The River is Flowing

With the focus on safety, the pre-season training for our rafting guides begins soon. Every year it starts with scouting the river. We are looking for changes to the riverbed over the winter as well as refreshing our memories of where the rocks are located, what the bottom of the river  looks like and the possible hazards there. Scouting is done for  alternate routes should there be any newly downed trees due to the severity of the winter or the work of beavers.

Once that is done out comes the throwing ropes for target practice and then followed with a exhilarating rapid swim. Guide trainees add to the fun – they always introduce that unexpected element that is good for creating awareness on the river.  Scenarios are created that lead to a refreshing of paddling skills, safety and river rescue knowledge for everyone.

Being so soon after the river has started flowing there is ice pack on the river banks. Carrying the rafts up the banks, the tilted ice blocks create a perfect slide for the raft and paddlers to slide  into the river, just like all Otters do.

If you are interested in  working on the river with Otter Rafting Adventures now is the time to contact us. A trained guide needs First Aid/CPR and a river rescue course which can be acquired.

This last weekend photos were taken of the river. The water is very low and there is plenty of ice on the shore. Monday morning, April 30 at 12:15 AM, the water monitoring station started reading. It is a humble start at 10 cms but get ready for high water and a long season with all that snow in the mountains.

Here’s a few pictures up the river valley looking into the mountains. The river is quite low with ice on the shore. Soon we’ll be rafting!

Happy Earth Day

The rafting season is getting closer. Out on the river on a day like today would be great! And what a fantastic day it is. This is the warmest day yet this year.

Today I drove up the river to Coal Camp where the last set of rapids leaves the foothills. If there is snow and ice here there is plenty more ice upstream and at the higher elevations where we are rafting. With this much ice the river is a few weeks away from flowing enough to float a raft. A month until there are rapids.

The picture of the final rapid is no rapid at all! The build up of ice downstream of the rapid is causing the water to pile up and form a pool that obliterates the rapid.

And being Earth Day here is a picture taken of Cartier Creek, which was just begging to be taken reminding us how beautiful our planet is and that it is worth preserving. Let’s work at that year round.

We’ll be rafting in about 6 weeks.

The snow is just about gone here and around Sundre. When I look west though, those mountains  are white with  plenty of snow. In fact, there is about another month of snow yet to accumulate that will feed the run off on the Red Deer River.

We don’t know when we will be able to raft the river. That depends upon when we start to warm up in the mountains and a melt starts to happen. That is always delayed compared to what happens here on the parkland and on the prairies.

We will be out guide training early and scouting the river for new obstacles pre-season. The guides here at Otter Rafting Adventures have early season safety training and rope skills to hone. Sounds like some swimming in cold water!

Here is the chart of the snow pack now. There is about 20% more snow now than at it’s greatest depth last year. The blue line is heading off the chart!