micro end of summer blog

My time guiding is over for the next little bit. Probably even my access to some nice rivers. My world has been a whirlwind for the past 3 weeks and I don't see my life slowing down any time soon. Ill finished my summer job guiding mid August. I decided to end earlier so that I could do some river trips with my Brother and some friends. I am sad to say that my very last day guiding I ripped a raft for the very first time.

I ripped my boat 22 inches long. This was super embarrasing :(

After a day of paddling a deflated raft it was awesome to chill with almost all the employees I had been working with. It was the weekend of the staff party! The next day I got paid to kayak alongside the rafts i tried not to cause too much of a ruckus but its hard not to mess with these guides. At the fateful night of the staff party I was ready for anything my bosses could through at me. Promptly after finishing the day with the clients I promptly crushed some beers and got ready to a pinball race. The rules where simple. Teams of two, one beach ball and the first one down the river wins. Luckily I was paired with river daddy. And our competition didnt look too tough. Our biggest river was my other boss Kevin and his brother in law, quin. Hoolay fuck can they paddle. I was definitily eying up Alison and Lindsay both my bosses wives. And of course the Man and Jake wykes. I knew I had to put my all into this race.

Waiting under the bridge the balls where dropped. After some quick moves I started pushing the ball down river and trying to slow down anyone I could. I succesfully deflated almost all of Dani's packraft and had thrown atleast a couple balls onto the river bank. I was moving at a good pace with will as my partnet but when i had gone to get our ball from the bank I lost my packraft in the current. And had to sprint down the river to catch it. This is when I knew how hard it would be to win this race. After catching by breath I quickly found my self in a three way battle. Swim shady almost stole my packraft but I flipped him and got it back and flipped kevin while i was in the water for good mesure. The teams started to dilute along the length of the river at this point.

Me and will kept a good pace, I forgot to mention he was C oneing this whole thing. The man and jake where far ahead of everyone but we got lucky and their ball popped absolutely ruining their chances of wining. After another battle I lost my packraft again. Jeez this was fucking hard. After another struggle me and will where chasing kevin down the final stretch to the finish line. I collopsed at the end. This was definetly the biggest feat of athleticism i have acheived. I put blood sweat and tears into this race. I cut my knees and was even sweating even though i was only wearing a dry top!

OK next day. I woke up bright and early after the staff party to zoom into haines junction to meet the lads at the bakery for our sub alpine start for our packraft trip. We ate quickly and then drove the shuttle to the end of the donjek and started hiking just north west of burwash landing. The packs where fucking heavy. So heavy we opted to leave the 26 of whiskey. One of the worst decisions of the trip. we were going to need it. We saw lots of wild life on our drive in; sheep, lynx and stuff.

I think this was the route we took hike to glacier 3 days, paddle one day like 180k total maybe.

The hiking was hiking. We didn't have any downhills on the first day. Only up up up. We saw a nice looking shar show (grizzly bear) after lunch and finished the on an old mining road after about 20ks then we started the real slog on some almost swampy ground that was worse then walking on sand. and it was all uphill. The lads were beat. But after hiking the a "summit" after a couple false summits we finally set eyes on burwash creek were we would camp for the night!

descending to burwash creek, hoole pass at 1 oclock too

The next day was another early start. It was easy walking on the creek then we had a nice pass trail on a old mining road. This day really wasn't looking like too much of a slog.

Hiking through/ up the pass.

The day quickly turned into a great big ol fucking slog of a day. After taking our time during lunch at the summit we continued to find our route off this himalayla ass looking mountains. We decided to follow the ridge and drop down into a creek once it looked good. Big lol. It never got good. We chose a gulley with a couple hoof prints and started our decent. It took so long. It was so steep. like so steep that you're not allowed to fall. at one section we had to lower our packs using some webbing. Except manas who took a ballsy scramble.

lowering the sack a dos

the gulley in question.

After a mad 2-3 hour decent we made it to a creek that we would follow closer to the drainage of the Donjek. With 10 plus k left we kept a good pace hustling down the creek bed. On a side note this creek would be awesome for a floaty friend.

dude with a foamie friend and link to the sick edit

http://www.foamiefriends.com/videos.html

the dope creek we hiked down

after almost making it to a part of the donjek river we hit a hard right hand turn where there was a downed tree and we went into overdrive in the forest a game trail turned into a horse trail that was parallel to the donjek. It was pretty hardcore. We went super fast, believe me. Even if you cut yourself on a branch you wouldnt stop. We had to hit the glacier before it got dark.

after powering down the horse trail we started to get some glimpses of the glacier. We took the third right hand turn at the third creek. I think. And were stoked to follow it towards the glacier. After about 400m. The creek dead ass flowed right off a cliff. We were pretty bummed out. I even thought about rappeling down it with my throwbag but the cliff was too big. Manas went to scope out the cliff and thought we would have to back track a couple clicks. But after a suggestion to look to the right instead of just to the left he saw a shale slope that saved our asses.

Us getting catfished by a creek

the cliff that cliffed us

us walking over clear water creek, with the cliff in the backgorund

Once we were on our way to the glacier life was good. We camping about a kilometer below it and enjoyed a feast.

(actually we rationed our food after this meal lol)

The next day was needed. we slept in and spent the whole day frolicking around the glacier and taking the scenery in. It was awesome weather too. It was like a extreme beach day. Extremely warm weather (25 degrees maybe) and extremely cold water. We could see the ice cubes floating down it.

the glacier and the lads with a glacier

This glacier is like massive by the way. After a awesome day kinda resting we finally hit the water the next day. We started early for once (around 6). There ware some decent class three, maybe three plus rapids out of the lake. Me and manas decided to paddle them while Zach and Aldo where going to hike down lower to put in. It was nice to get lower water in the wee hours of the morning cause we didnt have helmets and the water was so cold. Like so so so cold. My hands went numb after 30 seconds.

Video of us paddling the end bit of the rapid.

After meeting up with the rest of the crew we were off!

The paddling section was wicked fast, we ended up finishing a day early which really worked out for the best. We were able to crush the rest of our trail mix and eat the rest of our lunch stuff. We pulled out at the donjek bridge and raced back to whitehorse to gear up for our next river trip. El stikine.

Crazy we actually ran into my sister and her logan at the haines junction gas station. They had just finshed a measly 3 day hike.

We had less then 24 hours to wash our gear and pack up for our canoe trip. We got booze, food and canoes. Nothing could stop us now. The next ish day, we drove 10 hours down to telegraph creek in nothern bc to start the 10 day trip.

Driving to telegraph creek on a crazy road.

We camped right inside the town of telegraph creek and had already met some colorful characters. We met some dudes trying to sell us illegaly caught halibut in dease lake and we had a met a a dude who worked in the only cafe in telegraph creek. His dog would play fetch with any rock you throw. We aslo met this older dude who hung out with us for a solid hour and told us stories about the creek. He told us about the wild fire in 2018 and the landslides caused from it and back in the day about some crazy avalanches. I also noticed some kayakers trucks and I was curios if the were runing the canyon of the stikine. burly fucking class 6 rapid that is best left to the crazy people.

Us reading hard the night before the launch (plus sara who drove us all the way down and back up)

The next day was pretty chill. The river was fast and our biggest concern was how hot and sunny it was. Sunscreen was turned into a currencies. Fuck i only had a little but of spf 30. Aldo held all the cards with a big tube of spf 70.

Us preparing the send off. It felt great to be able to be goofy-er without clients

Our day was super lazy. We let the River do all the work for us. We got a bit turned around because the landmarks were tough to find from our super old photo copied map and i had fucked up downloaded the maps onto my phone. It got even harder to navigate after we had some river g n t's.

Idk if this was the first day tbh

we never really found our scheduled campsite but all the same we found a sick one. And after confirming with homebase (my mom) we found out we had overshot our goal. Oh and i forget to metion jake and aldo swamped their boat on a riffle, pretty embarising, Remind them about it the next time you see one of them.

Up and at em at the next day I made a puff pancake in the dutch oven. Because of the quick turnaround I by accidently doubled the butter in the recipe sending jake to his spiral doom of lipid saturation.

The next couple days where awesome. We gradually saw more, and more mountians. I loved paddling through big cottonwood trees. Me and my brother would swap the drivers seat everyday. Every lunch we ate the same thing but it never got old. Some major events include checking out a leech infested warm springs, manas absolutely killing navigating a huge river with only a 20 year old map. Before long we had made it to great glacier. We where about 2/3s done our trip. It was nice to relax here because we spent 2 nights there. Portaging our boats up a trail to paddle around the glacier lake. Even though the glacier was awesome, my highlight might of been meeting a bunch of locals from wrangrell and someother town where the stikine meets the ocean. We learnt awesome physical facts about the river and learnt more about wrangrell and its community. The peice of information that stuck in my head the most was the mens game dinner. Where all the men meet (kinda mysoginistic) and eat game meet. The kid who was telling us about it told us that he won three guns in a raffle at this event. Shits wild in the states i guess. Super dope people though. Anyways see photos below

on the lake, all of us went in one canoe which was pretty sketch, also probably shoulda worn a drysuit or something

lots of glacier ice g n t's from harvested glacier ice

deciephering a recipe from mom ( best meal of the trip too)

After the great glacier we keep on moterring down the river. We started to see more and more signs of people. It was fun to be able to talk to people though.

Yo school is making me real busy so im going to end the blog with photos and captions.

cooking up

getting to alaska

trying to find chief shakes hot springs

found the hot springs

my rat tail after the rat tail rat tailings

me and manas paddling on ocean before getting to wrangrell, lots of paddling last 50ish k of trip, and gotta think about tides aswell.

I wish I had taking photos of garnet ledge with all the rainforsty big ol fallen trees. But my phone was pretty much dead the whole trip. And i dont see any.

now a couple photos from my first weeks at school.

crazy transitions packraft trip less then 24 hours then canoe trip then less then 10 hours and i flew all the way to montreal. and now im finally less busy but still pretty busy.