Canyon Creek Of the Nooksack

Canyon creek of the Nooksack is a small tributary that comes in just below the canyon section of the north fork. It comes from high mountain valley that reaches almost clear to the Canadian border. Although all the runs on the Nooksack nearby are almost all bedrock style, Canyon Creek is much more manky. After a short bushwhack down a steep hill, you will come to the creek, which at this point consists of landslide boulders, creating terribly manky drops. We spent the first little while portaging. After running a few manky rapids we finally came upon some bedrock. The creek got better and better after that besides the loss of my GoPro HD to the river gods.
Jamie Klein on a semi-clean manky drop.
Me coming through the first drop of that good ol' stuff we love-bedrock.

Chris Tretwold airing it out on a sweet boof.

Here is a little video I put together from the day.

Canyon Creek from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

The nooksack river valley has some really great kayaking and anyone in the Bellingham area should definitely check out the area.

SurvivorGoat 7... Kayak Edition

Mike(the mountain man) Miller introduced me to survivorgoat at college this year. Survivor goat is a web series compiled of only some of the greatest feats of mankind itself. Survivorgoat is all about extreme. Survivorgoat is all about being stout. Survivorgoat 7 kayak edition is taking Survivorgoat to a new level. It brings sarcasm to the world of extreme kayaking, and makes light of how serious some paddling films are. Check it out

Survivor Goat 7.. Kayak Edition from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

Raffuse Creek Exploration

When Todd calls and says "hey man, ive got something sweet, wanna go to BC this weekend?", It probably means its gunna be a good old fashioned BC bushwack to a worthy creek. Then he texted me some photos they had taken when they scouted it a few days prior. Pictures of clean waterfalls and a kickass gorge met my eyes. I dropped other plans and headed up to the squamish area. We made some delicious food at Bryan's house, and went to sleep stoked to go explore Raffuse creek. We woke up super early and drove to the creek which just happens to be crossed by the road to Skookum Creek. We hiked a few miles up the creek on a nice trail. Then we picked the least menacing spot in the dense bc hell f*@k, we did some classic BC bushwackin down to the creek. We put on, and ran through some really cool mini gorges like this one.


Bryan Smith photo.

We then reached some cool low volume boofs like this one.Chris Tretwold Photo.

The gorge started to get a little deeper and steeper we came upon this sweet Double Drop.



Boofs like this don't suck.

Todd Gilman Photo

Cool shot of me resurfacing. TG photo

The second stage of the double, good stuff. CT Photo

Chris Tretwold charging of the first part of the double, reppin dat WA apple phat! Tg photo

MMM The second drop from above. Tg photo

Shane and Bryan in some fun boogie just after the Double Drop.

After some cool boogie and mini gorges, the Creek got quite a bit steeper indeed. We came upon this, and of course Chris Tretwold fired up some stout wood removal by walking across the big log, then sawing a smaller log in half so we could run the stuff that came below.

It was definetly brown.

The eddy just above a sweet 25ish footer.BS Photo

And Todd Launching off of just another sweet BC waterfall. BS photo

The 25r from downstream, with the crack rapid soon afterwards. CT photo

And me dropping in on a really cool boof to crack drop.CT photo

From Downstream, Photo TG

And Bryan exiting the crack.TG Photo

Shane getting a nice boof into the pinch, stylie! Shortly after these quality drops, there was another waterfall in the 25-30ft range with a weird crack entrance that then proceeded to land on rocks. With higher flow, it would probably go, but the rest of the creek would be terrifying.

Shane Peering into the crack.

The creek then proceeded to throw a few walled-out, woodblocked smaller drops, so we had a couple proper BC portages.Up, out of the gorge, then yes right back down in through spikey plants and moss-covered rocks.

We then proceeded to meet the bridge that we had decided to take out at. We started the day at 8, and ended at 7:30 or so, it was a solid day of kayaking indeed.

Here is a short video I put together of the day, Check it out

Raffuse Creek Exploration from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

Overall the creek was not quite a classic due to the amount of work required, but there were some great waterfalls and beautiful scenery.

Check back soon for more!