Pretty Tough | Girls Kick Butt! » Spring Break in Vancouver, Island

Spring Break in Vancouver, Island

by Christina Russell
April 10, 2008 - This spring break, I headed North to Canada for a week of creek boating on Vancouver Island. I had never been paddling in Canada before but I had heard great things about it. Early Sunday morning, we began out twelve hour drive from Bend to the port at Twassen. We camped out at the loading dock prepared to board the next morning as an oversize load (we had five boats on the roof of the truck). The crew consisted of friends from Bend, Eugene, and Hood River- all eager for some classic paddling.

Photo by: Christina Russell

Austin Rathman, used his good karma to secure two cabins near the Gordon River system near Port Renfrew. All of us were used to camping out in the cold, rainy, snowy weather but this was a welcome change. We had a HOT TUB! WOO HOOO!

Our first day in Canada involved a huge food shopping spree and stop at the gas bar….

Photo by: Christina Russell

But what we really needed to do was go paddling…we settled on running the lower section of the Gordon River. The put in is actually Bugaboo Falls. A 30 footer into a 25 footer. It was almost too good to be true. We then realized there was a piece of wood in the second part of the drop- yep too good to be true. We couldnt run the ralls into the Gordon. Instead, we had to make the sketchy hike down to river level.

Photo by: Christina Russell
Bugaboo Falls-

The hike down to the river is very steep and slick. Luckily the locals have installed some seriously thick rope to help ya make it down safely.

Photo: Christie Glyssmeyer
Me chillin at the put-in

Photo: Christina Russell
Josh and I on the rio….

Here’s a look at the Middle Gordon (below) which we ran on the second day of the trip…Check out the photos:

Photo: Christina Russell
Scouting the first drop on the Middle Gordon..

Photo: Christina Russell
Ryan Scott on drop 1

Photo: Christina Russell
Josh Mckeown on drop 1

The middle gordon is steep and classic. A must hit on the list of Vancouver’s rivers!

This is a good time to say that by day two, we had seen just about all kinds of weather possible: snow, hail, rain, sun…. and there was MORE snow on the way….

By the second day, we had a flat on Austin’s FJ cruiser ( for which he didnt have the key to the locking lug nut) and on Ryan’s Explorer. NOT cool. We were down two vehicles and one of them we couldn’t even figure out how to change the tire!

Check back soon to see if we make it out…