Cunningham Stream starts with a 45 minute hike up an old road. If you have Harold’s jeep you can drive up to the put in on frozen ground.

You put in on the narrow stream and just watch out for rocks for the first few minutes. The first significant drop is about and 8 footer that no matter what you do your going to hit rocks or scrape rocks. Accept it! You are creeking. The next drop we come to is about a 15 footer that you will also scrape rocks in although you are landing in a pool so no worries. You go through some quick moving water, always dodging rocks, and then you come up to a packed boulder garden with some trees and stuff added in to try and screw you up. You might want to get out and look at this one. Tight, technical lines with plenty of places to get pinned. Keep your head on straight. After the boulder garden are a couple of ledge drops that you can run anywhere but they could be a little sticky at the bottom. A couple more shoots and corner rapids bring you to the “drop that Tim likes”. Good spot for testing out how your helmet works and seeing if you need any skin taken off your hand. It’s also a good spot for creating nice long gouges in pretty orange Prijon boats. The slide starts with a tight lead in to a 90 degree left turn to the actual first drop. This is where you might get flipped (and f#&ked). After the left turn you want to try and keep slightly right of center unless you feel a nice piton is what you want. Watch for fallen trees here also. Last time we ran this we had to bust through some dangling birch branches (big enough that you felt them whack you good). After the first slide there sometimes is a very small pool before the stream bears 90 degrees right and drops over another 12 footer. Not to far along there is another boulder garden a lot shorter and not as bad as the first. The worst is over. From here on in there are continuous rapids to the take out near the main road. You can also continue on a bit and go through the long culvert and go to the next bridge. There is one technical rapid with a significant boulder garden.

This was first run by Adam and myself in 2005. Watch it, it is a rocky bastard (and I mean rocky). It doesn’t do your equipment well. Adam put a hole in his boat on our first descent and I wrecked my repaired boat here this fall.

This stream only runs immediately after big rains and still doesn’t run all that full. It is fuelled by a very small lake and a few tiny brooks.