Slave River Paddle Fest!
Paddle Fest on the Slave River was one of the best festivals I have ever been too. It was put on by the Fort Smith Paddling Club over the August long weekend. It was great. There was food, parties and awesome events all weekend.
Some of the great events included a beach ball race where a team had to get there beach ball from one eddy to the one below. The only rules where no pulling skirts and no use of river knives. It was super fun. My team with Theo, Sonny, Christina and I and we got first place! We all won a flip flop. I got one that says “Surfer Girl” on it. It is sweet.
The other big event was the home town throw down rodeo. It was a close one. Two people from each heat made the finals making a final of 4 people with one ride to show off what you got. Shane from Golden BC finished 4th, Sean from Jasper AB finished 3rd, I finished 2nd and Leif from Colorado finish 1st with a sweet ride.
I am now continuing my journey heading to Edmonton then working towards Vancouver. I am going meet my mom in Edmonton for a visit.
I would like to thank John, Gen, Adam and Hillary for letting me stay at there place for a month and be a bum in Fort Smith. It is a great town with awesome people and one of my favorite rivers ever. Everyone should go and paddle the Slave! It is really not as far away as you think it is! You could make it in 3 and a half days of driving from Ontario.
Here are some photos from Paddle Fest and the last few days on the Slave River!
Johnny
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| Leif going big and clean! Photo by Theo Van Zyl PaddleFest |
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| Gen ensuring everyones safty. Photo by Leif Anderson PaddleFest |
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| Playing aroundo on the raft at Paddle Fest PaddleFest |
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:52 pm. Add a comment
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
So I have one more week left here on the Slave River in Fort Smith NWT. Which I am stoked to hit the road again but also so sad to leave. This river is amazing. I think I could paddle it all day every day and still feel like I did not get enough time on it. I will have spent about a month here and only have seen a very very very small portion of it because it is just so big. Here is at map made by Leif of most of the rapids and features! Check them out!
We have also found a great German documentary of the Slave. It has some great shots of the size and is really funny.
Watch it here!
The last few days have been still in the high water level although getting closer to medium. We have been surfing features called Sweet Spot (huge fast bouncy wave that is not good for my shoulder with an island right behind it fallowed by a couple holes) and Hang Over Cure which the pictures are of. Hang Over Cure is small but it is fast and hard and bouncy making it super fun.
Paddle Fest is this weekend. There are all ready 19 boaters here for it. Minus one that dislocated his shoulder today and swam pretty much all of the Mountain Portage section with one arm. Not a fun swim but he is alright and has a lot of questions for me.
Other than that nothing new really. Next week I will be heading towards Edmonton for a visit!
Johnny
Posted by JohnnyMisadventures at
1:55 AM
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 1:00 pm. Add a comment
Saturday, July 25, 2009
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| Looking at the sneak line at Pelican Photo by Leif Anderson browntown |
The water level is coming down now! Finely! It is at 5000cms so it is now low enough for the high water features which is sweet. Yesterday we headed to the Rapids of the Drowned. Which is the only set of rapids on the Slave that are actually in the NWT. All the others are in Alberta. It also means I have been into all 4 sets of rapids now which are Cassette, Pelican, Mountain Portage and Rapids of the Drowned. Anyways here some photos of the wave. We paddled with the guys from Golden. The wave was alright. Hard to get to the top. It also had no name before so we started calling it Brown Town because it sounds better than the wave with no name.
Johnny
All the photos below are credited to John Blyth and Leif Anderson
Posted by JohnnyMisadventures at
2:11 PM
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 12:58 pm. Add a comment
