Head River
Saturday, November 15, 2003
route:
length: 6.0km, 1 day
difficulty: novice
leader: Chris Mack
participants: Chris Mack, Shadow , Tim Ulrick, Fred Lumm, Katrina Lumm, 2 from WCA (Bill & ?), Kelly
report:
It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, clear sunny skies with no wind. Water levels came up considerably with the big thunderstorm a few days ago, not to mention a fair bit of snow.
The Head River feeds into the Black River and is usually a spring run only. The Black needs to be quite high to make the Head river runnable, my guage is how much of the rock at the putin at the Black is out of the water. BTW the Black is a very quick run when it is that high, no holes to play in and few surf waves.
The first half of the trip is flatwater which made for a good warm up, there are only 2 small rapids before you reach the Timmy Who's on the right shore by hwy 45, a great place to walk over and get drinks and home made tarts.
The Head is a shallow narrow river that twists through a very pretty area. The rapids are more technical than the Black requiring you to catch eddies, avoid holes and negotiate over several small ledges. Not to mention all the sweepers!
Everybody had a good time, we all had our fingers and toes at the take out so I would say it was a successful trip.
At one point I was ahead of the group a bit and all of a sudden I started hearing what I thought to be wind chimes. Very delicate short hi frequency sounds. I stopped paddling and they went away. I started to paddle and they started again, it was then that I realised they were coming from the water near the shore. It seems that my wake was disturbing the 'invisible' ice forming on the shore and it 'crackled' as it broke up making this delightful sound. It was a very peaceful trip, thanks to all who braved the cold.
Chris
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