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Patch |
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Grade 5 Posts: 416  Location: Canmore | Three of us had a great day on the South Ram on Friday, choosing to go for the light and fast approach and paddle the run in one day. , The story begins last monday with an email from the ever inquisitive and energetic Will Gadd saying "dude check this out bet if we go light and fast we can do it in one day. I will take my bolt kit and light weight rappel rope, you in..?" He had just read the article on Kayakwest... Ok I must admit I was tempted but after first checking the water levels I was a little bummed that the flow was low, under 20cms and dropping  Well I quickly perked up after looking at the forecast for the week... Tues, Wed and Thurs, Rain and lots of it, with a sunny day Friday! How likely was that to be correct! Well it was and we totally lucked out  All week the levels came up and even Shane Kroeger who was adamant that he was not boating if level was under 30 was in.... So leaving Canmore at 5am on Friday, Will and I picked up Shane in Lake Louise and by 9:20am we were on the river. I may add we also employed the services of a very competent shuttle driver, who was more than willing to cut locks if she had too!! We were also confident that given Jeff's Google map he posted, she had the directional sense to find the upper takeout bridge... There were two other groups at the put in, I had spoken to Scott Feindel so knew he would be there with some US pro paddlers looking for big waterfalls. We didn't hang out long as we were on different schedules, they would be taking there time. We did share what we knew of the run.. More on what they did later... The third group were from Cranbrook and on the three day schedule.... So I think we hit peak flows for the year as the level peaked at just under 45cms whilst we were on the water This certainly helped with speed on the river. We got to Tapestry falls in just over an hour. Time for Will to take charge, he quickly went to work, setting a new belay anchor. I believe two new pitons and a nut, new webbing and a bunch of carabiners... So even with my limited experience I could see this was a bomb proof anchor. Will would have been happy rappelling from just one piton, but hey he also tells me you can rappel from piles of snowballs or small rocks!! [Just confirming that my belief that Ice Climbers have more than one loose screw!!]. See photo of the new anchor. We left the anchor in place and I believe that Scots group used it to rappel on throw bags. We quickly headed down stream, to Table Rock falls. This we negotiated even more quickly as the tree was more than ample to use as an anchor. As is my nature I did ask Will "Are you sure thats good" His response "Dude if that tree comes out you were meant to die!!" So confident was he in that tree, to save a little time he got us to sling our boats from our harness's as we rappelled.. Anyway back on the water we had been going for a little under three hours, a head of schedule and steaming down stream. Although we were moving fast it is hard not to take in the beauty of this run, It is also amazing that although the canyon rim is intact from Google earth images you can see just how much logging has gone on here. Really you only get to glimpse this a few times whilst on the river. There are long sections of easier water on this run but with 40+ cms you move a long very swiftly.. We got to the second last Canyon a little after 3pm, I had forgotten how cool this canyon is and great paddling with some water in it. After portaging the very last canyon we got back on and in seemingly no time at all made it to the bridge, just before 5pm. All happy to see Wills truck and Rachel waiting for us... and of course cold Beer!! This is a great trip to do over two days (As I have previously done) yet with a smaller competent group who work well together it's very plausible to do as a day trip. Thanks to Will for setting up and leaving the hardware at Tapestry falls... I think all of us were more than a little tired the next day Oh yes, I just spoke to Scott, he told me that one member of his group ran Tapestry falls [1st intentional descent] and all of them ran Table Rock falls. Patch (new anchor.jpg) (tapestry falls top.jpg) (Tapestry Falls.jpg) (table rock falls.jpg) (Table Rock Rappel.jpg) Attachments ----------------  new anchor.jpg (183KB - 36 downloads) tapestry falls top.jpg (161KB - 35 downloads) Tapestry Falls.jpg (150KB - 38 downloads) table rock falls.jpg (134KB - 36 downloads) Table Rock Rappel.jpg (153KB - 28 downloads) | ||
| ecurB |
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Grade 6 Posts: 536   Location: Canmore | |||
| Nadege |
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Grade 6 Posts: 507 Location: Canmore | Thanks for the report Patch. sounds like an awesome day! Looking forward to pictures from Scott's group too. | ||
| canmorepilot |
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| Cochrane |
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| Grade 4 Posts: 101 | |||
| C.Powell |
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| We removed this karabiner from a bolt at top of Tapestry falls following a super high flood. There was also some other gear that had been shredded by rocks etc. Chip (_MG_4678.jpg) (_MG_4679.jpg) Attachments ---------------- _MG_4678.jpg (22KB - 32 downloads) _MG_4679.jpg (21KB - 26 downloads) | ||
| dampyak |
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Grade 6 Posts: 1052  Location: Calgary | |||
| Glen |
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| Grade 4 Posts: 143 | |||
| Patch |
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Grade 5 Posts: 416 Location: Canmore | |||
| Glen |
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| Grade 4 Posts: 143 | |||
| Daryl |
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| Grade 3 User Posts: 66 | |||
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