We had some very good demonstrations about how to run Class IV rapids from Bill and Jim, and one demonstration of how not to from another paddler...
After portaging around a Class V cascade which looked a bit too big for fun yesterday (it is frequently run) and having to ferry across the river just above a Class IV rapid, I was about to walk this big but otherwise straightforward drop with a clear line: I was not feeling at the top of my art so to speak; don't eat spicy ramen noodles with sesame oil late at night when you need to get up at 6:30. But Bill showed us a nice 'steep creeking' sneak line on the left, narrower than one meter in parts, that was fun and safe. So most of us ran that, except for one who tried the meat and found out he was vegetarian...
Particularly impressive was Bill's subsequent run of a nasty drop where ALL the river water bounced on a huge boulder then went around it, hence no visibility. He was not given a chance to scout, let alone choose his line, being busy delivering an empty kayak to people standing on shore. He had almost completed the rescue but ended below the last eddy and thus had to let go of the boat and run the drop blind, with only his recollection of what was coming from previous trips... Only him and Jim ran this drop, BTW, all others walked. Kudos to the old guys! In the video below, this drop is first seen at 2:03. But we had more water than in the video (almost 60 m^3/s versus 44 m^3/s) and yesterday there was no way to stop in the micro-eddy in the corner, all the water was turning right.
Daniel was kind enough to do some bushwhacking to recover a paddle, without that the trip may have ended up more expensive for someone, and the big dinner at Mike's (Ha Ha Rob!) would have been skipped...
The last big rapid of the run, Class III-IV, is indeed amazing, and turned out to be longer than we newbies thought. The famous hole to avoid at the end was, well, not always avoided...
According to my topo maps, the Ouareau river drops nearly 75 m between the put-in and the take-out, all of it is runnable with the required skills and experience. This is a lot. As a comparison, between the free OWL put-in above McKoys and the River Run beach on the Ottawa main channel, the river drops approximately 16 m; the Petawawa river town section, between the put-in above Railroad and the take-out, drops about 20 m and even the whole Upper section in Algonquin Park only drops about 50 m. The only comparison can be made with the Lower Rouge, which drops 80 m between the put-in and the Ottawa river. But apart from really low late summer levels, much of that drop is taken by 5 very dangerous falls that need to be portaged.
The two Class III-IV sections, Aval du Lac and Pont du gouvernement are well worth the 3 hrs drive, and the shuttle is reasonable. I'm not sure, however, that the other section, the Capucines, is worth it: 45 km of shuttle seems a bit big for only 9 km of Class II-III rapids...
--C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIeGpXdgYm4
