Recently Ive been paddling quite a bit actually. One of the better trips was a few weeks ago to Revelstoke, BC area. We left Bellingham around 9pm, and started the 7 hour drive to Revelstoke. We arrived at a makeshift campsite at around 4am. We slept, woke up and rallied the rest of the drive into Revelstoke. After meeting up with our friends Joey and Blair, we found that the Pingston was too low. After much debate we headed to one of the cleanest 60ish footers around, Sutherland falls.
And it was a good flow.
Blair Trotman ran first and had a great line.
I ran next, and did somewhat of a boof to stomp. It didn't hurt at all surprisingly, probably one of the softest landings ever, even though it didnt look like it.
I was fired up, so i ran back up and ran it again.
This time I had a decent line, plugging but twisting a bit at the end. It hurt much more.
Todd ran next having by far the best line of the day. Unfortunately his paddle caught the water wrong and his shoulder was dislocated on impact. We got him back to the car, got his gear off, and relocated his shoulder. We headed back to Revy to recuperate, spent the night at Joey's house, and awoke in the morning with St Leon creek on our minds.
Me, Todd and Chris on the Ferry to St. Leon Creek.
St. Leon creek has some amazing drops. The put-in is just down hill from a natural hot springs with a lot of nudity, and pachuly oil. We put in and came upon a sweet triple drop. An 8 footer to 5 foot boof with a nasty hole, to a sweet slide. I did probably the biggest aerial brown i have ever done on the top 8 footer. It was nice!
Brown!!! The first stage of the triple.
The second stage of the triple.
Me starting the fun slide. This triple drop was very fun!
Chris at the end of the sweet slide. It mellows out in-between the drops with some fun boogie water, then all of the sudden we came upon a huge horizon line. A very fast, fun slide awaits. Probably around 80 feet long and maybe 60 ft tall. It was very fun.
Me on the slide. Speeding into the pool. After the slide comes a sweet mini gorge that unfortunately was choked with wood. We portaged, and the gorge ended in a sweet 30ish footer.
The last falls, a super great, clean waterfall. Gotta love BC.
Chris chillin out with a beautiful look back up St. Leon Creek.
After St Leon we proceeded to meet up with a bunch of Mt. Bikers, and had a pretty fun night filled with lots of beer drinkings and hot springs.
I didnt feel great in the morning so i took a little nap in GnarCar. Chris thought it would be funny to take a picture.
We finally gained motivation to go kayaking. We arrived at the Kuskanax river, a sweet class 4 ish section with some great waterfalls.
Kuskanax river with some beautiful classic BC gorge scenery.
After the Kuskanax we hiked up and ran sweet park and huck 20ftr right on the side of the road called Gardener creek.
The top drop on gardener.
The last falls on gardener.
...and from the bottom.
Check out the sweet little video I put together from the trip.\
Interior BC/ Sutherland Falls from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.
This ended up being one of the most fun paddling trips of the year for me. We were able to find some stuff that none of us had done before, and all in all it was a great trip. We are bummed about Todd's shoulder he is having surgery in september and no doubt after that he will be back out killing it as usual. Heal up buddy.
Until Next time.
All photos By Chris Tretwold and Todd Gillman
On the drive back home we were lucky enough to hit Penny hot springs, a nice natural hot springs right on the river. Check out this sweet video from the day.
.jpg)
