peru, safely, just over a month ago, and Saturday night the Vacation to Hell torch was passed as IMMERSION RESEARCH announced the winners of the 2007 VACATION TO HELL.
Congratulations, Team Sweetwater!

A Prayer for a friend ... The DD Section of the Huallaga
The picture stays! Thank-you Daniel for everything!



btw, SR&K is hosting us for a slide show of the Huallaga trip Monday (tonight) night. Come CHECK IT OUT it out if you are around Seattle!

peace ...

The Tatlow Buzz

The 2007 season on Tatlow Creek has been so f-ing incredible! While the normal window of Tatlow is somewhere between 7-10 days in August, an avalanche across the river at the put-in is the latest theory for why the run has continued to hold at perfect flows for over two weeks now. Austin Rathman and myself have been going head to head for record number of Tatlow laps in a year. Now that he has bugged out of BC and I still got a few days left to rack up some more laps, I think I got it in the bag. I'll be at 8 laps by the weekend. Non-media laps are coming in at around 45 minutes now.

With all the shit slinging in the latest LVMTV, I could not resist getting something up while it is still fresh. Stafford... last I heard you were suppose to be in BC. What Colorado a little dry this time of year? Grace...keep smoking that pipe it goes well with coffee from Starbucks. You do have Starbucks in Asheville right? You are gonna need some coffee to finish the edit of VTH.

So THIS SHORT will serve as a quick video guidebook to the Tatlow, and as a teaser for a short Tatlow documentary I will have out here soon. Every drop in the Tatlow is shown in sequence here besides the one or two boogie rapids in between a couple of the bigger ones. Enjoy!

Dispatch from the BLC

Fort Collins-based amigo Leif Embertson scored a Win this summer on what may be the biggest accomplishment in Rocky Mountain expeditions: Bull Lake Creek. For the uninitiated, The BLC is a major catchment in the Northeast part of Wyoming's remote Wind River range. It was first explored by JHole's Aaron P., Brady J. & Evan R. some 5 years back, but the lid was kept tight due to tenuous relations with the tribal authorities who manage the land. I'm not sure what changed with the tribal issues, but in any case, the run is no longer a secret & is now something of a new "classic" a la Headwaters of the Kern or Middle Kings. So if being swarmed by mosquitos while humping your gear TWENTY MILES over high passes to access several days of grueling, high-quality class V sounds like a neat way to pass some time, then please read on.

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Leif's BLC report:

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Tuesday 10:15pm

I get a call from fellow Front Ranger Cutch that goes something like this:

Cutch: I got you on a trip to Bull Lake

Me: What? When? Who? Huh???

Cutch: A trip on Bull Lake. Ben and Eric were looking for a fourth so you’re in. They’re leaving the trailhead Thursday morning. You should go … it’s the shit.


Me: Cutch, I got a real job, remember? I need a little more than a days notice for a five-day trip. Is it even running?

Cutch: Whatever. You should go. Give Ben a call.

Wednesday 8am

While I do a have real job, the idea of Bull Lake Creek sounds interesting enough to risk it. I decide to go for it and give Ben a call. Yup, they’re leaving the trailhead tomorrow morning. The rest of my day is a blur of getting beta, checking flows, getting gear together and re-checking flows. I get to Lander around 1pm, meet the crew, and we finally make it to the trailhead at around 2am, right on schedule as Petey would say. Even though I’m tired, I don’t sleep much and proceed to read the guidebook description for the 26th time and scout the hike on the topo maps.


Thursday – Day 1



Big day. Things are reasonable until the mosquitos come out. Lizzy puts it well when she said “I’d like to complain but I chose to be here so I only got myself to blame”. This helps me for a minute or two but I chose to handle the situation with a little less grace.




Friday – Day 2

Big day. Mosquitos prove to be rough again. I turtle-shell while carrying my 90lb backpack and break my paddle on a rock. #$%*!!! Ben says "Don’t worry, I’ve got a sweet breakdown." Reaching Deadman Lake is a relief and is deserving of a needed rest. We decide to try to make it as far as we can with the remaining light, and while boating on the South Fork is "ELF" boating at its best, it feels good to be taking some strokes even if they purchase more rock than water.




Saturday – Day 3

Bigger day and the first real day of paddling. The lake section is as good as it sounds, complete with bedrock slides and waterfalls in a pool drop character.



We inadvertantly eat lunch 500 yards upstream of Haagen Dazen, the climax of this section. After looking at it for a few minutes I get a little impatient and give it a go, and while there was a flurry of strokes after the entrance, things went reasonably well (read: just barely made it to the right). Things didn’t go so well for Eric when he split his eyebrow open on his cockpit rim requiring some creative first aid.



The rest of the day is a blur of one quality rapid after another in a small granite gorge, but we complete the USB section without too many incidences and then make camp.




Sunday – Day4

Big day. Day 4 is made up of the biggest portages of the run interspersed with more quality rapids, one right after another. The Jim Bridger portage is big and long but manageable. The rapids for the most part actually look like manageable V+ interspersed with a few unrunnable drops. Go get some fellas…



It feels pretty surreal floating into Bull Lake (the actual lake). We take an extended lunch to make some repairs and catch some dinner only to shortly thereafter get to work on the second biggest portage of the run: Bull Lake Falls. Sitting below the chaos of Bull Lake Falls, the power of the place is hard to escape. We boat a few more miles through more classic whitewater and make camp above the Limestone Gorge.




Monday – Day 5

By the fifth day we are all pretty weary and beat up, but there is still a lot of whitewater left to go. After breaking camp we enter one of the last gorges of the run with a handful of great slides and waterfalls and eventually make our way to Bull Lake Reservoir. As we approach the reservoir I remember Dotcom saying we would really want a boat shuttle, and the realization that the possibility of a local taking pity on us this day is pretty slim is depressing. After taking a short lunch we get the 9-mile flatwater paddle out over with. It’s actually not that bad (it took us around 4hrs). As Lizzy would say “its all about your attitude”.




Before experiencing BLC for myself I had a hard time believing the effort required for the run was really worth it. But after getting through the run, BLC is easily the most memorable place I’ve experienced while kayaking. Is it better than the Middle Fork or other multi-day Cali classics? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely a new Rocky Mountain Classic. Just be prepared for an adventure complete with a huge hike, spectacular whitewater, pristine wilderness, and a truly memorable canyon.

If you go, keep the following in mind:

Top 10 lessons learned during Bull Lake Creek

11. Even though your river shoes may have laces they do not constitute or take the place of real hiking shoes, and Hydroskin socks are not great for hiking long distances.

10. Paddling a straight-shaft breakdown paddle the entire river is not ideal, but if you learned on a straight-shaft it'll do.

9. I don’t care who you are, carrying a fully loaded creek boat for a 5-day expedition 15 miles over and around 2 mountain passes up to 11,500 ft will destroy you. Just accept that it will break you, put your head down, and slowly put one foot in front of the other. Your suffering will not end quickly.

8. God help you if you’re a wannabe.

7. If you think the blisters on the bottom of your feet will feel better once you begin paddling you are partially but not completely correct.

6. Just because someone else ran a hard rapid clean doesn’t mean you will, and just because someone else did not run a rapid doesn’t mean that you can’t.

5. No first aid kit should be considered complete without Superglue.

4. In most cases, its easier to run class V+ than to portage.

3. No matter how much you yell, curse, and swear at mosquitos they are not going to leave you alone until they suck every last ounce of blood from your body.

2. Ibuprofen is a vitamin and should be taken three times daily to ensure proper health.

1. Memories do not just happen. You have to earn them through blood, sweat, and determination. Go get some…

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Thanks for the report, Leif!
For more info on The BLC, check out Evan & Kyle's new book, Whitewater of the Southern Rockies.