One weekend I always look forward to is the Chili and Chowda weekend hosted by the Trembly’s. Richard cooks up a large quantity of delicious Chili and Chowda that I enjoy eating very much. This is a great time for all of the boaters in southern NB to get together on an off river setting. Usually we get together earlier in the day to paddle then head back to Richards to have great eats watch a couple of paddling flicks and usually some plan out more paddling the next day.

This year a force came out of the south to give us the fantastic gift of torrential rain. All of the known local runs were going off and would have been exceptional but I was looking forward to the taste of something new. I had been talking for a bit to NB/BC resident Max Fisher earlier in the week about the expected rain and he poured over some maps to chose a surefire adventure. After much discussion at the Tremblay’s were we able to convince and concieve a plan that has rivaled any other day I’ve had on the river.

That night in the ever friendly Tremblay house we looked at distances and shuttles for the 45 River and listened to Greg Lisson’s description of what the river looked like when he and Rob Lang scouted it at low water years earlier. Ian Campbell, Adam Tremblay, Mike Parker, Max Fisher and myself chose to cut the booze early and get an early start. The exception of this was Andrew Devost who had gone to a wine Festival the night before fortunately we were able to rescue him before the hangover kicked in.

As we arrived at our chosen put in we were happy to see that the river was full force moving water so much that we opted to portage the put in drop as we were skeptical of what we were getting into. we new there was going to be some hairy boating. the 45 drops 110m in 4 kms before it meets up with the upper salmon which drops an additional 110m in 8kms. The gorge boasted 70 m walls on each side that were sometimes shear cliffs. This was the most committing run I’ve ever done to date (also the most rewarding).

We put in at the covered bridge below a manky drop and started the adventure. The hairy good stuff started soon after put in and never let up we fast approached a funny looking horizon line to see a tight easy to f#$% up drop that Ice Cold Ian Campbell was able to as usual style out. Soon after though Ian checked out what “just looks like a little pour over” and got a good beat down. he then told the rest of us that the center was the line but Andrew must not have heard as he got beat down till he was left little choice but to swim. after recovering his boat we continued on the run leapfrog scouting roughly every 20 m and all taking a turn to look at the bigger ones or the ones with shaky directions.

Unfortunately in doing this Ian and Myself combined to slide Mike’s boat in the drink But fortunately we were able to recover the pinned boat from a rock. WE soon came upon a stretch of river that had four class five drops close enough together to take a long scout as match stick falls was just behind them and left very little room for error and almost certain death with error. as were we scouting Matchstick Falls Adam noticed that the house sized boulder/river left hand bank of the river was essientialy a large undercut. this 50 m stretch was where my adrenaline peaked and I am very glad I chose to run this gnar instead of the latter option of a grueling hike.

After we portaged matchstick falls we still had some challenging and exceptional drops to pass through. and all were relived to see the 45 meet up with the Upper Salmon as it was getting close to last light and we still had roughly 8 Kms of river left. the Upper Salmon boasted 8 Kms of non-stop Boogie Action.

The run was continous class 4 whitewater with a few class five rapids and a do or die class 6 drop named match stick falls.

As a team everyone was paddling well and made the moves they had to, we were able to run every rapid except for matchstick and the first drop at the covered bridge.

We had a fantastic team assembled and an exceptional day on the river. We will be back to run the 45 as soon as we get another 60 mm of rain.