Solo canoe whitewater training - Part One
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- In July of 2021 I went to Madawaska Kanu Center (MKC) near Barry's Bay, Ontario, Canada to take 5 days of white water training in a solo canoe. My initial motivation was to learn some whitewater related safety and paddling skills.
My longer term motivation was to gain the skills so that one day I could go paddle a more wild river then what you find in Algonquin Park. Of particular interest to me is the Steel River which is located just north of Lake Superior. I watched a video on RUclips by Backcountry Angling Ontario/Lost Lakes which really stoked my interest in wild rivers.
In this first part you will see me discover some initial limitations. Some were physical, others missing skills and finally just dealing with the unexpected (like discovering a completely different feeling type of canoe).
I apologize if this first part seems a bit grim. You will discover in the next part that things dramatically improved as time and practice occurred.
I have to tell you as a 50+ year old who is just getting into this style of canoeing this is very inspiring. Thank you for posting! All the best!
As a 50+ year old myself I completely understand. I just returned from my second year going to the Middle Madawaka River at MKC for some more whitewater training. This time I was in my own solo playboat and I had a pretty good time! Hopefully I will have the video out soon! Thanks for commenting (and sorry about my delayed response, just returning from a few trips).
I actually think style canoeing is very difficult! Whitewater is hard...but it's a different "difficult" I think both disciplines are equally difficult to master. But whitewater definitely has its own danger while style paddling is nearly risk free.
The highs for me included the beauty of the river and surrounding area as well as the obvious joy you were having with the giggles and laughing on the rapids. The lows were my knees feeling twangs of pain in solidarity with your knees. Good on you!
In Part Two the sun is shining and things are much less gloomy and overcast so if you think the river is beautiful in this section just wait until the next one. The knee pain improved in the next few sections. Being in boats that were more my size helped alot.
Looking forward to more, I could definitely see myself looking into this course at some time.
Part Two is already loaded up and ready to go. It comes out next Saturday morning at 11 eastern. Personally I think it's a better episode although my personal favorite is part three! :)
When I started editing this video I thought this was a series you might find interesting, mainly because I remember you playing a bit in a rapid on one of your last trips that you videoed. There is something addictive about riding the current and figuring out the real time puzzle of how to thread your way downriver.
I got out in my boat last Saturday for the first time this year now that my long awaited dry suit finally arrived!
Anyway, as always I am looking forward to your next video and of course I appreciate your feedback.
Great video! It’s funny how white water (wH20) is fast becoming a major interest to us flat water lovers. I’m now planning my first long river trip. Spanish anybody?
My original interest in this came from watching a Lost Lakes video where he explored the Steel River north of Lake Superior. The seclusion/lack of people/remoteness is what drew me to it. The excitement of whitewater is the bonus. Part three of the series shows a pocket canyon going down the Lower Madawaska which was great fun! Thanks for watching and good luck on the Spanish.
Can recommend the Tom Foster 3 party series on fundamentals.
Just moved into MR outrage and ran in through three class III drops on Saturday. The boat is in definitely awesome
I agree completely. I have the dvd set from him. I've also watched his videos now that they are on RUclips.
I've watched the whole series 20+ times because as I've been progressing I've discovered things I missed at my lower skill levels.
Most of my problems with the boat I used in the video came from it being setup more for a much lighter weight person then me. When I moved to my own boat I had to get a boat fitting to get the boat to work right. Moving the outfitting 2 inches went from a constantly buried bow throwing me in the water to a boat that handled as expected. My skills development improved a lot faster after that change!
@@NobleEndeavours123 I've really gotten good at my offside just from this video. I've done at least 1000 offside strokes in the past two weeks
Definitely best to take a white water course unlike myself who just figured go play and see what happens. Definitely a rush to even hit swift water at first but now that I've done a bit of a self learning crash course on a local river, I'm wanting to learn more for bigger stuff. I've hit a class 2 as my biggest so far but mostly just swift water and a few class ones. Haven't dumped yet but it may happen one of these days. Just got a bit wet from water splashing in so far. I feared white water at first but now I'm getting more confident. Stick with it, I'm sure it'll get better.
Probably the most important lesson I learned was to respect the power of the whitewater. Moving water is incredibly powerful!
There are two more parts coming up. In both parts you will see a skill improvement as I gain more experience (and try other boats). By the end of the third part I am handling some relatively big rapids compared to the swifts that you saw in Part One.
Over the winter I obtained a proper whitewater playboat, an Esquif Zephyr XL and today I took it out on flatwater to give it a try while wearing appropriate safety gear including a drysuit. Very interesting afternoon on the water!
Thanks for commenting and providing some encouragement. If you watch the next two parts when they come out please let me know if you can see the improvement too!
Great video! I also took some whitewater solo canoe lessons with MKC in the past.
That is awesome! They teach extremely well. Did you do the Lower Madawaska or the Ottawa River as your end of class trip?
@@NobleEndeavours123 I had both. I took their solo lesson three times. :) Are you planning to go back to MKC?
@@yoyoc7132 I too have now been there for a total of 3 weeks of lessons. This video shows the first week-long session. I will have more videos coming out soon showing the other two week-long sessions. I am very likely to return again. They are good teachers and they provide a great safety net when trying to learn compared to when doing things solo.
@@NobleEndeavours123 wow! 3 weeks! Did you take all of them within a year? (I took 3 times across 3 years, but I also did tandem with them long time ago, and then kayak and river rescue lesson with them too)
@@yoyoc7132 I took one week in 2021 and two weeks in 2022 (about a month apart). I haven't taken their tandem or kayak courses. I also did a whitewater rescue with Boreal in 2022 and an Elora Gorge based whitewater weekend course in 2022 as well.
MKC alumni here. I had my tandem course last year. Booked kayak this year and planning to get solo canoe or SRT next year. I would like to know how you equipted your pocket canyon if you've already done so. Enjoy the river, stay outside.👍
I wonder if we were there around the same time?
I have a Whitewater Rescue Technician course and another solo canoe whitewater course booked this year plus hopefully a number of trips.
I will have an upcoming video that shows the progression of my pocket canyon to current state as a solo whitewater tripping boat. I also now have a Esquif Zephyr XL 2.0 which will hopefully allow me to keep improving my playboating skills.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Consider subscribing so you don't miss that video when it comes out! :)
Thanks! First realistic video ever: wish you showed day one fails a little tho
I am glad you enjoyed the video. First day on a course is always tricky because the other participants didn't take the course to be on RUclips so I end up asking if they are ok with it. In this case it was a relatively new thing to me so I only asked about it towards the end of the first day.
I have since taken three more whitewater trainings all in solo whitewater boats as well as a whitewater rescue course so if you enjoyed this one keep an eye out for those! :)
Glad your having fun.I think I'll stick to flat water. And my knees definetley wouldn't handle it.
I completely respect/support your choice. Whitewater is something to take lightly and as you likely noticied in the video I was in a lot of pain especially in that first boat.
I didn't realize until video editing this part of the series that the boat I was first in was rated for someone 190 pounds or less. At this time of the video I was 60 pounds over that weight. It likely didn't help!
I am very curious to know who your instructor was. Also, was it your decision to start with whitewater in a solo course, or have you taken a tandem course already? Play boating is almost an entirely different discipline and as you found out, quite difficult compared to tandem.
Hi Gary.
I think my goals for the training really didn't fit nicely into the course offerings or equipment that they had available. A lot of the material in the tandem course would have been of interest to me provided I could be in a boat solo. They didn't really have a boat available, even the pocket canyon you see me use in Part Two and Three was jury rigged with something that kind of worked but wasn't as solid as what they normally offer outfitting wise. The playboating caught me off-guard because it's significantly different especially when the first boat I was in was rated for someone a maximum of 190 pounds and I was 60 pounds heavier then that. The pain from tight kneeling was also a huge surprise!
If you watch Parts Two and Three I think my skills started to rapidly improve. I think part of this was being back in a boat that I knew how to steer etc. plus it was sized for my weight (and more). I was also no longer fighting pain!
I've since fully outfitted my Pocket Canyon for whitewater with straps, bags etc. and I've also picked-up an Esquif Zephyr 2.0 XL so I can continue learning the playboating side.
I've also joined both WCA and Whitewater Ontario to keep going with the skillsets. I just need to come out and join you on one of your outings! Whitewater Rescue Technician training is in two weeks and I can't wait!
Thanks for watching and commenting. I've been enjoying your videos as well.
@@NobleEndeavours123 Despite what appears on RUclips, I doubt that many people seriously engage in learning how to handle whitewater paddling a tandem in the way that you were trying to learn. So you found that the MKC does not offer courses specifically for that. They have a lot of students from Quebec where solo playboating is a bigger sport than in Ontario, and Paddle Canada has a curriculum for it. If you watch Bill Mason's Path of the Paddle series for solo, he does teach the style you are interested in but it does not include any offside strokes because he is kneeling ahead of the seat and the canoe is too wide at that point.
I agree with that assessment since it largely matches my own as well.
I love to explore rivers by canoe and although I've been paddling flatwater for more then 20 years now it's only recently that the pull of increasingly wilder rivers has driven the need for a strong understanding of whitewater skills.
At the end of the day, the course was a good one for me. I learned a bunch of new things including some whitewater safety and the start of learning to read the water. I've added to it by watching Bill Mason, Tom Foster and Ray Goodwin. I've also read books by the McGuffins, Bill Mason and again Ray Goodwin. Finally I watch tons of RUclips videos where most of what I try to do is practice figuring out lines. The main thing I do however is get out on the water and practice whatever I can.
I appreciate your comments and thoughts. Thanks for sharing!
Get it brother! Once the spirit of the river gets in your soul it will never leave. Fuck pain killers. Flush them and go paddle.
Completely agree. The painkillers were just Tylenol and only needed on that day. I just returned from another week of whitewater training up at MKC this year and pain wasn't an issue this time around! Thanks for watching and commenting!