Lachine

In three years living in NH and ten boating in New England, I'd some how never made it to Lachine until last weekend. But, Quinn and I rallied a crew and headed up to Montreal for a day trip on Sunday, and wow. It's pretty damn good.

We left Hanover at 7ish on Sunday morning. Quinn seemed a little too chipper when I picked him up, but it turned out his hangover just hadn't hit him yet because he was still a little drunk. Occupational hazard. We picked up Alan, Simone, Erik, Justin, Will, and Dave on the way to Canada and then attempted to cross the border. Unfortunately, the Canadians were a little skeptical of my passport picture (I would be too) and pulled us aside giving the van a brief search, but eventually let us go. When we finally got out of the van in Montreal, it was...of course, 50 degrees and raining. I'd made a personal promise to never playboat in weather where I needed my drysuit, but having driven 3.5 hours to get there I had to violate it -- soon I'll have a new Immersion Research Comp LX Dry Top so I won't have to wear the drysuit. Thanks IR!

Erik on Little Joe, Justin on Pyramid, and Will Parini on Big Joe.

Lachine is everything it's cracked up to be. I've been to the Ottawa twice, and other than that have surfed at Hartlands and Tville. Big Joe is far and away the biggest wave I've ever surfed. Little Joe is definitely bigger than most things I'd surfed before. Even Pyramid was pretty huge. It turns out, unfortunately, that I'm terrible at playboating. I missed the waves on the first attempt and had to pull my way back up the series of ropes without even having had a surf. On the second attempt, I got into a somewhat controllable front surf on Big Joe and kept eying "The Pit," the steep region on surfer's left that's even more big, bouncy and out of control, and couldn't help but think to myself, "People really go in that willingly? I'm going to get my ass kicked if I go in there." So I blunted on the shoulder and then washed off...again and again.

Alan blunts in The Pit (back) while Quinn blunts the other way on Pyramid.

Pyramid is a much more manageable ride. It was surging in and out while we were there: you could catch it just about any time, but before throwing anything you had to look back and check if the foam pile was still there. I had some epic front surfs on Pyramid, along with a few paddle spins to keep it steezey. I threw a blunt or two, but flushed off while backwards every time...I'm starting to think going to Hartlands regularly is making me worse at playboating, so I might have to stop going.

Justin blunting on Pyramid with a solid gnarface going on. Simone hanging on on Big Joe in the background.

Overall, Lachine is awesome. I wish I was better at playboating so I wasn't so discouraged by my rides. And, it seems like I can't get better at playboating by going to Hartlands, so I'll probably be headed up to Lachine a few more times before it gets too cold, unless it finally starts raining around here and creeks come back in.

Justin waiting for Pyramid to come back in before he throws another blunt.

Afterwards, we of course had to have poutine before heading back to the US. So disgusting, yet so good. I personally found the poutine in Havre St. Pierre (at the takeout of the Romaine) much better than the Montreal poutine, but it was more of a real dish up there. In Montreal it was a plate of fries with globs of fat poured on top of it.

The rest of my Romaine TR is coming soon, I promise.

La Riviere Romaine, Day 3

For days 1 and 2, look here.

Day 3:
21 miles

I woke up in the middle of the night sopping wet -- don't bring a bivy sack on a self support kayaking trip -- and was looking pretty grim by morning, when we all hopped straight into our drysuits and packed up camp quickly. The day started with (surprise) a lot of flatwater leading up to the first big rapid, Dome Falls, named for the large granite dome on river right upstream of it. This rapid has three main channels and a couple low volume sneaks. Most of us ran the far river left channel through the first drop, a big boof onto a seam, then worked our way around the huge holes and waves in the 'runout.'

The scenery sucked.

Isaac ran the huge boulder garden in the river right channel, boofing into the runout. I ran a channel out of sight coming in on the right side of the photo.

A few miles later was Rhino, one of the only rapids without side channels. Just a big, bouncy rapid scattered with holes and rocks. We ran a left to right line down the rapid trying to avoid the big hole at the bottom left. Jonathan ran a slightly different line, wanting to count the fishes on the river left side, but it all worked out. Reminded me a lot of Hance on the Grand Canyon, but roughly 8 times bigger.

Me getting right of the big hole. Photo Levinson.

Some more flat led to what looked like a boogie rapid -- a small ledge that we could see from an eddy right at the lip. Boyce and Greg called it the "big breaking wave" rapid. Well, from the eddy I saw five people paddle into it, two flush through upside down, two bust through it no problem, and one get surfed briefly before escaping on river left. So, I paddled into the rapid, hit a curler that was much bigger than expected and literally folded me over backwards, rolled up and hit the "breaking wave." Then I had the worst trashing I've had in years. Even when I was in a controlled sidesurf the thing was breaking over my head so I was pretty much underwater. I probably hit twenty ends before it tore my helmet off, and then finally managed to surf out ten or fifteen seconds later, but by then it was too late. My helmet had run the next little ledge and was floating downstream to the next huge horizon line. I eddied out with Greg and Jonathan who then cruised downstream and I watched as everyone in the group disappeared over the misting horizon, leaving me to portage a side creek with no helmet in order to make downstream progress. About a quarter of the way across I dropped my paddle, which then proceeded to route the next drop in the same fashion as my helmet. So there I am helmetless, paddleless, about to get cliffed out on river left, with no friends in site, many, many miles from civilization. I handpaddled across the rest of the creek and clambered up the left shore to see if I could see anything. Isaac eventually comes up the river right shore -- a long way away -- holding my helmet and my paddle. Good news, but how was I going to get to him? Well, it was the scariest handpaddling I've ever done, I'll tell you that. Ferrying across a boily current above an unknown misting horizon line with no paddle and no helmet is not something I'd like to repeat...but it worked out ok, and I was reunited happily with my paddle and helmet, none the worse for wear.

This misting horizonline was called Adder by Greg and Boyce, with a big S-turny drop on river left and a nice slide to boof in the middle that I ran. On Fred Coriell's blog, it's the first drop of "Double Mister." The next one downstream split around an island with river left being a huge, scary unrun rapid and river right being a huge, scary, but incredibly easy rapid called Horseshoe Hole. Apparently somebody lost a boat in here last year and had to ride the rest of the river down to Hydro-Quebec's construction site on the sterns of his partners' boats. If he really did go into this hole he's lucky that's all he lost.

Jonathan cruising around Horseshoe Hole, that massive looking thing above his head. Photo Levinson.

The day wrapped up with some more flatwater above an (as far as we know) unrun drop called Le Maudite, where Boyce and Greg had camped previously. It's a big, big rapid with a leadin with big curlers on both sides that funnels you right into one huge hole which is immediately backed up by another even worse hole. The line is to bust left or right of the holes at the bottom, and which one is better probably varies with water level. Isaac tried to bust left and ended up heading straight into the top hole, but after a brief working managed to surf his way out on river left in just about the only spot he could avoid the second hole. The rapid is now called Le MauJoo in his honor.

Isaac looking small with about 1/5 of the rapid visible.

We ended up going about six miles further in an effort to find a beach camp because it was going to rain, which was a good decision -- it knocked a good chunk out of the next day, which was supposed to be 37 miles flat, and we found a great campsite across the river from half of a canoe that Boyce and Greg had seen the previous year further upstream.

Check out days 4 and 5 here.

La Riviere Romaine, Day 2

Day 2:
26 miles

We packed up camp in cold, cloudy weather and paddled about 12 miles of mostly flat water (with some class II here and there) to a nice bedrock lunch spot next to a Hydro Quebec gauging station and helipad. Shortly thereafter, we came across Entrance Exam, the first huge rapid.

Boyce in it.

Greg showing us just how big the waves in the runout were. Photo Isaac Levinson.

Shortly downstream we found the next big one, a long, complex rapid we called the Ferry rapid because in years past they'd run down the left through the leadin only find themselves faced with a shitty portage or a very difficult ferry between two holes. We found a nice line down the center and right that didn't involve any terrifying ferries.

Isaac about to style his way through the seam of a huge crashing wave/hole.

Next up was (after, of course, some more flatwater) was the Micrometer of Doom, a riverwide ledge with -- surprise -- a huge hole, and a sweet boof on river right.

Me boofing the Micrometer. Photo Levinson.

Next up was a super fun slide to autoboof rapid, after which we paddled another ten or so miles of flatwater to Fowlersville on Acid, a huge rapid with three channels -- on river left, Fowlersville on Acid, a rapid that looks like Fowlersville on the Bottom Moose but with a much bigger hole. River right was a slide into a big crasher called Nascar, and the center was a low stress low volume slide (I think "Pit Stop" would be a good name, although it's also a good name for the campsite there). We camped on river left at the bottom of Fowlersville on Acid at an amazing beach with plenty of wood. Unfortunately, I found out on this night that my bivy was not nearly as waterproof as it claimed to be, and I woke up soaked the next day.

Greg Hanlon accelerating down Nascar. Photo Boyce Greer.

On our way to the gym, or trying to dry off our drysuits? Boyce, Jonathan, me, Isaac, and Greg at Fowlersville on Acid camp. Photo Scott Murray.

Read on to hear about day 3.

La Riviere Romaine

The drive to the float plane base: 16 hours
The flight: 85 miles
The river: 110 miles
The paddlers: me, Boyce Greer, Greg Hanlon, Scott Murray, Jonathan Baker, and Isaac Levinson.
Animal sightings: 5 moose, 1 beaver, a few loons, ducks, wolf tracks, and what was probably a porcupine, but may have been a bear cub.

To summarize briefly, God shat on us for five days straight. It rained every day, and we had a headwind for just about 90 of the ~95 miles of flatwater. And then on the brutal two mile hike out with loaded boats...it was as sunny as can be. But damn, what an incredible river. About 20 huge named rapids, and countless class III/IV "boogie water" with holes the size of the Winnebago we drove up in.

Boyce's Winnebago. Great way to travel.

Day 0/1:

We met at Greg's house in Lyme, NH around noon on Saturday, piled into the Winnebago, and drove 16 hours straight to Havre Saint Pierre, Quebec. After a brief border crossing hassle where the US border patrol somehow decided to pull us over before we even got to the Canadians, and then the Canadians decided they needed to question Jonathan, we made it into Canada. Driving late at night on Highway 138 up the northern edge of the Saint Lawrence, I was passed by a truck doing at least a hundred. A few hours later, around dawn, Scott was driving and passed a wreck...we went back to make sure everyone was ok and are pretty damn sure it was the same guy. He seemed alright, though, beyond being completely hammered and having a totaled truck, so we left him for the authorities. Rallying into Havre Saint Pierre around 6:30am, we headed first to the cache, the point on Highway 138 -- with no river in sight -- where Boyce claimed we'd be taking out (6 days later) to drop beers, then headed to the traditional (now that Boyce and Greg have done the river three times) breakfast place, Le Promenade. Then we went to the float plane base and after packing up, we loaded boats onto the Otter.

The otter, and our boats. 3 Grandes, 2 Jefes, and an Everest. Thanks, Liquid Logic (and Pyranha).

Two of us went in the otter with the other four in a beaver following shortly after. Then we saw a beaver at camp (a big sandbar in the middle of the river).

He was pretty unfazed.

We cooked dinner and lit a fire in what was to be our last sunlight for the next four days.

The sunset with Scott's boat and tent in the foreground.

Read on to hear about day 2.

Raquette Race Video

Five2Nine Productions - Events - The Raquette Race 2010 from Five 2 Nine Productions on Vimeo.

And a post about it on the LiquidLore blog: http://liquidlore.blogspot.com/2010/09/raquette-race-recap.html. Thanks again to the Five2Nine crew for putting on the race, I hope I'm around for it next year.

Just got back from the Romaine River in Northern Quebec...trip report and photos coming.

First Annual Raquette Race

The rest of the Dartmouth crew had headed straight home from the Beaver on Sunday, but I spent another night at Taylorville and then headed up to the Raquette the next morning. Ran into Justin Crannell and the steezy dudes from WV (see Moshier falls picture in previous post) at the putin and decided to paddle a lap with them before the rumored race at 1pm. They wanted to scout Colton, so I headed on down and got out on the rock in the middle at the bottom to take some pictures. I'd wanted to shoot from this angle for a while now and just hadn't gotten around to it -- it worked really well. My lens got covered in spray pretty quickly, but I like the shots I have from the bottom of the slide of people flying off a little kicker into the pillow.

Jake Risch styling at the bottom of Colton Falls.

I walked up the rock a little bit to get a few more shots that turned out pretty well.

Justin Crannell on Colton.

We got back up to the putin after our lap right around 1pm and I went running down to the river hoping to catch the race. They hadn't started yet, and had me do a pre-race interview. The format was pretty much the only thing you could do on Stone Valley -- timed top-to-bottom laps. A mass start wouldn't really work. We ended up with 11 racers all going at 2 minute intervals. Mike Kobzik went first, but a whistle was blown and the race was stopped about ten seconds in -- apparently there was a rope stuck in Colton somewhere. Twenty minutes of standing around in the cold later we actually started.

C1 Steeze.

I wasn't really sure how fast I would paddle going in. I started off paddling pretty hard, but slowed down a bit coming into Colton. The rapids on the Raquette aren't really ones you want to be out of breath for. I ran the horseshoe boof directly with a pretty shitty but acceptable line, raced past the eddy onto the slide, had a fine line down the slide, hit the pillow at the bottom...and flipped. First time I've ever flipped on the Raquette except for the two times I've been surfed in the Tubs. Immediately, a rock punched me in the face, leaving me pretty sure I was pouring blood and missing teeth, but I rolled up, looked at the safety guy and asked if I was bleeding. He said no so I kept going. I went pretty slowly for the rest of the run while I was feeling around my mouth with my tongue to see where my teeth were and ended up not doing very well. My time was 7:49. I probably lost 30 seconds trying to get to the eddy at the bottom of Particle Accelerator because I washed up on that silly rock below the drop and the finish bag was out of reach.

Someone upright and not being hit in the face with rocks in the runout of Colton.

Shockingly, I still have all my teeth and am only missing a chunk out of one of them...hopefully I won't have to lose the tooth, we'll see what the dentist says tomorrow. Thanks to Mike Mckay and whoever else was involved for putting on the race, and congratulations Clay Wright for winning a can of steel reserve. Team America had a strong showing, sweeping the top four places -- suck on that, Canada. Hopefully this race keeps happening, if I'm in New England next Labor Day I'll definitely be racing.

Beaver River Rendezvous 2010

Nothing seems to draw a crowd like the Labor Day Beaver releases. From the 40 boats parked above Moshier Falls to the carpet of beer cans at the Taylorville putin on Sunday morning, this weekend seems to bring everyone out of the woodwork.

It had an inauspicious start in Boston around noon on Friday, where I drove to pick up Colby Cook and drop him off in Middlebury on the way to the Beaver so he could fix his car and make his way to the Beaver. After being waylayed for a few hours in Hanover, he finally got to Middlebury at 9, and Chelsea, Jackie, and I finally got to the Beaver around 2am. Brian and Ellen followed up the rear in a Dartmouth van coming in around 2:45am. The next day had an impressive three laps on Taylorville for the Dartmouth crew followed by a quick four hour nap. We tried to keep sleeping through the night, but were forced to start boozing instead. There was a pretty rowdy party Saturday night at the Taylorville putin.

Ted Devoe being Ted.

Sunday, another late start got us to the Moshier around 11. I hiked up to scout the big putin slide and then got Brian to help me put in just below the top waterfall. What an awesome rapid. I was a little further left than I wanted to be at the bottom and hit the hole but surfed out of it in a second or two. In the last four years I've been going to the Beaver, it's gone from three people running the drop (none from the top) to over twenty, with probably five runs from the very top, a few clean a few not clean from what I hear. I don't have any pictures of it, but I'm sure there are some on the AW page.

Picture perfect. I think this guy's name is Andy. He was hitting some neat lines on Taylorville, too.

Team Ledyard then paddled on down and ran a few laps on the first waterfall. By the end everyone had managed to hit at least one solid boof off it. Brian fired up Moshier Falls, flipping above the wall boof (in the curler that flips everybody) but rolling up and finishing the rapid fine. It was the usual shitshow, with swimmers left and right, at least two ropes for each one, and people getting landed on regularly in the bottom hole -- all good fun.

Brian Seitz boofing the first waterfall.

These guys were super steezy...I paddled with them the next day on the Raquette. They're starting a river-steeze revolution -- crazy sunglasses, tall tees, gold chains. Way more steezy than the "brown claw." Nicole Mansfield is upside down in the drop behind them.