The Famous Leif Anderson
Day 1:
Quit work. Met up with Conor at the end of the day and drove until we were too tired to go on.
Day 2:
Got up in the morning and started driving. Drove to the border. Realized that Conor had forgotten his passport. Rallied it anyway. Met up with Josh and Dan in Calgary, and drove until we were all too tired to go on. Slept at the side of the road.
Day 3:
Got up in the morning and started driving. Got to Fort Smith that evening at around 7:00, and looked around for a place to stay, by cruising into JJ's tavern and asking the bartender that we had stayed with last year. She said that we could crash at her place for a night, so we headed up to the playground for a good 3 hour session. (The playground is the small outrun below Mountain Portage. There are a few little throwdown holes there.) Now, if youíre quick with the math here, you might not believe me about the 3 hour session. But when youíre that far north, the sun doesnít set until around 10:30 or 11:00, so we had plenty of light. Also, here's something you might find interesting. There were some locals. Local kayakers. And, even more interestingly, they were women. Thirdly, I believe that the slave was the only river they had ever paddled. Hmm. Well I'll be. They gave us some local's info about waves and such, then headed downriver. Once we got out of the river, we stumbled around town until we found where we were staying. We were a little nervous that we had the wrong house, because our bartender friend was still bartending and there was nobody home. But we were too tired to worry too much.
Day 4:
This morning we woke up to find our friend's housemates were already awake. It turned out that it wasn't so much that our friend lived there as that she was staying there for a while. And it wasnít so much that her housemates had been told about how we were going to stay there as not.
After the housemates left, we got some more sleep and then headed out to run Cassette rapids. These are the highest rapids on the slave, and a little mellower than the others. We were super excited to get on the water for real, and go surf some huge waves. We were hoping to hit rollercoaster, which is one of my favorite waves on the planet. We were so excited that we didn't even slow down when I blew out the clutch on Conor's van as we were doing shuttle. Well, we slowed down a little, so that we could ditch the van on the side of the road, but it didn't stop us from running the rapids.
So, as we played our way down, and Dan and I refreshed our memory about which channels were flatwater and which lead to death holes, we started noticing that the river was a little higher than it had been the year before. And when we got to Rollercoaster, our fears were confirmed. It was washed out. Disappointed, we headed out early and looked for some more permanent lodging. Then we remembered that Conor's van was broken down. There was some extensive wrangling getting the van into gear and moving without a clutch, then more wrangling to get it parked at the right mechanic's shop, but I'm sure that you people don't really care about that.
(Conor's Van in front of the Pine Crest)
But our lodging, you can't help but care about. Oh my god. We had been hoping to find someone's house to stay at, but since the bar was closed (some crazy Canadian holiday: "Sunday"), we had to go to plan B. We checked out the hotels in town. The first one that we looked at happened to be the most expensive, but they were quick to refer us to the cheapest; the Pine Crest. And cheap they were. Cheap and really cheap. I'd make some kind of mom joke here, but the Pine Crest is just too nasty and cheap and just bad to associate with anyone's mom. But it was cheap. Our first experience was walking around the corner of the building toward the office. We were talking between ourselves, and I was saying something like, "No, this isn't it! The place is abandoned, or condemned, or something. Just look at it." Then we see three guys walking out of the office toward us. One of them is pretty big, and starts yelling at the top of his lungs, "FU* YOU! Motherfu*er! One Nation! FU* you!" We were a little unnerved, but he seemed to be too drunk to really focus his anger on any one particular person, and I don't think that he noticed us there. We skirted around the guys to the office door, only to find it locked. We were standing around looking lost when one of the sober people walked back to us and asked if we wanted a room. Dan mumbled something about checking out the rates, and the guy looked a little surprised. He opened the door a crack, stepped inside, turned around, and said, "give me, like, five minutes," then relocked the door behind himself.
I don't really know what he did in there. It might have been nothing sketchy at all. He might have just cleaned up a little. He could have gone to see the boss (who, it turned out, lives in one of the rooms). "Hey boss, people want to stay here! What, like sleep at the bar? No, I think they want to rent a room. Woah. They must be from far away." Did I mention there was a bar downstairs? There was. It was cheap, too.
But whatever he did, it took him about 5 minutes, and right as we were about to cut our losses and run, he reopened the door and we stepped into the office. Rather, we all stood right outside the office for a while, all nudging each other because nobody wanted to go in first. We negotiated for a while, and eventually got a deluxe room, with two beds, for the four of us. There was a couch that would fold out. We agreed on a pretty low price (like I said cheap) and moved in.
The first thing that I saw as I stepped into the room was the little hole in the window. It looked like a bullet hole, but it was actually just from a rock. We know this because the rock was still between two panes of the window. The second thing I saw was that everyone was looking out the window and chuckling. There was a pile of poo on the roof right outside our window. It was pretty funny. As we all stood looking at it, I turned and checked out the kitchenette, which was right at my side. I was a little surprised to find that they had equipped us with some cutlery and dishes, but I was even more surprised to find that not only had the last tenant not washed these dishes after using them, but that the dishes were so old or so dirty that they were stuck together. Did I mention that the Pine Crest was cheaper than the other hotels in town? And did I mention the bugs that would have prevented camping? Well, there were bugs. And the Pine Crest was cheap. We slept in our sleeping bags on top of the mattresses, so it was kind of like camping.
(Tent camping in the Pine Crest)
Day 5:
After a night of fitful sleep, we headed out to Mountain Portage. Conor's van was of course still not fixed, since it was some kind of crazy Canadian holiday or something ("Monday"). Fortunately, the shuttle for mountain portage is only a few hundred feet, because the river makes a gigantic oxbow around the ìmountainî where you park your car. You can drop off your boats on one side, drive up to the top of the ridge, and then walk back to the boats. It takes less than five minutes.
Mountain Portage was higher, too. When Dan and I were there in 2004, Molly's nipple was one of the easiest rapids on the river. There was a massive hole river left, and a scary looking pourover river right, but there was a gap between them at least fifty feet wide where the hole turned into pretty much a green wave. Not so this year. No. The rapid looked kind of similar, but the hole now stretched all the way over to the pourover, and instead of a green wave, there was just a slightly weaker spot in the hole. We looked at it for a while, and let me be honest here: we were scared. I think even Conor was scared, and everyone knows, he's nuts.
So instead of running the nipple, he ran some slop stuff over on the right; a little slide. Then we threw a massive session at the Sweet Spot, which is a wave right below Molly's. Needless to say, it was pretty sweet. We spent most of the day there. Things could get a little hectic, though, because right below the wave was an island, with a series of holes on both sides of it. So as soon as you threw a big move and flushed, you had to roll up and put the hammer down to get back to the eddy and avoid the gnar. But the wave was worth it.
Back in town, tired to the bone, we were headed back to the Pine Crest when we spotted a kayak on someone's roof rack. It looked like a creekboat, and normally, that would mean that we pretended not to see and sped away. But this was the Northwest Frickin' Territories, man! Brotherly love! This was probably the fifth boater in about 600 miles! So we pulled a handbrake turn, and burned some rubber pulling into the parking lot to meet our new best friend. He was a kiwi from New Zealand (thatís right), named Colin. Apparently, he had just been kind of running the sh* on his own, exploring. We agreed to show him around for the next few days.
Day 6:
We rose early and got on the water promptly at around noonish. It's hard to get to bed on time when it's light until 10:30 or so.
When we got to the Mountain Portage putin, we noticed that all the logs that weíd had to kind of balance beam across were now floating, instead of resting in the mud. The water had risen another six inches or so. Normally, this would be a little concerning, but remember that this is the Slave River; nearly a mile wide. So this was a lot concerning. I can't even imagine how much more water that must have been. And it was just six inches.
Fortunately for us, it turns out that there are about 4 water levels on the Slave: really high water, high water, low water, and really low water. Six inches was nowhere near enough to bring out the really high water. But Molly's Nipple was looking slap happy. As the locals say (all three of them); yeah, sometimes you can get some love from Molly, but she'll slap you if you go too near the nipple. Sweet Spot was about the same, but everything times two. Air: X 2. Charge to the eddy: X 2. Consequences: X 2. Fun: X 2 X 2 X 2 = X ONE BILLION. Back off man. I'm a physicist.
As we were enjoying the wave by lying on the bank in exhaustion, we saw the most extreme thing I have ever witnessed. Dan was hiking back up to the eddy after missing the move when Josh shouted and pointed to the Nipple. I turned and had just enough time to get a glimpse of something black dropping into the pourover right next to us. It resurfaced about one hundred feet downstream, right before the Sweet Spot wave itself, and we could clearly see that it was a black bear. It subbed out again at the wave and popped up near the island, went right, through two more holes, then popped up in the eddy that Dan had just hiked out of, and paddled like all hell over to shore. We all kind of wanted to paddle down there to help it, but then again, we all kind of wanted to stay alive, too. So to sum up: Molly's Nipple was such a sticky hole that it sucked in a black bear from out of the woods. Conor said that it was an omen. I wasn't sure if it was a good one or a bad one. We decided to leave anyway.
Instead of the usual line down through Avalanche and Land of the Giants, or maybe the Chico hole, we paddled around behind one of the islands to check out the Forgotten Waves, which the local ladies had told us about. On any other river, this wave would have been a masterpiece. It was about one boat length tall, and it would surge and totally change shape every ten to thirty seconds. But since it was on the slave, we got bored quickly and went to look for bigger and better things. That was when I realized that I had left my bug net at Molly's Nipple somewhere. It probably got sucked off the island in to the hole. The hike out at the end of the day was a long one. Especially since I only had a short sleeve drytop.
Back in Fort Smith, the mechanic had finished repairing Conor's van. We picked it up, and Conor decided that sleeping in his van down by the river was less sketchy than sleeping at the Pine Crest. So he took off after dinner.
Day 8:
After the bigness of the previous day, and since it was Colin's last day and he hadn't done it, we decided to head up to Cassette. We had a great time sessioning the Bitch, which at this level turned out to be pretty friendly. Well, friendly for the slave. It was friendlier than the Sweet Spot. Alright. It was a bitch. But it was great fun to ride the Bitch. Youíd just hop in there and start thrashing around until you worked your way out to the wave side.
Despite the friendly atmosphere and chill wave, Josh somehow managed to break his paddle on a big blunt, and ended up swimming and losing the pieces. Josh took a two or three hour nap while we finished out the session (of course) and then Josh did the two mile flatwater ferry out using handpaddles that he'd fashioned out of his ass pad. It was hardcore.
Day 9:
We said our goodbyes to Colin this morning. He and his ladyfriend had to head back to civilization. We were a little tired from all the full days that we'd been throwing, so we decided to do a little exploring.
We put in at mountain portage, and instead of paddling all the way out to the river right side and playing at Molly's, we hugged the left bank, and ran some stuff over there. First up was the English Channel. Dan and I had done it last year, but of course, it was slightly different now. Several of the little waves had turned into holes, and nobody was sure how sticky they would be. We were pretty confident, though, so Conor and I decided to style the Blue Angel style first run. Blue Angel-ing is when you get into a tight formation and bomb down some sweet drop. We managed to stay pretty close, until Conor got slapped back by a wave/hole near the bottom, and I got subbed past him. Then he got subbed out and I got caught in a boil that popped up. Basically, we made all the moves fine, then sort of bobbed around in the gigantic chop below the rapid. Dan and Josh tried to step to our skills and clone the Blue Angel descent, but they stayed a reasonable distance apart because they were scared of hitting each other, so it was pretty weak sauce.
(Staring Down the Edge)
Below the English Channel were Pre-Edge and Edge. We had some near misses at the edge when we forgot that you couldn't just paddle to the right to avoid the Edge hole, you had to punch through a guard hole to get into the eddy. But we were fine. Unfortunately, the higher water meant that the Edge wasn't really surfable. Well, that's not entirely true. It was way too surfable. The green shoulder on the edge was now funneling back into the hole, and the hole was even more massive than normal. Of course, Conor took a ride, but he didn't throw anything. And besides, he's nuts.
Instead, we headed over to little sister, which was a thrashy smaller version of the Edge, and got our sh* obliterated for an hour or so. Seriously, I don't think anyone did any tricks. We just paddled into the hole, got worked until we flushed, and paddled back in for more. It was great.
Day 10:
Having seen the Edge, and yet somehow failed to step it up, we decided to step it up by force. We headed up to Pelican; the largest set of rapids on the Slave. As soon as you put in, you can see the waves of the rapid. And they look big. Then you paddle upstream about a mile or so, and you realize that you were wrong about the waves. Theyíre not big. Theyíre epic, monstrous, ginormous, whatever. They eat pieces of sh* like you for breakfast. Youíre the mosquito, the waves are the people. They're real big.
We were scared. Again.
We paddled out to the scouting island (which was not the launching island), and looked at the waves for a long time. I was a little nervous, so I asked everyone else what they were thinking. They all said the exact same thing. Yeah, it's probably runnable, but I'm not going first. Funny, that had been what I was thinking. Well, to make a very long story short, we sat around for a few hours, then put our pants back on and put our tails between our legs. We ran some small slides on the way out, but we didn't run the big sh*. We were all ashamed, because it looked so possible, but in the end, I think that we set a good example. If you feel bad about some run, you shouldn't do it just because there's a camera there. But still, it would have been nice if at least one of us had grown a pair.
Disappointed with the day's progress, we headed down to the section below Mountain Portage, to look for a wave called the Dumpster. To make another long, long story short, we didn't find it. There were a lot of throwdown holes, good for looping, but I think that I can sum up the attitude of the expedition with the name that I gave to the last hole we found: the Big Pile of Garbage. It had a nice pile, but it was a bunch of garbage.
Day 11:
Eager to do some real boating (by which, of course, I mean playboating), we headed back to Molly's Nipple, and the Sweet Spot. It was refreshingly epic. A goose swam through the Nipple while I was in the water. Once again, we were starting to suspect that it was some kind of omen.
Sure enough, strange things were afoot. About three or four hours into the session, I noticed a new boater on the bank near the film crew! I was amazed. I paddled over, and he didn't climb down near the water, but I could see that it was John Blythe, who had paddled with us for a few days in 2004. He was a chill dude.
(Rafters probing Molly's Nipple with an inner tube!!!)
Excited, but not that excited, I went back to surfing. After a few rides, I noticed that there was now a crowd of new people hanging out by Dan and Conor. And one of them was wearing a t-shirt, which was a sure sign that they were not boaters. I decided that it was time to see what the hell was going on. When I climbed out, I found that indeed, Blythe was the only boater that had arrived. The other people were rafters. Yes, that's right. I was highly confused. I had a long conversation with them about that. It went a little like this:
"Wow! You guys look like rafters!"
"Yeah. We put in up by Cassette, and ran all the stuff down to here."
"Rafters, huh? But, wait, wait! We're on the Slave river! The Slave! You guys are going to run the SLAVE?"
"Yeah. We put in up by Cassette, and ran all the stuff down to here."
"Wow. Wait, though! What the hell is that thing? Is that a raft? Are you guys RAFTERS?"
"Yeah. We put in up by Cassette, and ran all the stuff down to here."
"Well holy crap. Rafters. Hey, didnít anyone tell you guys? You know what river this is, right? It's the SLAVE!"
"Yeah. We put in up by Cassette..."
And so on for a good half hour or so. It turns out (get this) that they were actually rafters, rafting on the Slave River. The words "raft" and "Slave River" shouldn't be in the same sentence, unless there are some extra words tossed in, like "no," "impossible," "certain death," or perhaps "suicide squad." But it was true. They gave us lunch in exchange for safety kayaking. They were planning to run Molly's Nipple. Needless to say, I ate a lot of lunch, because they were going to need a lot of safety.
Since he was the company safety boater, Blythe ran it first, to make sure that it was possible. After all, we certainly hadn't run it yet. It looked gnarly. Blythe hit his line pretty well, and managed to punch through, but we all held our breath.
Then came time for the first raft. They put their leader into the oar rig, all alone, and sent him in first. All the kayakers spread out in the eddies downstream (except Josh, who was filming, because come on, this had to get on film). I was behind the island. I could see the raft come up to the horizon line, and instantly, I knew that the poo was headed for the fan. He was way too far river right, and he dropped/fell a good ten feet straight into the pourover section of the hole. His raft hit the hole and visibly stopped and bounced back a few feet, then instantly flipped. I couldn't see anything else from where I was, so I started watching the people on shore, waiting for them to spot the swimmer when he surfaced. I saw Blythe start sprinting toward me at almost the same instant as I saw the Captainís head appear on the pile on the front of the island, then all too slowly drop off the river right side, which was right above where I was waiting.
I watched the patch of water where he had disappeared, and paddled out of the eddy to intercept it. I was pretty close, but not close enough. He popped out for a second before slamming into one of the smaller reaction holes right below the island. This time, I was close enough that I was already floating at just about the same speed, and I could look down and see his white helmet starting to resurface just inches from my bow.
As he surfaced, I tried to be right there, so that he knew for sure that he was being rescued. We made eye contact, and I could see that he was shaken, but probably alright. He was focused and determined, and immediately started swimming closer to grab on. Unfortunately, since he'd just been underwater off and on for a minute or so, he was making all kinds of crazy gurgling noises.
We were getting pulled farther apart by the eddies and such below the rapid, so I actually wasnít getting any closer to him, even though I was backpaddling as hard as I could. But eventually some swirl changed direction or something, and he managed to grab hold. As we got about halfway back into the lower eddy, the raft finally came out of the hole, and Dan and Conor started bumping it over to shore. You have to realize what an endeavor this is, though. This was the Slave. Shore was not just right there. The eddy was huge. And it was not easy to push a raft across the eddy line. So after I got the capsized captain to shore, I headed back out to help them, since it turned out that I was the only one with a tow tether.
I'd thought it was hard work hauling a tired person to shore. I was wrong. That was a nice little warmup stretch. A flipped raft is much heavier. We finally managed, but twice, I had to stop paddling just to lie on my back deck and pant. Once we got out, we took a closer look at the raft, and saw that the raft had been so brutalized that the frame had ripped out all but two of the D-rings, and was just dragging in the water. Also among the casualties: the cooler handle had splintered, and the three straps holding it were gone; all the bags from the raft, including a first aid kit, had disappeared without a trace; and a water jug was found floating in one of the smaller eddies, missing the vent cap.
Needless to stay, the second raft decided to carry around. And that was the end of our day, because we were all dog tired.
Day 12:
This was our last full day on the Slave. So of course, we decided that it was finally time to step the sh* up, damn it! We headed out to Molly's, and nutted up to run it. After all, despite the raft carnage, Blythe had made it through.
Conor was first up. We stood around looking at the hole and tossing in sticks for hours, and he eventually hopped in his boat and headed out. He came in almost exactly where you want to be, except maybe ten feet left; on the hole side. He charged in, tucked at the last second, and was eaten up entirely by the hole. We all sat on the edges of our seats waiting for about a full second. Then he popped up near the back end of the hole, already pulling on a deep forward stroke. He hung there for a little bit, and managed to dig his way out. I was scared, but I headed up to my boat next.
As I was getting in, for some reason, I decided to be paranoid, and left my shoes on the bank next to me. I took off my glasses and made sure that they were safely zipped into my pocket. Then I checked again. And again. I was definitely nervous.
As a quick warmup, I did a little sprint upstream to burn off a little of that twitchy energy. I remembered how I'd ran this just fine last year. I thought about Conor's run. I was ready.
In the footage, you see me paddle toward the horizon line, with that nice ACA certified smooth and confident forward stroke. Then I come close enough to the horizon line to see down into the hole, and realize that I'm exactly where the raft had been yesterday; way way right. You can actually hear me shout "Oh sh*!" then see me take two strokes, and tuck forward to drop into the beef of the pourover.
Needless to say, I got violated. As soon as I hit the hole, I got surfed right across the weak spot into the mean section of the hole. Every now and then I would resurface, and try to carve over to the left, but I had no chance. I thought about hamming it up, and trying to pop up in a frontsurf and pull my skirt while still upright, but somehow I couldn't quite make it happen.
After about an hour and a half, by my reckoning, I decided that I was done. As soon as I saw the pourover, I'd known that I was not getting out with my pride intact, but I just had to hold on. The time had come, though. After one particularly violent hit, I tightened my grasp on my paddle, and reached down to pull my skirt. As soon as my skirt was off, the water grabbed me and my paddle and yanked me from the boat straight down. Everything calmed down immediately. I knew that I was probably fine. I had been grabbed by the current that was headed downstream underneath the hole, and all I had to do was wait. I held onto my paddle, and tried to stay relaxed to conserve air. There were a couple more swirls, then I felt my lifejacket start to lift me to the surface.
Surfacing was just the beginning of the swim, but it actually turned out not to be that intense. I made all the crazy gurgling noises that the raft captain had made when he surfaced. Luckily for me, there was nobody within earshot to hear them. I looked around and saw that I was headed for the left side of the island. This was pretty scary, since there were some frightening horizon lines over there. There was a story that one of the holes on that side was a killer; a hole so sticky that you couldn't even swim out of it. We'd obviously been avoiding that one, so nobody had really seen it, but you move a little slower without your boat, so I headed right into the maw. I came up to the horizon line breathing deeply, and still holding my paddle tight, ready to duck deep and try to swim under it all. But as I came over the lip I had to laugh. The "Death Hole" was just a small wave. It barely got my face wet as I swam through it.
Below "Death Hole", the river flattened into one big almost-eddy, and that was where my rescuers caught up with me. I told them that I was fine, and they quickly raced downstream after my boat. We ended up recovering everything except my sponge and foot foam. It was a great time.
Then, of course, Josh had to go and run it. I wasn't freaking out or anything, but I was quick to hop into my boat and run safety. Like the selfish bastard that he is, Josh totally styled it, and lined up a perfect line through the meat. Then we all threw a good four or five hour session at Sweet Spot. I know what you're saying. "Five hours? Have the SBP crew finally turned into whiny pros, throwing the pro sesh and going home early?" Well we would have stayed longer, damn it, but swimming takes a lot out of you.
Besides, we still had a pretty good short session at the Chico Suburbs and the Ghetto on our way out. All in all, it was a good way to end the trip; with some sweet carnage footy.
Day 13:
With heavy hearts and smelly gear, we got up in the morning and started driving. Drove until we were too tired to go on. Slept at a Walmart parking lot.
Day 14:
Got up in the morning and started driving. Remembered around Calgary that Conor still had no passport. Rallied it anyway. Drove until we were too tired to go on. Drove some more. Slept at Pat and Jo's house in Logan, Utah.
Day 15:
Got up in the afternoon and started driving. Drove down to Salt Lake for the OR show.
Rock On- The Famous Leif Anderson
(Photos Courtesy of Josh White)
