Sept. 23rd til 26th, 2016: Lower Madawaska Whitewater Canoe Trip

Sept 23rd, Drive from Ottawa

After some late surprises we ended up the night before deciding to paddle the lower Madawaska instead of the Petawawa in Algonquin park. The 4 of us met on Friday afternoon, packed the cars and drove 2 hours to the Canoe rental place in Griffith. At the canoe rental place we parked the cars and flipped our luggage into the van of the canoe rental. They drove us to the paddler co-op campground in Jewellville/Palmer-Rapids. Despite the weather being good we happened to be the only party at the campground.

 

Sept. 24th, Paddling from Palmer Rapids close to Snake Rapids

Saturday turned out to be a nice sunny day after the initial river mist was burned away by the sun. After breakfast and packing everything up we paddled 5 to 10 minutes up-river and beached the canoe at the bottom of section 3 of the Palmer Rapids and had a good look. We did not plan to shoot the rapids, but wanted to use this opportunity to see what the well-known rapids were all about and also to compare our impressions with what was mentioned about the rapids in our whitewater guide (this was the first time I used that particular booklet).

First Madawaska river morning impression from our campground. The sun is burning the mist away.

Breakfast at Madawaska Paddle Co-op Campground. Our tents in the background

Zandra and Steve starting to paddle

Hani and me launching the canoe at the paddle co-op canoe dock

Having a good lock at the lower section of Palmer Rapids. There is not a lot of water flow.

Afterwards we paddled leisurely down river through mostly agricultural and rural areas for about 10 to 12km. The 3 Aumond's Rapid sections were the first set of rapids we were trying to manage. Since this was our first canoe whitewater endeavor ever we tried to do everything by the book. We did our best to scout the sections beforehand. Aumond's Rapid was rated by our guide book as a grade 1 (the easiest white water grade) in low water conditions (our current condition). Autumn time is normally always low water, but the Madawaska water level is also determined by water release from some upstream hydro facilities. We managed paddling Aumond's Rapids without problems and it being the first time, we all felt good about this.

Aumond's Rapid 1st Ledge: Hani and me approaching the ledge

Aumond's Rapids 1st Ledge: Lining the canoe up with the big V

Aumond's Rapids: Running the ledge smoothly. Fun!

Aumond's Rapids: Paddling through the remaining rapid sections further downstream

Aumond's Rapid last section: Same picture as before but now with zoom. Hani and me bracing with our paddles.

Afterwards we paddled about 7km or so on smooth wide water to a backcountry campground, put up the tents and had dinner.

Our campground for the night

Sept. 25th, Paddling Snake Rapids to Split Rock Rapids Right Channel

Our canoes right beside the Madawaska river with the mist in full force.

A short while later the sun was burning the last misty pockets away

We had a lot more action today. Every km or 2 rapids with multiple sections popped up that had to be scouted and then paddled (or portaged). Our feel good level went further up compared to yesterdays grade 1 rapid sections when we also managed grade 2 rapids in reasonable shape. The various Snake Rapid sections were enjoyable and interesting to paddle. We carried our luggage downstream for the first section and ran the rapid without our luggage. It was lots of fun. It is always fun if you make a rapid dry and safely. An initial highlight of the day was when we totally unaware (at least Hani and I) managed Rifle Chute (rated grade 3) in very reasonable shape. I thought Rifle Chute was Exam Time Rapid (grade 2) and the rapid that was Exam Time Rapid was some sort of fun place to paddle through without to much concern and scouting.

Snake Rapids (Island Rapids section): Scouting the right channel from the mid-river island

Snake Rapids (Island Rapids): Downstream view of the right channel from the mid-river island

Hani and me "confidently" back-paddling during our approach of the Island Rapids right channel

Navigating Island Rapids

Island Rapids: The worst is already behind us!

Reloading the canoes island downstream.

A short while later we hopped out of the canoe at a rock island that was the begin of Split Rock Rapids.

Approaching Split Rock Rapids

We scouted its right channel extensively which was rated grade 2 and felt we could manage it. There was a lot of fast flowing water squeezed between our rock island and the other rocky side of the river. We also had a look downstream across 50m of relatively calm water toward a single ledge that had to dealt with on the left side. It looked in comparison to the rock island chute reasonably okay and manageable compared to what we had done before.

Beaching the canoes in a narrow channel to scout Split Rock Rapids

Split Rock Rapid right channel: View from close up-stream. Narrow, lots of white water

Split Rock Rapid right channel from a bit further upstream

What should I say. Just before embarking on Split Rock Rapids Zandra persuaded Steve to portage this section while Hani and I were already 3m away paddling upstream to line ourselves up. After a quick discussion we decided to shoot the rapid. And we made it through the chute nicely and felt really really good. I did notice that we had picked up a certain amount of water but not too much. The canoe was a bit more sluggish across the 50m calm water passage to the left side of the ledge. Whow. It turned out that the ledge was tough and much higher compared to what we assumed when standing 50m upstream on the rock island. And the ledge water poured onto a large stone that splashed the water all around. After having a quick look I managed steer the canoe on the left side of the large stone and happily gave a good push with my paddle to avoid hitting the stone with the back of the canoe and felt good and thought I nicely managed through all of this. As soon as I looked forward I noticed that I now I had to give it a further paddle shove to avoid a smooth beach rock and then we were through in a nice pool of calm water. However what really happened was that my second shove was totally useless. We had picked up so much splashing water that the canoe no longer reacted to my paddling and we bumped (not too strong) into the smooth beach stone. The canoe came to a sudden stop and all the water inside first moved forward and then rushed backward, we picked up more water and Hani and I found ourselves swimming in the water of the calm pool! The water was warm. And a nice campground was conveniently right there as well. Time to dry up everything and stay overnight there.

Hani and I in the water with all the luggage in the calm pool. Picture taken from our future campground by Steve who happened to run down the portage trail to see how we were doing and just arrived in time to take this picture!

Our problematic section: We picked up a lot of water from the big stone in the middle splashing all the water and then bumped into the stone just showing up above the water line about 2 meters from the riverside in the middle of the picture

Annotated picture of how we filled up the canoe with water

Initial cloth and tent drying action. We had 2nd sets of clothes in our waterproof bags.

Sept. 26th, Paddling from Snake Rapids to Griffiths

After breakfast we paddled to Raquette Rapids, about 15 minutes downstream. We carefully scouted the area and carried the canoe across the first island. After some debate and further careful scouting we decided to paddle the lower Raquette Rapids without luggage (we portaged the luggage on the 2nd trail ahead). The lower section of Raquette Rapids was a very nice rapid. Nice but manageable action with good picture taking opportunities from the nearby accessible rock beach. Fun.

Raquette Rapids lower section: Hani and me lining up the canoe

Raquette Rapids lower section: Just before the fun starts properly lined up

Raquette Rapids lower section: Running the first big V

Raquette Rapids lower section: Coming out of the 1st V and lining up the 2nd big V

Raquette Rapids lower section: Running the 2nd big V

Raquette Rapids lower section: Nearly done, just some haystacks

Raquette Rapids lower section: Done

Raquette Rapids lower section: Approach by Zandra and Steve

Raquette Rapids lower section: Lining up the canoe

Raquette Rapids lower section: 1st big V, the fun starts

Raquette Rapids lower section: Action in the 2nd big V

Raquette Rapids lower section: Haystack action, nearly done

Zandra and Steve cruising back to pick up their luggage.

Afterwards we paddled for about 5 or 6km in smooth wide river water. Then we had to portage the not runnable Slate Falls. 2km onward Crooked Rapids followed. A very nice grade 1 rapid, but not really scoutable due to its curvy nature around 2 islands. For a while Hani and I wasn't sure what happened with Steve and Zandra. But after waiting for a while downstream they did show up. It turned out that they ended up in flatter water on top of a stone and Steve had to hop into the water to get the canoe afloat again. Afterwards it was smooth paddling for several kilometers to Wadsworth Rapid. Again a very enjoyable grade 1 over a larger ledge but without the intricacies of Split Rock Rapids.

Hani and I shooting Wadsworth Rapids

Back in smooth water paddling somewhere downstream from Wadsworth Rapids

Then it was again paddling in smooth down river water for several kilometers. The weather turned rainy. We had to portage Highland Falls (out of the question for our skill level to paddle) and reached the final smooth river stretch to Griffith. We speeded up our paddling because the weather became worse. By the time we arrived at the Griffith picnic area we had steady rain. After we had all of our luggage in one of their picnic houses it even started to pour for a while. But by then we were done. The canoe rental owner picked up his canoes from the picnic area. We picked up our car from the rental place and loaded our luggage. Before driving home we had supper at Pine Valley Restaurant. They offered good burgers and sandwiches and on that night there was even live music. The place was full with locals.

Final Thoughts

Whitewater paddling is a lot of fun. I am actually amazed that this was the first in all my years in Canada that I did this. And there are several close-by places from Ottawa to do this. I am sure I will paddle white water routes and even this tour again.

Please interpret the prior paragraph with a grain of salt. It was a lot of fun, even toppling over into the water, but I don't want to suggest that this Madawaska trip is just a walk in the park. 3 of the 4 people on this trip have paddled canoes on and off for about 25 years. We are totally comfortable to paddle our canoes on normal lakes and rivers, we did plenty of river "swifts" before and have canoed in wavy windy circumstances. So the jump with that skill-level to do this trail was a reasonable one. Other ways to pick up some whitewater skills exist: Take a instructor course somewhere, or stay a weekend at a single campsite and just run a single well-known car accessible rapid without luggage over and over again. It is also a good idea to search for YouTube videos from people who did the same trip before. This way one gets an idea what is out there and can "see" how other people are doing it. Last but not least: Zandra and Steve made the right call to portage Split-Rock rapids while Hani and I got a bit too confident in our abilities. Most crucially I only looked at the "apparently easier" downstream ledge from about 75m upstream and did not have a very good scouting position. We could have paddled over to the portage and ran down to the ledge to have much better idea what it looked like. I am fairly confident we would have passed the ledge section without too many problems if we had scouted it properly. The 2nd lesson I take with me is that if my canoe picks up a certain amount of water I am going to empty it out at the next possible place asap. In our case this would have meant a quick stop in the 75m relatively calm flowing water section above the ledge after the chute. Our canoe was definitely a bit sluggish because of the additional weight in the canoe. 

The "Royalex" canoes we rented in Griffith were of a very different nature compared to lets say canoes rented in Killarney. They are sturdy and can absorb a certain amount of bumps without any problems. However portaging them is a really heavy business and the yokes of these canoes were not the most comfortable ones. But the few must-do Madawaska portages are at most 300m long and therefore everything is still manageable. Killarney canoes while substantially lighter are much more brittle when bumping against a rock compared to these Madawaska canoes. I would not use a Killarney canoe on the Madawaska rapids. Chances are the canoe is a wreck afterwards.

I used the "Madawaska River and Opeongo River" booklet from the Friends of Algonquin for trip planning (my booklet is age old and I don't know if it is still available). I also perused an age-old library book from Kevin Callan about this trip (its exact name escapes me right now). I also watched a handful of YouTube videos from teams doing the same trip to get a general idea.

We rented our canoes from Greater Madawaska Canoe Rentals (GMC). They are located right beside the river in Griffith. We also took up their offer to shuttle us upriver and parked our cars right at their property during our paddle time.