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Published: January 13th 2009
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Hello everyone! The busy season is here! The last month has been relentlessly busy, especially seeing as how for most of us our last day off was Christmas Day - 18 days ago! I just finished a massive block of work, doing 32 out of the last 36 trips. I finally have gotten a day off and am not really sure what to do with myself, so I figured I would check in and give y'all an update on some of the recent events that have taken place on the river, especially in the last couple weeks.
Firstly, it has been a fantastic season for water. The good snowpack from the winter coupled with consistent weekly rains have kept the levels in the river well above the average so far. This time last year the levels in the river were around 15 cubic meters per second (cumecs) or less and had been for about 1 1/2 months. The average flow this season has been close the 30 cumecs, with plenty of 45+ cumecs days sprinkled throughout. The high water has definitely kept spirits up and our lunch breaks long.
Ill talk about a couple of noteworthy days in the
recent weeks:
On Christmas day it started to rain quite hard, and then abruptly stopped at 3 am. By morning the Shotty was well above cut-off levels but dropping fast. We postponed the trip departure until the levels were below 70 cumecs, and took off. At high flow it doesn't take much time to get down the river, so an hour later we were scouting Mother-in-Law. Mother-in-Law is one of those rapids that varies in intensity depending on the flow, and the flow this day was more forgiving than that day I had my first encounter. No boats flipped, but there were some close calls.
It is a funny job, rafting. The guides I work with are my good friends. I've got their backs, they've got mine, and we all look out for each other. That being said, there is nothing better than watching your fellow guides roof it and end up in the water. That post-Christmas Mother-in-Law day had close to 15 people sitting on the other side of the river with cameras and popcorn, just hoping for some action. Needless to say we were all quite disappointed in the lack of a good show.
One
The Vultures
Sitting and hoping for a good show! morning during a 40 cumec trip it started to rain quite hard. It isn't until the storm hits the catchment area that the Shotover River starts to rise, so local rain didn't affect the morning trip. By the end of lunch however, the river was on the rise, and fast! The Shotover River canyon is made of Mica-Schist, a crumbly, brittle rock that absorbs water poorly, so the river tends to rise in manner of flash floods. With our cut-off at 70 cumecs, it doesn't take much to push us over the edge.
We started monitoring the flow through our electronic meter that can be accessed via phone, and the river was rising about 3 cumecs every fifteen minutes. By the time we hit the river we would have been above the cutoff, so we canceled the Shotty trip and switched over to plan B - raft the Kawarau instead. The Kawarau River is higher flow (ranging from 100-500 cumecs, usually) and class 3, but not for everyone. Definitely not as exciting as the Shotty, most people ended up canceling or changing over to a different day for rafting, when presumably the river would come down again. With the
everyone already geared up and in the buses, this was an chaotic nightmare to organize. Hats off to the trip leaders and office staff. So that afternoon I was on the Kawarau along with 16 boats, a huge number for a K trip. All went smoothly and we called it a day.
The next morning the Shotty was down to raft-able levels, as it tends to drop just as quickly as it rises once the rain is gone, but I was on the K again for the morning trip. What was fascinating was seeing the change in the color of the water from the previous afternoon to the present morning. The Shotover drains directly into the Kawarau, but much further downstream than where we raft. So the high water from the previous afternoon was now trucking down the K. The once aquamarine color of the K was now a muddy brown.
The Kawarau at has one big rapid on it, Dog Leg. At high water (300+ cumecs) it is quite an intimidating rapid. Running it is much like rafting in the ocean. Big waves and couple big boat eating holes are sprinkled throughout, and it is hard to
tell if your are in the good place or the bad place until you are heading full speed into one of the big holes. With the high water from the Shotty, the flow that morning was around 380 cumecs, so needless to say I was peaking pretty hard going in. Fortunately I was following one of our Trip Leaders, Tom Savage, whom I've seen get off-line maybe once or twice all season (compared to nearly everyday for most of us), and the trip finished without incident.
The next couple of days saw a few short rain storms, so the levels of the Shotover didn't get too high but instead stayed consistently around 40+ cumecs. At this flow the last rapid of the day, Cascade, is just a blast. The hole at the bottom routinely dumps people and guides out of the boat. During these high water Cascade days we had more a few swimmers and a couple of flips.
It has been so much fun rafting this river this season, I feel quite blessed to be experiencing my first season on the Shotover River at such high water levels. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures, and stay
Gwyn punching the hole in M.I.L.
The lens started getting a bit foggy at this stage! tuned, I will be posting soon!
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