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| It is hard to describe the beauty of this South Shore gem, so mostly I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Evergreen forest surrounds the river. In the sections of gradient, the river constantly trips down bedrock ledges of varying sizes. In general, you will want the river to be a bit on the boney side to allow yourself a bit more margin-of-saftey, as some of the drops are preceded by sloping bedrock which will have few eddies. At higher flows it would be quite easy to be swept past the 'point of no return', and over a drop without a chance to scout it. With a stream this relatively small, strainers and deadfalls are highly likely. Some of the taller drops have rather shallow landing zones, making a good 'boof' pretty much mandatory. |
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One of the few drops for which I know a name, Smooth Creamy Thigh (above left) is a great, low-angle slide. The trick, however, is that both sides of the slide drop off rather abruptly, while the middle continues smoothly to the pool at the base. You emphatically do not want to be too far left, as it appears (at most waterlevels) you would piton into the hole on that side. Falling off the right side might be far less threatening, but the sweet line is to stay down the middle. The trouble is, it is pretty 'blind' on the approach, since the river slopes away out of sight. By the time you can see if you are on your line or not, the water is sheeting so shallow that you will not be able to do much to alter your course.
(Note: in the photo above right, the white in the background (angling from top-center toward the right) is not the river or a side stream . . . it is a patch of snow in the woods on shore.) |
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| Slate River Falls (above) is an impressive sight. Unfortunately, as you can see, it is littered with huge logs angling down its face. While there are some 'theoretical' lines, none looked the least inviting with all those trees in there. The approach to this falls is real straight-forward, however getting out above it is very problematic. The banks are steep rock faces, and eddies are almost non-existant. Portaging is likely to require being able to exit your boat quickly, doing some quick 'bouldering', then roping boats up the right side, followed by roping back down to the pool at the base. For this reason, the second time we ran this river, we chose to 'abort' our run well upstream of the falls. While it seemed a shame to pass on the still considerable runnable gradient, one just gets deeper and deeper into the canyon (closer to the falls), making it just that much more difficult to climb out. A good trail does exist (high on river right) to take you back to the roadside parking off Skanee Road. While it is possible to carry back down to the river a few places below the falls, it is still a steep bank, and there are no remaining rapids of any note before the take-out. It is generally just as easy to continue to carry your boat to the take-out. |
