Peter Thompson Kayak: Elk

Two weekends ago I rallied down to the Elk River in Southern British Columbia with Pavel Bendl, Glen Carpenter and Bryce Shaw to do some pre-season paddling. On Saturday morning Pavel and I drove down to Fernie to meet Bryce. On the way to the put-in we spoke with Glen who was already there taking pictures of the river. Not knowing what this meant, we decided to carry on. A quick look at the river confirmed that it was juicing and that we would be the first people to ever paddle the river at this level. After a quick scout of the three drops we decided to drop in.

The upper Elk drops into a beautiful gorge which requires a close to complete commitment (you can walk around it, but it sucks…). Consisting of 3 classic drops and a 40-ft waterfall, the upper Elk is challenging at lower levels, and at this level the story was no different. Apart from one class IV drop that morphed into a class V hole that no one wanted anything to do with, most of the lines were similar to what they are at lower levels - just a little meaner. Everybody had good lines down the river, and other than one swim, everything went smoothly. It was a pretty intense warm-up for the season, but it was a super, awesome river which I hope to get back to this fall.