THANKS to Jonathan Goldthrop for the report...

Vancouver (Large Map)

Arriving in Vancouver from Glasgow on Wednesday night I had a few days to get over jet lag and prepare for the trip. Time was spent buying gear from the MEC, a wander around Granville Island and a tour of the China Town night market. On the Saturday night I headed back out to the airport and the Holiday Inn to meet the rest of the team. It turned out that Land, the main trip organiser had been deported back to the US. Luckily there was a stand-in guide in the form of Willy Kern. The evening was past renewing old friendships, and meeting new faces.

Day 1 - Put-in on the Taseko to Camp 1 In the morning we met up with more of the team and headed out to Terminal 2 of Vancouver Airport. This is a small domestic/charter terminal. Here we were weighed in along with gear and split between 3 small planes.

The flight from Vancouver to a field just north of Taseko Lake took around 90 minutes. The flight took us up over the glaciers and mountains north of Vancouver. This in itself was one of the highlights of the whole trip. Landing in a field was pretty interesting...

Once we landed we were met by the final members of the team and driven up to the put in on the Taseko River. Here we ate lunch, padded out our boats, loaded the rafts and headed off. The river was essentially flat, and the float down allowed us to chill out and look forward to the trip ahead. On arrival at the first camp we discovered that certain members of the team had plans other than paddling... and so began a week of full-on practical jokes, Stuart being the brunt of this assault.

Day 2 -Taseko River to Camp 2 After breakfast Brian, one of the guides, took the group in a warm up song and dance to the river gods. We felt like idiots... This became the mroning ritual!

Our first full day on the river, an easy day of Grade 2/3 water. The rafts left with the gear. The rest of us split into three teams. The first team, Team Charge, was lead by Willy [when we let him]. The group consisted of Jonathan, Stuart, Ron, Konrad, and Michelle. The other groups were made up of the Guttenberg family, John, Martin, Jane, Kim, Jonathan P, Andy, Janet, and Wayne. These teams were lead by Steve and Brian. On the rafts we had Nic and Dave.

That night we camped on a rocky beach just above Taseko Falls [allegedly].

Day 3 - Taseko River to Camp 3 (Taseko Junction) We awoke to another day of sunshine. We ate breakfast, packed the rafts and headed off. There was some re-arranging of the teams. Jonathan and Stuart remained in Team Charge. Andy, Kim and Wayne replaced the other three.

We set off in anticipation of the first real test of the trip... Unfortunately there was a slight miscalculation on the part of the guides... A few hours later with lunch beaconing we finally arrived at Taseko Falls. The rafts had already ran the rafts, Janet and Jonathan P having a great ride curtsey of Nic and Dave [they'd opted to take the raft today].



Two opted to portage the drop, Brian and Willy quickly rode their boats down through the rapid. This done, the rest of us inspected the drop. Stuart, Jonathan, Willy and Kim decided to run the drop first in that order. Stuart dropped into the rapid and was upside-down in a flash, but rolled up equally as fast. Following him I moved to the left over the drop, bad move... The boat stalled and I got an eagle eye view of the monster stopper in the centre of the river. A couple of big strokes got me going though... by this time Willy was bearing down on me, he moved right to avoid me and back looped into the froth behind the hole. A quick recovery but him back on track. Kim sailed through... After a lot of consideration most of the remainder of the group paddled the rapid with one minor incident [we waved goodbye to Martins boat]. With one boat gone... we stopped and had lunch. Dave headed down stream in his raft to see if he could find the missing boat. Luckily it was only a few hundred yards down stream. Unfortunately he missed lunch...oops!
The afternoon started off with another fun rapid and the end of the canyons...allegedly. Janet decided to jump back in her boat and paddle out the remainder of the day... The rafts floated off... Soon Team Charge we under way [minus Willy who was looking after Janet on the afternoon bumble down the river]... soon [forgotten] canyons three and four appears. Janet boated her hardest rapids to date, and was styling until an unexpected hole ate her! Willy followed her in, knocking her out before getting a beating... With the rafts gone the tension increased. Janet got back in her boat and we headed off. Soon another big rapid was on us. Stuart jumped out his boat, had a quick look and declared "straight down the middle, its a wave train". After actually looking at the rapid this was soon proven to be a bit misguided. A couple of monster holes were hiding behind a pour over ledge. A large wave train ran down the left, joining the flow behind the holes. The bottom of the rapid was harder to see, looked like the left was a bit messy, centre looked beefy but ok, couldn't see the right. After a bit of discussion the rafts were soon loaded with some extra passengers and kayaks.... off they headed. The Guttenbergs followed in their play-boats with Brian leading. The rest of us watched them from our boats. I should have paid more attention to them as they approached the last part of the rapid...
So, Willy looks at me "your leading, I'll follow with Kim, everyone else follow on behind". I ran the entrance right to left into the wave train, following them down past the holes. Afterwards John who was watching from the raft's said our boats looked very small in the waves. It certainly felt like it! Pulling an eddy just before the last drop I quickly checked the line down the middle before spinning back out into the flow... bad move. Two roll attempts and no daylight saw my only swim of the week. I believe the rest took the line down the right...

We were now in the last canyon... A drop on river right, followed by a hard ferry to a drop on river left. Willy was up front, Stuart and myself following. Willy later admitted that he felt somewhat worried when he looked round and saw around half the group upside-down. Unfortunately Michelle missed her roll and took a nasty swim. We re-grouped and headed off down the final rapid, running river left then moving rght into the centre through a large haystack wave. With everyone though safely we floated to the camp at Taseko Junction. Taseko Junction is where the Taseko River and the Chilko River meet and form the Chilcoton River. We camped here for two nights. That night Steve declared that we wouldn't be charged for the extra two canyons, they had decided to throw them in for free. We got waisted on beer, Steve pulled out his guitar, and we sang into the small hours of the night.



Day 4 - Chilko River, White-mile... We had been met at Taseko Junction by Lise-Anne, Brians fiancé and Tarkio masseur. Trucks were also waiting to drive us up the Chilko to the kayakers put in. There were a few options for the day. (1) Drive up to Bidwell Falls and take pictures, (2) Drive up to the kayakers put in and paddle down to Bidwell, (3) Same as two but continue down past Bidwell and onto the White Mile. Bidwell Rapid - Brian leading Lise-Anne I decided to go for option 2, as did most of the group. However Alan Guttenberg and his boys, plus Andy and Konrad decided to paddle Bidwell and the White Mile.



The run down too Bidwell was fast with one grade 3 that gave an indication of what was to come in terms of size and power of the water. Jumping out our boats and heading up to the view point I had mixed feelings. I'd come to paddle the mile, but wasn't feeling on form and didn't want to put those who were paddling under any undue stress. A swim on the mile would be a long and punishing affair... We watched the guides [including Nic and Dave the raft guides who had arranged for kayaks to be brought up with the trucks] plus the 5 mentioned above head off down Bidwell and away. By the time we drove back to the camp the paddlers were arriving. From their reactions they had had a fantastic ride... The next day we had a late start as the rafts were leaving early for a float down to Hansville. With a late start in mind more chaos errupted in the camp with the discovery of John the blow-up doll inside Stuarts tent. John was quickly dressed in some clothes liberated from Lise-Anne. John also aquired a few other features... By the end of the night way to much alcohol had been consumed and John was duck taped to one of the rafts. A figure-head to keep Nic and Dave company...

Day 5 - Drive to Hansville, Chilcoton River to Camp 4 Waking with a small hangover it was a blessing to have a late start to the day. After breakfast we packed our gear into the trucks, struck camp and headed to Hansville to meet up with the rafts. On arrival in Hansville we had lunch, packed the rafts and jumped into our boats for an easy float down to the next camp.



Camp that night was in a fantastic setting in the trees on river right, high canyon walls closing in on the left. A small creek flowed in from the right to join the Chilcoton. Tent pitches over looked this small creek giving a great setting. The 2nd picture on the left shows a typical scene in the camp where snacks and beer serve as a starter to the fantastic meals that Nic, Dave and the other guides put together.



This camp saw the introduction of the electric shock book... once more Stuart being the target...

Camping on the Chilcoton

Day 6 - Chilcotin and Fraser Rivers to Camp 5 The day started with a long bouncy grade 3 rapid before settling down. The views on these flat sections made up for the lack of white water. However we didn't have to wait long before a long rapid full of catch on the fly waves presented itself. So good that some members of the team got out and carried their boats back up the river for a second run.

The river eased off again and we sat back and enjoyed the views.

The Might Fraser River
Next up was Farwell Canyon. The river constricted and dropped under a bridge. A large tongue lead into some big waves. The rafts had floated through to set-up lunch downstream, much to Ron's dismay. Stuart not wanting to spend too much time looking and thinking about the rapid jumped on and sailed through. He was followed by the Guttenbergs who played all the way down. Ron still wasn't looking happy. It was decided he'd follow Willy down, myself and Konrad following.

Ron styled the rapid, however so focused on paddling like... [PLF] he didn't notice that Willy had pulled out half way down to get in some surf. the rest of the party followed down. There were a few rolls and one swim to finish the morning off.

A few hundred yards down the river Nic and Dave had set-up lunch. On seeing hot-dogs being cooked Wayne announced "Tube Steaks! Excellent".

After lunch a few hours of mellow water lead to the final white water of the Trip. Big John's Canyon. After some discussion it was decided that a few of the group would jump on the rafts and head down. Feeling beat I joined them. The run through Big John's Canyon on the raft was fantastic. Janet's surprise at the size of the waves was matched by her shock when she noticed that Nic the raft guide was heading straight for the biggest wave. Dave was ahead in the gear raft and had hit the wave head on, there was no way Nic was going to be out done.

The paddlers had a great trip through the Canyon, one swim at the entrance, but other than that no worries.

The Chilcoton follows onto the mighty Fraser River. A couple of hours down stream we found a large beach and set-up our final camp. The weather had held for the week so most of us decided to sleep out on the sand. This proved a bad move when some rain moved in, causing a mad dash for tents to be put up. There were a few success, however the amount of alcohol consumed led a few members of the party of fail completely...

That night we had a large fire on the beach and ate and drank into the early hours. Once the rain stopped the night cleared and most people fell asleep in the sand (or maybe they passed out... we finished all the alcohol).

Day 7 -Fraser River to take-out at Gang Ranch We awoke to another bright day, dulled by well deserved hangovers. Today we were floating down to the take out at Gang Ranch. Seats in the rafts were up for grabs as the river was all but flat. Again we were left in awe by the views and shear size of the river. By lunch the get out was in sight, and the long drive back to Whistler.

The drive back was long and tiring. We lost some gear out the back of one of the trucks. This put a bit of a downer on the day. as well as extending the drive by a number of hours as we back tracked looking for the lost bags.

We arrived late in Whistler where I left the team. They were heading back to Vancouver and flights home. I said goodbye to my fellow paddlers. Promises were made to keep in touch. This was my 3rd paddling trip to BC, I'm sure it won't be my last.

Relaxing on the Fraser



Hitching a ride



Whistler then home...
After being dropped off in Whistler I stayed a few days at Steve's house. He had to head off for another trip - float plane dropping him and a few others off for a biking trip up north... nice! Willy stayed on for a few days as well. Went for dinner and shared a few beers and stories about the trip. During the day Willy headed off with some buddies who'd travelled up from the U.S. to "go paddle some grade 5".

I hired a bike from town and headed off each day for a bit of biking. It was a great way to chill out and relax after the river, and I can't thank Steve enough for letting me stay on at his place.

I'd also like to thank the rest of the team for a great trip. The trip was set-up by Tarkeo and Steve Whittall.

Cheers Jonathan