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Morning of Day 2 - A sleepless night on the shores of the Tat "This stretch of river contains the largest section of technical whitewater of the trip. Long, fairly continuous rock gardens occur in several spots once you enter the canyon. Keep your throw bags, rescue, repair and first-aid kits handy for this stretch of river*" ...... not exactly the words of encouragement I needed before I'm about to embark on a river journey deep into the interior of the Yukon, BC and Alaska. Those were the words I read from our guide book late last night as I started to drift to sleep. Needless to say I didn't get much rest as visions of powerful hydraulics ripping apart our raft and tossing us all (and my camera gear) into the chilled rapids below danced through my head. My fears were only heightened in the morning as I discovered we would face the most challenging set of rapids of the trip within our first hour on the water. To make matters a tad more interesting we were also told that this set would require a dizzying 2 hours of solid whitewater paddling before we would clear the deep canyon and its rapids. Hmm, I started to have reservations about the success of this trip not knowing how I (or my paddle mates) would react to such a challenge. We woke this morning to the sounds of the mighty Tatshenshini River flowing close by and to the smells of breakfast cooking on the propane stove. Our guides have been up for a couple hours preparing our meal and loading 10 days worth of food and gear onto our two rafts. Today's weather looks promising - nothing but sun and warm temperatures (mid twenties). A perfect day to begin our river trip. Shortly after breakfast we gathered around the rafts for a brief safety session on how to handle whitewater and to learn what river-life would be like over the course of the next few days. Dustin and Jeff introduced us to our paddles, the rafts, safety gear and demonstrated how we would work together as a team when we're on the water. "Dig deep", "Back paddle hard", "Forward paddle" were some of the maneuvers we needed to master when our guides required our assistance to navigate through some tricky currents. We were also instructed on how to 'save ourselves' from the powerful currents in the off-chance we fell in. This was not the best time or location for me to discover that age had started to affect my hearing! Hmm! I guess my own stubbornness and ego prevented me from asking the guides to repeat themselves. A few minutes later, while I was double checking my camera gear to ensure it had been secured in its waterproof case, Dustin approached me with a sheepish grin. "Hey Claus, guess what? You're sitting in the front." Great - our chances of being tossed in have now increased ten-fold! With our gear and food tightly secured onboard it was time for one last pit-stop before boarding the rafts. Our journey down the Tat is moments away. Join me next week as I recount our adventures down the rapids. * from The Complete Guide to the Tatshenshini River (2000) Lynman, Ordóñez and Speaks. Cloudburst Productions
Stay tuned for the next installment to find out if we survived our first day through the rapids |
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