The trip to BC could not have gone any smoother. We started our journey with a quick stop in Hood River, OR where we met up with Christy and paddled the Green Truss. I wasn't too sure about Big Brother, but after I saw Christy run it I couldn't possibly walk around. So I ran it and ended up in the cave. No big deal.
After the Truss we headed over to the Cispus for a lap and then got in the car and drove north. It was a good thing we we got a warm-up in Washington, because what we found in BC was nothing short of epic.
BC is huge. We accomplished a lot in the short time we were there, but only covered the tiniest little piece of such a big province. I knew BC was the place for me when on the second night in whistler there was a huge mountain bike race and party right where we were camping. We paddled around whistler for a few days, and decided that we could not possibly spend time in whistler and not go out to some clubs. Bill made a strong showing on the dance floor, while Chris managed to get himself kicked out, yet still made it back inside somehow. The Callahan and Cheakamus could have easily provided a week's worth of entertainment, but it was time to move on.
After the big night out in Whistler we needed to run some easier stuff to ease the pain. We put on the Green for what we thought would be a mellow, short class IV run. 4.5 hours, 5 portages, and 6 miles of awesome whitewater later we had taken off at the motocross track and were on our way to the Birkenhead.
We slept at the put-in for the upper Birkenhead on a decommissioned bridge. There was a lot of tall around Whistler about this beautiful run. Many people were saying that it was too high, while others were saying it was good to go. I was a little nervous when we put on, and remained that way all the way until the take-out. It turned that the Birkenhead was high, but not too high. It was the most continuous piece of whitewater I have ever seen.
Following the Birkenhead, we snapped the group photo, got eaten by mosquitos, and wasted our only day driving on sketchy dirt roads, and scouting creeks that we chose not to tackle.
We finished the trip up with a spontaneous night out in Seattle with our friend Dave Rugh (notice the 1961 Benz in the background that runs on Bio-Diesel), and a run on Tumwater Canyon on the Wenatchee.
I had so much fun on this trip I left a boat in Northwest to make it more convenient for me to go back. I am now back in New York more fired up about kayaking than I have been since I was in High School.
