Last Week on the Slave

Finishing a blunt at Hang Over Cure WaveHangOverCure

So I have one more week left here on the Slave River in Fort Smith NWT. Which I am stoked to hit the road again but also so sad to leave. This river is amazing. I think I could paddle it all day every day and still feel like I did not get enough time on it. I will have spent about a month here and only have seen a very very very small portion of it because it is just so big. Here is at map made by Leif of most of the rapids and features! Check them out! We have also found a great German documentary of the Slave. It has some great shots of the size and is really funny. Watch it here!

The last few days have been still in the high water level although getting closer to medium. We have been surfing features called Sweet Spot (huge fast bouncy wave that is not good for my shoulder with an island right behind it fallowed by a couple holes) and Hang Over Cure which the pictures are of. Hang Over Cure is small but it is fast and hard and bouncy making it super fun.

Paddle Fest is this weekend. There are all ready 19 boaters here for it. Minus one that dislocated his shoulder today and swam pretty much all of the Mountain Portage section with one arm. Not a fun swim but he is alright and has a lot of questions for me.

Other than that nothing new really. Next week I will be heading towards Edmonton for a visit!

Johnny

Photos by Adam HangOverCure

Brown Town Wave

Looking at the sneak line at Pelican Photo by Leif Anderson browntown

The water level is coming down now! Finely! It is at 5000cms so it is now low enough for the high water features which is sweet. Yesterday we headed to the Rapids of the Drowned. Which is the only set of rapids on the Slave that are actually in the NWT. All the others are in Alberta. It also means I have been into all 4 sets of rapids now which are Cassette, Pelican, Mountain Portage and Rapids of the Drowned. Anyways here some photos of the wave. We paddled with the guys from Golden. The wave was alright. Hard to get to the top. It also had no name before so we started calling it Brown Town because it sounds better than the wave with no name.

Johnny

All the photos below are credited to John Blyth and Leif Anderson

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

From browntown

Slave Flood Update

Hanging out at the 60th! Randoms

Well not really much of anything exciting has been happening lately due to the crazy high water levels we are having on the river right now. They are higher now then what it was in the spring by almost 1000cms! The water has filled with sand and setiment and it down a gross chocolate milk colour,

So between now and the last update a few things have happened in point form;

-Rain got to go for her first trip to the dog pound after fallowing some kids home
-We have gone to the Playground Rapid a lot because its the only thing we know is half good
-Paddled into and ferried behind Pelican Rapid which is the biggest waves I have ever seen in my life!
-Checked the water levels to see they are still high and went back to the Playground
-Went to the Pine Lake Picnic at Wood Buffalo National Park where they had free food!
-Shaved my beard off
-Ran Mountain Portage Rapids hopping some waves would be in but the water level was too high so we played at the Playground
-Got bit by a lot of bugs including mosquitoes, horse flies, bull dogs (giant horse flies) and sand flies

And that is about it. Here are some odd and end pictures. Better ones will come with the water level dropping! And Slave River Paddle Fest coming up! It is going be awesome because the water level should drop by then!

I have also been taking a lot of photos with a sweet DSLR camera (I really want one). Check them out at Leif's Site The pictures are mostly of the waves we have found well out exploring.

Johnny

Molly's Nipple Randoms

From Randoms

From Randoms

Pre-trip Photo PicsFromTheo

Surfing the Edge (Slave version of Bussy) PicsFromTheo

The Edge again PicsFromTheo

Bouncing on Roller Coaster PicsFromTheo

Staying on the Slave

The Slave River is so incredible I have decided to stay up here for 3 weeks. After a great time with Theo I took him back to High Level AB and drove back to Fort Smith the next day. To my surprise the river has came up to spring levels by the time I got back so it will be like a new river for the next few days. I am stoked to get out on it with John and Leif to get some paddling in and go out and find some sweet waves.

The Slave River Festival called Paddle Fest is in 3 weeks so I will stay for that. It is going be great. A rodeo, extreme race and all kinds of events are planned. It is going be a great time up here and I can't wait for all the good times and stories and great photo's.

Anyways here a video Theo and I made of our time here on the Slave. Check it out. Let me know what you think! Leave some comments!

Johnny

Roller Coaster Wave Slave River

Goin' Big on Roller Coaster! rollercoaster

Yesterday Theo, Leif, Ben and I headed down Cassette Rapids in search of a wave called roller coaster. The wave was unreal. Big and fast with a huge pile. It would green out the odd time. Well a lot of the time but it was still a blast to paddle. Leif is a great guy and amazing paddler from Colorado that is up here. Check out his blog at here! He's the dude in the red Fluid boat going HUGE!

Today we are headed down Mountain Portage Rapids to surf Chico Wave! Should be a blast!

Johnny

Oh yeah...Special thanks to Theo and Leif for being some amazing photographers and letting me post the pictures they took!

From rollercoaster

From rollercoaster

From rollercoaster

From rollercoaster

From rollercoaster

From rollercoaster

Slave River!

The last few days have been unreal! Theo and I had a couple days of hanging in High Level for a couple days well he finished his days of work at the fire base. Time at the fire base was spent hanging out by the fire and jamming. Also getting another chip in my windshield fixed! That is my second chip since I have been out west.

Finally on Wednesday Theo finished work and we headed north. The drive was long and straight but as we got further north we got to see parts of the Canadian Shield again. We stopped at the 60th parallel and got a certificate for being north of the 60th. We then continued down highway 1 which is called the waterfall highway. There are 2 beautiful waterfalls on the way including the 100 foot Alexander Falls and Louise Falls.

When we made it to Hay River late at night we went to see the Great Slave Lake. It was really cold but nice and big with a sweet beach. We grabbed some gas and some dinner in the pub in Hay River then headed south east towards Fort Smith.

We got to Fort Smith at 1:30 am and slept in the Jeep beside the Rapids of the Drowned on the Slave River. In the morning we met a couple of the local paddlers and did a sweet run of Mountain Portage section which was sweet. Molly's Nipple was huge along with some other huge rapids. The river is really messy. Water is going left, right, up and down. It is insane. After dinner we headed to Cassette Rapids for a paddle. Cassette was a blast with a sick sick steep wave. John and I ran Dave's Demise which is a really really really hard ferry to get around two massive holes. I saw John just make it pass as I yelled out "I'm not going make it". I hit the shoulder of the first massive hole and surfed down and off it. Then just around the 2nd hole. I had no energy left from the ferry. But it was a sweet run.

Today Theo, Ben and I just parked and played at The Playground which is a chill little wave. We spent all day hanging out there with Rain. It was a blast. Pelicans surrounded us as we surfed.

The River is sweet and we are going have a sweet next few days on the river. Keep checking back for more pics!

Johnny

Grande Cache and the Sulphur River

The night in Grande Cache was a good one. I ended up going to this bar/club thing that seemed to be busy. When I was in there I went on a search for paddlers. Not much luck. A small mining/oil town with a bunch of great rivers in it and no paddlers to be found! I did end up meeting a cool couple though that bought me a beer so it was pretty rad. Well I guess I did find one paddler. He was the owner of the bar I was in but was to busy with business stuff to paddle the next day.

So I did the next best thing. I headed to the local rafting company called Wild Blue Yonder in the morning in search of paddlers. And even they told me there are not many local paddlers in the town of Grande Cache Alberta. So I asked if I could go down with the trip leaving shortly and Yo and Gina (the awesome owners) said no problem lets go! So we did the Sulphur and the Smokey River that day. They are just class II but the senory was fun. Yo and Gina and the other 2 guides made a really fun trip combined with some rad excited clients. During a flat water sections they all had water guns and of course one guy yells out "get the kayaker, hes differant!" So I pulled him into the water.

Yo and Gina let me stay the night at there place and use there shower! Showers are awesome when you don't have one. They are really rad people with a great son and a beautiful young daughtor. They have a great business here in Grande Cache so if your ever in the area check out Wild Blue Yonder for a great rafting trip!

Johnny

Oh yeah, check out the Wild Blue Yonder website @ http://wildblueyonder.ca

The Glacier Higway

From Calgary I made the drive west to Banff. The drive coming into the mountains was so nice but that was just the start.

When I got to the town of Banff I met a couple rad people and had some drinks with them for the night. We ended up all going to Hoo Doos Night Club after doing shots of hot sauce. It wasn't that hot.

The morning brought the trip north bound on the Glacier Highway. It was the most amazing drive. Everyone should go do it. It was so beautiful I don't even know how to explain it to you. Mountains, cliffs, trees, wildlife, streams, glaciers, snow and rock filled the landscape. It was almost unreal. Rain and I stopped in at Glacier Lake and the North Saskatchewan River for a swim. The water was cold but it was fun.

After we continued to Jasper past the Ice Fields and eventually to Hilton for some much needed gas. I was starting to get pretty nervous but everything was so expensive in the park and I figured I could make it through to Hilton on gas. Just made it. Calgary to Hilton through the National Parks on one tank. 550km. I was impressed. After some gas and groceries I started heading north on highway 40 where I am right now in Grande Cache Alberta where I will spend the night.

Johnny

Calgary Stampede Parade

So I have seen more cowboy hats and heard more country music in the last two days then I have seen and heard in the rest of my life. It is an awesome atmosphere though how everyone in the city gets so excited for the Stampede.

Last night was a great night. I went to a poetry reading at Pages with Kelsey and Myka. It was a great time with some really funny and interesting poems. I liked one about how youth finds comfort in front of computer screens and so on. It was great because of how true it is. After the reading Myka, myself and other people from the reading went to an Irish pub for some beers. It was a fun time. Really cool people and we got really big beers.

Thismorning brought more free Stampede pancakes with Myka! Then we went to the opening parade. There was lots of horses and cowboys and marching bands. It was really fun. We walked in late but still go awesome seats right in the front on the curb to watch.

I am on my want to Banff now though. I would like to thank Kelsey and Lance and everyone else here at "The Palace" (that's what they call thier house) for having me here. I had a great time and I am glad I got to meet them. Also want to thank them for letting me use the awesome coaster brake cruiser bike they have. It is an awesome bike!

Johnny