Hi all!
Following an invitation from Rob Zwanenburg, Cl?o and I joined the Cornwall crew (no pun intended), along with other paddlers from Ottawa and Southern Ontario, to run the bottom section of the Rouge river. For many, it was the first time there. Also known as the Seven Sisters, this section ends in the Ottawa river under a bridge on Road 148. The last rapid, a fun, long-ish class III run ending at the mouth of the river, got its name from the many people suntanning there on the rocks with little clothing, or none at all... Needless to say, there was no sightseeing expectations yesterday.
Our run was amazing (at least so I think--as we'll see, someone we know may have a different opinion), but also... eventful. To those accustomed to the Ottawa Main and Middle channels, or to the Gatineau river, the Rouge will have on the menu something definitely different and... refreshing (well, at this time of the year at least!). It begins with a nice, long continuous class II-III warm-up (le Familial), followed by some more class II. You get used to navigate shallow boulder gardens. Then the fun begins.
Just like on the Gatineau river, when you spot power transmission lines crossing the river, you know it's time to get out and scout... The river narrows down to a double drop called Le Seuil ? Elizabeth. It's reasonably straightforward, except when you miss your line in the first drop (as I did) and finish it upside down. No danger here, it's very deep. So deep in fact that the water below the drop is very boily and "funny". While I was trying to roll up, I distinctively felt being sucked downward by the water...
Next comes a long and more or less continuous rapid section, thankfully with many rest/scouting eddies. Class III with some class IV drops. That's where you encounter, after negociating an already fairly impressive rapid, La Machine ? Laver (the Washing Machine). It's a narrow 5-foot drop. To me, more like a giant laundromat-style commercial front loader, with the coins already inserted and waiting for you.
There is a very easy line river left through La S?cheuse (the Dryer Machine). But those lacking sanity who decided instead to go through the Machine enjoyed the full wash cycle. Some got flushed quickly. Others rolled back up and found themselves in the strong recirculating eddy below the drop, quickly realised that they could not even fight the eddy current, and had to drive into the giant boil in order to get out. Pinned against a rock below the monster hole, I bailed out and ended up in said eddy, swimming hard just to stay in place without being sucked into the white mess. Crawl, back stroke, grab a tiny crack in the rock wall, repeat...
After 2-3 minutes of this regimen, I managed to climb onto the slippery rocks, fished my paddle out of the water and grabbed the stern handle of my boat still magically floating behind me. But getting the boat out of the water was out of the question: I was lying down on a rock two feet above the water surface, exhausted, only able to keep the boat from being sucked into the hole... Luckily for me, Cl?o had climbed up the rocks from below the rapid and helped me get the boat out of the water. I did not know at the time that in this respect I was indeed very lucky...
A little rest, and we go again. What's coming next appears to be a class II boulder garden. That is, if still a bit disoriented after the washing cycle, you didn't notice the following river-wide ledge, which then comes as a surprise (hence the name, La Surprise). That was fun, and later was a cool zig-zag game to avoid hitting rocks.
We arrived at a weird spot: wooden beams sticking out of the water, a 20-foot high pyramid-like rock pile in the middle of the river. Remnants of the log driving era signalling it's time to get out! Five consecutive waterfalls follow, only runnable at much much lower levels. The strange part is that the signs on the shore do not warn of the coming waterfalls, but of bridge construction! What bridge?
Heavy rain, slippery roots, mud, all covered with fallen leaves: we joke about being in a class V portage... It is almost the case... so much that typically, kayakers want to skip a portion of it and paddle the flatwater between the last two waterfalls, before portaging again. The problem: it's a canyon, and the "put-in" for this is either a 15-foot seal launch on treacherous wet rock, or a seal launch on comparatively safer dry rock... 20 feet high. I had decided earlier not to try it, still being tired from my earlier swim, but others went. They pretty much all landed on their head. Including our friend Cl?o, with the badluck of an imploded skirt, a sinking boat, and a long stressful swim trying to get to "shore" (it's a canyon) above a dangerous waterfall. While I and others are frantically running down the muddy path to try to catch him before too late...
Well, we find him safe at last. But his boat's going down, orange piece of plastic; if it doesn't get pinned against a rock in the last rapid, it'll end up in the Ottawa river, direction Montr?al. I was hoping for the former, life would be easier for us that way...
We all get back on the river for the last stretch. Most of us at least, Cl?o had already begun his trek home along the river. We finally spot our poor friend on the shore; at least he had found his paddle. So we park in an eddy created by a big rock near shore. As I pass by that rock, I could not help but notice that the water above it had a strange orange tint... Looked like he had also found his kayak! Underwater, pinned by the current against a big rock. A kayak that contained, among other things, a thermos full of warm soup which would have been rather welcome then, in the cold rain... After 20 minutes of valiant efforts, with two tow ropes, someone in the water and two others holding the ropes, it became clear that it was not possible to reach the underwater kayak, let alone dislodge it from its position. We had to abandon it there, in the middle of the Rapide des Tout-Nus... Thus the day ended for us, 10 paddlers and 9 kayaks. And later, on the road in heavy rain, with only one boat in the back of the truck and one sad kayaker...
From Qu?bec's ministry of environment website, we know that when we started the run yesterday the river gauge had been steady at 72 cubic meters/second for a few days. With all the rain, as I write this, it is now over 130, and is still climbing. If we're lucky, that extra flow will dislodge Cl?o's kayak, in which case it will definitively be on its way to montr?al. Otherwise, the only hope (and it's a loooong shot) is that the level soon goes down significantly so we can mount a rescue expedition, and see if the soup is still warm...
Still, and this is my opinion of course, I would say that apart from this giant (and expensive) case of badluck, our run was quite enjoyable. We took part in one of the only outdoor activities that can be enjoyed in cold rain, we met some really nice people and we explored a river which was markedly different from our usual runs.
While it is clear that the whole run is not a beginner's one, all the big things are walkable and the remaining class II-III rapids are well worth the drive (shorter than driving to the Gatineau anyway). And I speak from experience: this section of river was the first that I ever did when I started kayaking last year, before even trying the Ottawa or the Gatineau, which are in a sense more beginner friendly...
I am sure that many members of our club would have enjoyed the Seven Sisters run, and thus am a bit puzzled by the lack of interest. This reminds me of a trip to the Gatineau exactly one month ago, where only four of us ended up having the whole river to ourselves, which seemed amazing to us then, compared to the crowded times on the Ottawa, with the rafts and all...
Cheers everyone!
--Christian
