Sampson's Spot: September 2006

Monday, September 18, 2006

Sampson Goes to British Columbia (part 2) with Video

So after having a good time creek boating near the Sea to Sky Highway, Sampson's crew headed to Horshoe Bay to hop on board the ferry to Langdale. From Langdale the crew had some beta to check out a little place called "Roberts Creek." Robert's Creek is not really a "creeking" destination but a hippie commune that started sometime during the Vietnam war era. We met up with a few locals and enjoyed an evening of camping, talking to bears, and hearing crazy stories of the Roberts Creekers.

The next day we packed up and drove an hour or so to the town of Egmont near the Skookumchuck Narrows.

The ferry is the only way to get to skook and costs about $100 canadian to get across (both ways).

BC sunsets are amazing, especially from the ferry ride.

Skookumchuck is probably the most predictable surf wave around as its actually a salt water inlet, so tidal flows determine the rapid's timeframe. As you know, tides are dependant on the moon and skook was running about 14-15 knots for our trip. Bryan liked to surf skook when he wasn't shooting video (see link below).

Germans like to use creek boats to surf at Skook. This guy really tore it up, no joke!

At skook you are likely to meet Mike Olson (Oly) and he likes to bring lots of boats to Skook. We saw him in a squirt boat, a session, and a Zodiac (motorized raft). Mike is an amazing guy and has a really cool family. He definately showed us a great time and helped us get some incredible footage from his boat. Thanks Mike!

Steven Olson is still in high school but rips like a Skook vet. He also enjoys creeking with his dad on the Little White Salmon.

Max Keller enjoys Skook when its big and fluffy. He also likes to avoid going on the "tour" which lies downstream. Here whirlpools develop that could swallow Sampson whole!

Meng was also killing it at Skook. He can surf for hours and still throw down. All 3 members of Sampson's crew (Max, Chris, and Bryan) were loving the Liquidlogic Vision 56!

Afterwards Capt. Mike Olson took us on a tour of the Skook zone. Sampson was loving his ride in the Zodiac! We set up camp, ate fresh fish and clams, then enjoyed the bioluminescent creatures of the Sechelt Inlet at night.

The next day we had a brief surf session then motored over the border back to the US. Mission Burn Sampson 420 was a sucess. On the way home we were jonesin' to boat so we hit the NF Payette again. It was a sick trip thanks to a great crew, and I can't wait to go back!

Bryan Owen

click here to view the Skook video

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Chris Menges and the BURN MISSION

Below you will find a link to some video of Callghan Creek, BC and Chris Menges paddling his new Pyranha Burn "Mission" kayak. It's a short video with 5 or so drops that shows some of the highlights from this sweet run:

click here to view the BURN video

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Sampson Goes to British Columbia (Part 1)

In August the rivers started to drop out in Colorado and Sampson's Crew was still looking to get some quality kayaking in before fall. The idea came up to check out British Columbia, known in the kayaking world for its' top notch creeking and big wave surfing at Skookumchuck.

We decided to do something different, something fun, and maybe a little risky....We named our little adventure "Mission-Burn Huck Ze Gnar Sampson 420 BC" (we wanted it to sound hard core). All we had to do was load up 1 Hound Dog (sampson) + 3 Kayakers (Bryan, Max, and Chris) + 6 Kayaks (2 each) + all our stuff... into a 2 seater truck and drive it to BC.

We borrowed a trailer from CKS and a license plate from our friend Nadia and set out with the "Learn to Kayak" trailer to BC on a 2 week trip.

On the way we (1) learned about wiring trailer lights (2) met a nice cop in Utah (3) went to the OR trade show for 2 hours and met the "Cat Crap Girls" (4) washed the smell of dead animal off Sampie at 3 am in Oregon (5) met a dude named "Scab"...

..AND ran Idaho's NF Payette River (lower 5 section)

The North Fork of the Payette is awesome and contains 15 miles of roadside class V big water pseudo-mank (reminiscent of Pine Creek Rapid for 15 miles). We all agreed that we could spend our whole trip here and work our way up to the upper 10 miles....but that wasn't the plan. We reluctantly said goodbye to the NF and headed to Squamish BC...

We would have some photos of this but unfortunately our NF camera couldn't swim :(

AW's NF Payette Info
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/592/

We took the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver into the town of Squamish. The town's proximity to both epic mountains and coast make it one of the most naturally beautiful places I have ever visited. You will find many steep creeks intersecting the Sea to Sky as you make your way to Whistler.

We met some BC locals and paddled the Checkamus River...fun creeking with a big water feel and one HUGE hole! It was fun so we ran it 2x.

After checking out the town of Whistler BC we headed to Callaghan Creek with very little beta. We found the put-in and enjoyed the next few hours of exploring this Personal First Descent for ourselves...

The locals thought Callaghan might be too low, but they probably haven't been creeking in Colorado. Max Keller thought it was perfect (above).

The creek provided some clean and beautiful waterfalls. There was a clean 15 footer (pictured) and a really nice mandatory 25-footer (below). Callaghan also has some boulder gardens and slide rapids that boated really nice. Uncle Mengo demostrates the boof in a Pyranha Burn Mission kayak (above)

The water was a greyish-blue color and the rocks were what seemed to be a smooth basalt. This combination gave Callaghan a five star rating from Sampson's crew and we had 2 great runs down.

Bryan (above) really like this run because he got to jog 6k to run shuttle when we finished...a small price to pay for such a great run!

Meng was excited when he came to the lip of the big one...he even thought about running it drunk with 1 hand paddle but realized that he left his squirt boat at home...bummer :(

Bryan likes to use his "air time" to think about important issues like "I hope my dog isn't being eaten by a grizzly at the takeout"....

When we paddled up to the rig we found a happy Sampson ready to play a little frisbee. We tossed the disk and devised a gameplan for part 2 of our adventure...Skook!