Elora Gorge Labour Day Weekend
Sunday, August 31, 2003
route:
length: 4.0km, 1 day
difficulty: novice
leader: Stephen
organizer: Peter Farr
participants: Michael Sims, Peter Farr, Stephen Farr,
report:
Stephen (in a rental Piranha kayak from MEC) and I (Outrage X) met Mike (Nitro) for a last minute run down the Gorge.
The Gorge was running at 6.1 according to the GRCA gauge - higher than usual for early fall. Water temp was 21, and the day was about the same and sunny. Just a beautiful day for the run.
We put in at about 11:15am, and Stephen dumped in the very first set (he is just learning to kayak) and got a little spooked when he got tangled up in his wet exit. He elected to walk the next couple of rapids (no sign of bailing, though), but quickly got back into the spirit of things after the chute.
Mike decided to run the chute, but I gave it a miss. He did a great job, except for a little indecision at after the hole at the top. We kidded him a little about missing the left-hand eddy half way down, but he ran it cleanly and I didn't even try.
From the chute down we were dodging flotillas of tubers who did amazing things like standing up in the middle of a chute right in front of my canoe. Watching them I am amazed that there are not more accidents!
At this level there were a bunch of good surfing holes and smallish standing waves to play in, although you had to pick your moments between the tubers (why do I keep thinking of potatoes?)
Stephen’s nervousness completely disappeared after running a constriction river left (Troll Hole?) that started off with rock simple dodging and quickly ended up in a fairly significant wave train with the current pushing you up against the cliff on the left. He was laughing as he came through the standing waves. Too bad that was almost the end of the run.
We hit the low-level bridge takeout around 3:00pm. It would have been nice to do another run, but we had to get home so we reluctantly packed it in. |
