On the second day of a five-day trip with my two childhood friends, Will and Alex, we came across a few sets of rapids. With the river flooded by heavy September rain that had nearly swamped my poor car on the way into the put-in, we decided to give the whitewater a go. Here's how one of those sets went.
"How are you feeling about this?" Will asked me from the bow as we sat in an eddy upstream of a bony rapid halfway along the Tim River. I angled us into the current and then responded with equal parts joking and serious, "I guess we'll find out!". Shooting through alders, we picked through the upper section of the rapid easily, avoiding the small rocks that we'd scouted beforehand. As we rounded the bend to enter the middle section, I slid off my seat and into a kneeling position preparing for our next stretch.
Our other friend Alex was standing on the bridge that we would pass under, opting to film us rather than come for the ride (which was smart seeing as how this next stretch of river treated us). I made out the line we'd picked during our scouting, and the old Tyson quote "everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" came to mind.
We were able to bounce between a few submerged boulders as we neared the bridge but the water wasn't as high as we'd thought from shore. This led to both Will and I's paddles bouncing off rocks as we made our strokes, which placed us slightly off course. Incredibly unfortunate, as the next 10 meters of rapid required agile and precise canoeing to avoid trouble.
It may be a good time to mention that both Will and I hadn't paddled whitewater in roughly... 6 years? Will had been at an Outward Bound course and I'd been leading kids on canoe trips. Our general knowledge was there, but some of the details were fuzzy, and the techniques were definitely rusty. A few hours before, we'd completed some rapids that were mostly just waves, not requiring much technical ability other than keeping our open side up. We'd run them well, and the few maneuvers that were required, we managed to pull off.
Now, a few kilometers downriver of our last set of white water, Will and I found ourselves heading towards a large rock on river right. We slid the canoe as best we could to the left, but still found ourselves riding the (luckily) smooth boulder broadside. We'd just missed the deepwater "V" that we had originally intended to ride and smacked our bow down over the other side of the rocks ledge. The boat rocked underneath us but we were able to keep the boat upright.
A little thrown off by our close call, we pulled a lazy eddy turn into the right shore to catch our breath before we continued on. Alex called from the bridge, "That wasn't what you planned eh?", helping us shake off the missed line and laugh it off.
We looked over our shoulders to peak at our next set of whitewater and picked our line, trying to remember what we'd seen from shore earlier. Alex ran ahead on the trail to meet us on the other end as we pushed our nose back into the current and swung the boat around.
Bumping through a long "cheese grader" (rocks, rocks everywhere) section of the river, we made it to a calm section of the river, expecting to be done with white water for this stretch of the Tim. We did a celebratory paddle clap, feeling like we had redeemed ourselves as we'd hit our scouted line cleanly. We paddled forward, scanning ahead to find the end of the portage trail, where we had planned to meet up with Alex.
"There's more rapids up ahead!"
Will looked back at me and asked if I'd heard what Alex had called out from somewhere in the forest. I definitely had and was equally confused. When we'd scouted the river, we had thought that the last section we'd just come through was the last of the whitewater. Apparently, we simply hadn't walked along the trail far enough to hear or see the last section of turbulent water. Laziness really, if I'm being honest, was the culprit for our mistake. After hiking the trail with all the gear beforehand, we hadn't felt like bushwacking down to the water's edge in this particular area, as we'd done in the other spots.
With a nervous laugh, we braced ourselves for our repercussions. We passed a bend and the bony river came into view. We made it through about 50 meters before Will yelled "Shit, ROCK!" and our bow crashed into a submerged rock head-on. Thankfully, my canoe has some pretty beefy keel strips that can take a blow or two.
Recovering from the impact, we bounced off and continued through the rest of the churning water. Finally, we pulled into a flat section of water to see Alex standing at the portage opening. With us all reunited in the boat we had a good laugh at our missteps. Alex had caught Will's rock warning on camera by chance, which was hilarious to rewatch. After calling out to warn us, Alex had turned the camera on in the chance that he might catch us through the trees. Trust your instincts on and off the river I guess!
As the adrenaline began to fade, we were relieved to have a long section ahead that would be a calm and easy paddle. We had another 10 km of travel down the Tim River, before having to tackle 60 km of lake paddling over the next 2 and a half days.
As we gained some distance from the white water, we began to miss the excitement and started firing off ideas for future trips... Stay tuned!
Sounds like a great trip! I can totally hear you all talking about doing it again for the adrenaline rush!! Maybe even Alex😊 Looks like a beautiful route too