As usual, we slept in and were running late. The plan was to head to Golden, B.C. to run the Kicking Horse and check out a few creeks in that area. We met Joey Vosburgh and Mark and Michelle Basso at the put-in ready to rip. The Kicking Horse is a great class IV run with some sweet play waves along the way. We got to the Land Bridge rapid and Joey immediately started going off. “People usually don’t run this drop, If I ran it, I’d definitely be in a creek boat, If I was going to run it, that’s the last line Id do.” Comforting words huh. To top that off we start walking up to get in our boats and Basso says, “Man that drop is full of rebar!” Anyway it turned out to be one of those local Boogie Men, a drop that no one runs because of years of horror stories, that really isn’t that hard. Anyway after paddling we went for supper at what soon became Scott’s favourite bar. Non stop heavy metal music and a really chill atmosphere had him stoked!

Little air on the Kicking Horse

We headed to Bachelor Creek the next day which turned out to be a mission gone bad. We put on but once we arrived at the first drop realized the water was way too high. We couldn’t have portaged this drop if we wanted, it took sooooooo long to get a good enough view to decide that the water was too high, it would have taken days with boats. The bushes were so thick that we could barely move, crawling under them was the fastest way. At one point I saw a bit of a clearing and headed towards it. The clearing turned out to be a 12 foot ledge that I was soon hanging from holding onto the bushes at the top, I some how didn’t fall on my butt. We got our boats and hiked out through this crap, luckily the run wasn’t far from the road. Scott was quickly drawn back to his favourite bar where he and Basso spent most of the night. I decided to go to the skate park with Joey and fall on my butt a lot (I’m not much of a skate boarder but I did pull off the whole bush hanging). At about one A.M. Scott and Basso give me the go ahead to drive to Jasper so we can actually paddle the next day. I’m mega frustrated because I love to sleep and have to drive most of the night as Scott decides to make my life difficult and keeps referring to himself as Scott Feindellio the great, throwing my sleeping bag around when I’m trying to got to sleep.

Top drop on Hat Trick, Beauty Creek

The next day we head to Beauty Creek, a low volume creek with tight lines in Jasper. At first glance I was unimpressed, it looked bony and a bit lame. I was keen to head to the Big Horn and paddle there instead. Once I was on the run I was really happy I put on cause it was really fun. Caveman Basso managed to throw a rock at a log in the canyon from above moving it enough so we could get by. Nice work Basso, can’t say I’ve seen that work before. It was a good thing that we didn’t skip Beauty and go to the Big Horn because it turned out to be the lowest any of us had ever seen it.

Bassholio eyeing me up on Beauty