Trip Report: the eastern Kootenays
I've lived in the Pacific Northwest since 2007 and still haven't explored much of the wilderness to the north. I feel like I'm missing out on something. A book -- Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman -- made me rethink my priorities. It's easy to keep doing the same things over and over. They're so good. Our normal thing to do in June would be self supported runs on the Illinois and/or Jarbidge-Bruneau, or permitted Idaho rivers. But this June we did something different.
After reading Burkeman’s book I put a 10 Year Plan up on the wall and started putting new adventures on it. Each year has space for sticky notes stuck on four seasons. The first few years filled up quickly, and then stickie notes started getting bumped to future years.
Will had gone to BC with a LCCC crew years ago and I was jealous. I put a stickie note on summer 2024 that said BC. That stickie note stayed in its place on the 10 Year Plan. Friends based in Seattle committed to the idea early, and then another signed on. We went. It worked. It was a low snowpack year so we went in June to catch peak snowmelt.
The LCCC crew that went to the Kootenay’s in the 20teens
I'd only been to Canada once before, to paddle the Chiliwack. On our way to BC, Will, Alan and I drove to the Salmon la Sac Slalom in Washington state, and stayed 4 nights. The first morning we helped set up the slalom course, and then practiced on it. I learned that a "Bollerman" is a tall triangular wooden thing used to hold the wire up high for hanging slalom gates.
Jim Good lands below one of the many ledges on the Cooper, by TG
The next day I paddled the Cooper River with Jim Good in the morning and did the downriver race on the Cle Elum in the afternoon. Our last full day there we raced in the slalom (man I was tired). Our last night at Salmon la Sac campground we weathered an atmospheric river. The next morning we loaded up and drove to Sandpoint, where a friend put us up for the rest of the rains.
After a couple of days of playing music and eating good food with friends in Sandpoint, we headed north for the border. The Canadians laughed and let Will in even though he had brought an expired passport. We met Einar Hansen in Fort Steele and he said he'd looked at the Bull River and it was too high, and that we should go to the White River first. So we did.
The rest of our crew got delayed at the border because the Canadians are serious about keeping invasive mussels out of their waters. At least one of their boats had been in the water in Utah where there are quagga and zebra mussels. Our friends stayed overnight in Cranbrook waiting for a 7:30am boat inspection and cleaning, then they joined us at the White River Campground. Our first run in BC was the Upper White.
The Upper Lussier at the top of the run, by Teresa Gryder
The next day I was able to talk the whole crew into going to run what turned out to be the hardest run of the entire trip, the Lussier. The Upper Lussier starts in an big open valley, but eventually drops into a narrow channel with continuous class 3 whitewater for a few miles before easing up again. It's small enough that wood is an everpresent hazard, and we felt lucky to finish the day without any injuries or losses. We had a swimmer, and the fallout from that event tested us, but we did fine.
The BC crew plays music in the morning, photo by Einar Hansen
After the Lussier we tried to take a rest day, jamming with guitars and mandolin in the morning, but ended up running the Upper White again that afternoon. The day after that we ran the Lower White which is a 20+ mile delight of a run with braided channels and grand views at the top, and a gorge with astounding white cliffs and hoodoos at the bottom.
The bridge near camp that separates the Upper and Lower White River.
We also explored the Saint Mary's river, where we discovered that access is truly embattled by private property and development there. Canada doesn't have an organization like American Whitewater to fight for access! After the St Mary's run we lost half of our crew and had to go to town to buy a bicycle for shuttling.
Lastly we went to the Bull River drainage which was still high, so we ran stuff near to the top of the drainage, specifically Quinn Creek (continuous bony class 3 with wood) and the Upper Upper Bull (big water class 2+ with surfing). We will definitely be back.
Quinn Creek changes color at the confluence with the U.U. Bull, by TG
These runs (except for the Cooper) were not all that difficult, but we had never seen them before and had little information, making every run a personal first descent. There's nothing quite like going somewhere new!!
