The only other excitement is where the river has recently changed its course and runs down the other side of the valley. Here the water braids out and meanders left through a few hundred yards of young alders. Eventually we run out of clear channel and resort to slashing and slogging our boats through the small trees. Again canoes would be better, but conventional rafts worse.
After lunch and several more hours of drifting the river starts bunching up. It's appears from the surrounding terrain that it will stay tight. An eagle is fishing in front of us as we drift by Prairie Creek. It looks shallow and rocky, but we heard before starting that Nova Riverunners was putting in at its headwaters with a kayak expedition, so it must be floatable in smaller boats.
The map shows that the canyon section is just below, so we take out for a short break. It is getting late but we decide that if we camp above the canyon we will worry about it all night. At least I will. I always do. So we change into our wet suits, lash everything down and put back in. I am rowing the lead boat with the two paddlers. Mark follows with most of the gear. None of us has seen this canyon before.
From the map it looks like a short ride from Prairie Creek to the start of the wild stuff, but as Dad says, "if you want to plan a trip to be shorter, buy a smaller map." It would still take over an hour.
There is one short class III drop and we ask each other if that's it. Surely it couldn't be. It isn't. The book warns to take out on the right just above the first drop and scout it. I wonder if we might miss the take out and have to run the first and biggest drop blind, but when we get there it's obvious- Calm waters hemmed in by canyon walls 100 feet apart, but out the far end is an opening perhaps 20 feet wide. The water just disappears into that crack. You can see the horizon line and nothing but a little white mist behind it. From river level it looks like the end of life as we know it. This has to be Entrance Exam.
We scout, and it's obvious that the conservative run is on the left. A large drop with a four foot wide tongue of froth squirting along the left bank. The rest of it drops into a nasty hole that reminds me of Twin Rocks in Nenana canyon. A hole I had always managed to miss. But this one is not completely missable in an eight foot wide cat boat.
A big knot forms in my gut as I push the oars for momentum. Dad, paddling hard on the front right is sucked directly into the crashing wave at the bottom. He gets real wet, real fast. It seems so easy. This is supposed to be the nastiest spot on the river? Mark follows with his boat. Again nothing. Maybe in a conventional raft that hole has more keeping power, but in a single tube cat boat we punch straight through.
Now it's 25 feet between the walls, just enough for my ten foot oars to swing if I stay in the center, but the water is deep, and the currents are going in every direction at once. Mark is pushed into the left wall as the river turns right. My mind flashes back to the rock on Six Mile Creek that I had been so intimate with two months ago. This looks similar, but with more water against it.
Suddenly we are out of it, and into the Toilet Bowl. I look back into the crevice we just came through and wonder how Steve Mahay had powered through it. I understand why he didn't come back down. Then I glance down the river ahead. The water flushes down a violent chute just past the horizon line, but this time the big rocks are in the middle of the current. We choose river right. Correct again, but not without a frightfully close look at a rock jutting out from the bank. I thought Pop was going to kiss that one.
Now we find ourselves running down a swift but peaceful river again. For about twenty minutes there is nothing to get excited about. I wonder where that "fourteen miles of continuous whitewater" went to. Dr. Embick, surely you wouldn't lead me on.
Just as suddenly, we are back in it. The good doctor is right. This is a hoot! From here on it's constant class III, with an occasional class IV plunge. It becomes a pool and drop river with barely adequate take outs below the big stuff. I am on the outside of the corner as the river swings sharply to the left, and then pours down the left side of a large rock outcropping. I can't see from the top if there is any other safe route. I pull the oars hard, and just manage to catch the left side pour over. Mark is just behind and to my right but without the paddle assist he is forced to run the middle blind, a near vertical drop into a nice pool. He pops to the surface. I wish I had been there.
There is some banter about how much fun this would be in a jet ski. Charging up the drops would be a riot. It's the trip down that would make you wish for oars, and inflatable sides. Hmm. Something to think about come winter. Got something else on my mind right now.
