Aug. 23rd - Aug. 24th, 2019 Palmer Rapids Canoe Practice

Our drive from Ottawa to Palmer Rapids was uneventful. We arrived at the campground early Friday afternoon, put up our tents and picked up our canoes and gear. We had arranged all of that via phone at the local paddler coop. At this time of the year the campground was full and a reservation was necessary.

After we build up the tent and then we paddled over to the actual rapids and see what they were all about and started practicing our white-water skills. Anna and Tobi had never done any white-water canoeing. And for Hani and myself this was also a good practice opportunity.

Our camp spot at the Palmer Rapid Paddler Coop.

During late August the Madawaska has relatively low water levels. This means that basically the 300 to 400m stretch downstream of Jessup's campground is the only white-water stretch that can be paddled. There is another white-water stretch of about 100m right beside Jessup's campground. However the main channel there is very narrow, curvy, and probably only navigable for kayaks.

The 100m of rapids close to Jesse's campground. We ended up practicing just to the left of this picture.

But we decided to practice on the last 30 meters of that stretch first by paddling upstream in smooth water on the side and then turning downstream into the fast-flowing water (basically we practiced eddying in and out of fast-flowing water). As it turned out, Hani and I managed to topple our canoe right at our very first eddying turn with plenty of people at the campground shore watching it :-). Everyone had a good laugh. Thanks god Hani's camera survived the water exposure (it was reasonably protected). This was our only toppling event at Palmer Rapids and it is fair to say that things happened right at the easiest task. Hani and I certainly paid more attention to paddling details after our toppling and it paid off.

Portaging the canoe upstream. The portage way on Palmer Rapids is easy but very sandy. However these Royalex canoes are really heavy.

In the above video Hani and Tobi are doing a nice eddying turn into the fast water flow (the video is high res and can be enlarged when viewing).

After practicing eddying for about an hour we decided it was time to see what the 300 to 400m grade 1 and grade 2 stretch was all about. We first scouted the whole stretch from various points at the shore line and figured out how we were going to paddle this stretch. This 300 to 400m stretch has multiple rapids of varying difficulties. One nice feature is that typically after a rapid there is a possibility to eddy into a shallow pool on the side and regroup and prepare paddling the next section. This stretch also provides some opportunity having to cross from one side of the river to the other side before entering the next rapid. Towards the end a few rapids are connected to each other and the eddying becomes a bit more challenging. At the vary end is a nice big final rapid with a turn before the river ends up in the lake. If one encounters problems with the big final rapid the reward is being flushed out into the small lake at the end. We did only one run on Friday evening at the 300 to 400m stretch. Our intent being to practice there all day on Saturday.

A nice view of the middle portion of the 300 to 400m Palmer Rapids stretch. We started well above the corner in the upper right of this picture.

On Friday evening we had a good dinner at the Heartwood Restaurant in Combermere.

The weather on Saturday was beautiful. We first folded up our tents and had breakfast. Then we spend most of the day practicing at the 300 to 400m stretch of Palmer Rapids. Our only chore was to portage the heavy Royalex canoes upstream after a downstream paddle run. We did about 6 or 7 runs all in all. We also had a nice time swimming.

A beautiful morning at the Paddler Coop.

A lot of people practicing and playing in the water at the very last rapid.

Hani and Tobi sitting in the "standing wave" at the very last rapid and enjoying themselves!

Anna and Tobi approaching a rapid.

Anna and Tobi in the middle of some wave action!

More wave action!

Taking the turn towards the last rapid.

Hani and Tobi in some wave action! 

Hani and Tobi nicely lined up for going through the last rapid.

Tobi and Hani going upstream in the last rapid.

Eddying out of the standing wave at the last rapid and nearly toppling over!

All in all we had a wonderful weekend and it was the ideal preparation for the upcoming Petawawa paddle a week later. We will go to Palmer Rapids for paddling clinics again. It is really an ideal place to practice white water canoeing.