Recon Blog

May 1-4, 2006
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Red Bull Recon kicked off to a great start when we arrived at the Ottawa River near Beachburg, Ontario, Canada. The idea was to ‘pick up’ Tyler Curtis, who lives on the river’s edge. As luck would have it, the water level was perfect for the famous ‘Bus Eater’ wave. Although this isn’t a new discovery for us, it is still one of the best stationary waves in the world and presents the opportunity to try some new moves and get some great shots. Not one to turn your nose up at! One of the cool things about the spot is that we use a ski rope to get onto the wave. A 100ft rope is attached to the shore with a handle on the end. We then peel into the current and pendulum out until we’re on the wave. After three days of awesome rides and hanging out with buddies that we haven’t seen for a while, the level has dropped so it’s time to head northwards where the snow hasn’t melted as much yet – that’s the general theme of our schedule – as the water drops out in the southern sector, move northwards to where the flow peak is later. If we get to an area where the water is too high, we backtrack a bit to where it’s still lower. (See info sidebar on Tyler’s write up on Bus Eater)

May 5-6, 2006
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The level of the Ottawa is fairly unstable and as the water dropped and the weekend arrived, with the crowds trying to catch the last of the wave, we packed our bags and headed towards Montreal to catch the Lachine rapids at a higher (and colder) level than normally surfed. We also used this time to catch up on the last of the trip planning. Long hours of pouring over maps, guide books (amazingly Quebec has a “guide book of waterfalls of Quebec”) at night – and even longer days on the river with the jet ski. We use a jet ski with a foam sled to access waves in the middle of the high volume St. Lawrence river. This time Dan Campbell was driving with a camera on top of his head. He then simply watches myself and Vincent DuPont (a Montreal local) surf while he gets the shot. After a while, I took over driving and it only took one wipeout for me to realize that the water was a lot colder than I was used to. But our system was operational and we could now head north to Lake St. Jean in search of new waves.

May 7–8, 2006
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We have word that there is a “secret” wave towards Chicootimi so we pack the vehicles along with the jet ski and start the 5-hour drive towards the great Lake St. Jean. Along the way we stop and scout a few dam releases and find gold. One of the thousands of dams in Quebec is having a day of gate testing and we are lucky enough to scout at a level that is perfect. The dam wave raised the water level to about 50,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) in a narrow channel. The waves formed were…let me think…the best ever!

Unfortunately the levels rose and dropped so fast every half an hour that we only got short sessions – short but huge! The cops and dam operators kept tuning up and trying to call us off the water but we just kept giving the two thumbs up. They also only spoke French and we could only say “Merci, perfe!” So they shrugged their shoulders and left. I really hope that the two days of surfing we got wasn’t a once in a lifetime deal – I’ll be back to check for sure.

May 9–10, 2006
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As the level is so unpredictable – we decide to head up to the Mistassibi River further north - to the Black Mass wave on the Mistassibi that we had discovered on a previous short trip last year. A short session at the wave finds us meeting up with YGP (a group of ‘Young Guns’ making a kayaking vid) for an afternoon session. The wave is typical of the waves we now seek out – difficult to catch, hard to surf and requires that we hike back upstream between rides. Unfortunately the rapid was too big for using the jet ski to tow back upstream. But when you pop a move it’s all worth it. There are no small moves on the Black Mass. You get nothing or you go huge.

May 11-12, 2006
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This area is the land of large rivers and huge rapids, which is very surprising as the land is flat – unbelievably flat! The rivers meander over the flat land and plummet off the plateau all in one foul swoop. Most of the rapids that we scouted were unrunnable – not only because of the massive amounts of water but also because of the gradient loss in such a short space. The biggest holes and most unrunnable rapids I’ve ever seen. So we decided to take a flight and look for smaller rapids. We decided that since surf waves need high water, we’d focus on freestyle for now and shift to river running once the levels come down. Good call. We found literally hundreds of waves. We filmed them from the air then plotted them on the map. We then drove and bushwhacked in and used the jet ski to scout them. Most times we had to drag the jet ski through the woods to get it into the water. We turned our noses up and scoured dozens of great waves in search of only the sickest ones. It was a wave buffet– unbelievable that nobody even knows they exist – until now.

May 13-15, 2006
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After getting our fill of wave surfing it was time to buck up and run some big rapids. Enter Chute le Oures on the Ashuapmushan River – also draining into lac St. Jean. Here we have multiple Zambezi-sized rivers draining into lac St Jean, then exiting through the Saugenay canal into the St. Lawrence seaway. Go have a look at a map! We ran the edge of one of the biggest rapids I’ve seen. We weren’t in the impossible meat line but it was a powerful place to be. After running another big but manageable rapid we headed back to two rapids right under the highway where the Mistassini and Mistassibi enter the lake. Surprisingly, people say that they’ve never been run at high flows. Let me tell you why: We first ran the huge slide on Mistassibi – impressive and intimidating but quite simple really. After scouting out the Mistassini rapid Tyler andI both had slick lines avoiding some big hydraulics. I then decided to put the onboard camera on my kayak and have a go. Great shot, bad idea – the combination of the offset balance and lack of focus set me on the wrong line. Apparently I hadn’t even landed in the hole yet and Tyler was already running for his kayak. I dropped into a hole and started tumbling. My paddle broke and I was getting rag dolled. I washed out of the hole and rolled up just in time to drop into the next one. After my head hit the camera I decided I’d swim to save the two week old camera setup (that’s the story I’m sticking to anyway). Regardless, I ended up doing some down time in some really cold water. By this time the boat was on the surface with the camera still rolling. I popped up right in frame and we now have a sweet close-up video shot of my face during a hectic swim. As they say,we’re all between swims – the just get further apart and gnarlier. Swim #1…watch this space!

May 16–21, 2006
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After my big water wetting we decided to head nearer to Quebec city for some low volume creeking. At this point we needed to join up with local legends such as Dominic Chaput, Dominique Fourniee, Vince Ratte, David Laroche and others. We started off running a small slide on the Shawinigan and another double drop for some onboard footage. Next we ran the most popular creek run in the area – The Nelson. The Nelson is high quality Class 4/5 and a must do. Then it was off to Jacques Cartier National Park for Quebec’s first ever extreme race. Dom and Dom put together a team race on the step and technical Cache river. The course was a mile long with non-stop class V white water. Paddlers had to race in teams of two (for safety). It was great seeing a grass roots race done just for the fun of it, and for our filming purposes we really captured the spirit of the Quebec kayak scene. Red Bull Quebec was on the scene and the party was ‘all-time’. In the end, Tyler and I won the race and the coveted stone trophy. I’ll be back for sure. Although small, it was one of the most fun events I’ve ever done.

May 22–24, 2006
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Time for work… the NBC show “Jeep World of Adventure Sports” has come to join us. The plan is to host a three-part episode on site with us. This kind of recognition and exposure is not only a mark of achievement for us as athletes, but for our sport too – they consider our sport cool enough for mainstream TV. We spent the 22nd lost in the woods for 6 hrs (without the NBC crew) hunting for a river. We found a sweet 60-foot drop among others. Bringing a TV crew in there was out of the question, but the river is on the must do list for another time. NBC spent the day doing interviews at a very scenic location. In the afternoon we scouted a drop/slide that we were a little unsure of. Tyler and I probed the drop with an empty kayak, making it painfully clear that the main flow will slam a kayak and kayaker straight into the opposing over hanging cliff. A second attempt reveals and confirms the initial findings. If there’s an easy access drop in Quebec that hasn’t been run before you must ask yourself…why? Another early morning finds us at the Batiscan airport. Float planes fly us into the Jacques Cartier West river deep in the JC park. This is one of the more remote and scenic parts of Quebec. David Laroche has comprehensive maps – as well as having been there the previous spring to cut a path along the riverbank. On the way in we could see there was still a lot of snow on the ground. That meant that the water would be high. Yes, it was. The initial gorge that we wanted to run was blown out and not runnable. That left the rarely run lower section ready to be run at one of the highest levels ever. It started out with a two hour rappel and skid into the canyon and ended up being perhaps my best day of paddling on the trip so far. The section reminded me of the Perth River in New Zealand.

May 25-26, 2006
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Two well deserved days off – they are spent dealing with kayaks, gear and a very full RV – not to mention planning for the remainder of the trip. When we aren’t really busy kayaking we’re really busy planning to go kayaking.

May 27, 2006
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We decided to head onto the south shore of the St. Lawrence with Dom Chaput and Vince Ratte. We’d run a few good drops there before (including the 75ft Chutes de la Chadiere). However, one thing we learned is that on the north shore – the rivers are high as they drain a very large, much colder area while the rivers on the south tend to be smaller drainage and the snow melt occurs earlier in the season, so water was low. The du Sud did give up a small 25ft drop – lots of fun and great opportunity for onboard footage. We decided to scout a few more rivers and drops on nearby rivers. And the gods smiled – on the way to scout a 60ft we come across anearby creek with awesome drops, perfect water level and ideal sunlight for both Scott and Des to shoot. We nicknamed this section “happy surprise”, but this surprise came with a price.... BUGS. Quebec is known for its bugs. One of the things you will hear when expressing a desire to head north is to beware of the bugs – come prepared. Well prepared or not, the bugs are bad. A few cans of DEET, frantic waving of the hands and general slapping helped keep the biting to a mere 2000 a minute. This actually presents a serious problem for filming and photographing. Scott and Des are perfectionists and bugs in the shot just don’t do. They’d stand away from the cameras until we’d enter the rapids and then run to the cameras and shoot. A few times we had to rerun rapids.

May 28, 2006
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This is the second sunny day in over 2 weeks. Rain helps river levels rise, but also can be a cause for them dropping. Rain melts snow and the rivers peak quickly, but also fall just as quickly. Having studied the Mastegouche flow charts over the past week we decided that today is the day – any longer and it may drop too much. This section has been run before but we intended to run it at a higher level than ever before. Many a paddler told us not to go, as it was just too high. None the less we pulled in and found it to be great The slides are spectacular, and we spent the day running and re-running the 1-mile section. Unfortunately the bugs have followed us north and there was no escaping them. Any time spent off the water was spent killing bugs or hiding in the RV. All good!

May 29, 2006
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The water in the Quebec City region is still a little high for the falls we have planned out so we decide to head up north towards Chicoutimi again. The first time we were here we were given a list of 10 possible waterfalls/rapids to run. We have nicknamed it ‘the ten’. We spend most of the morning driving to the region and scouting drop after drop. The waterfalls are all good, water levels are not ideal for all of them and we end up only running one of the many drops scouted (Shipshaw gagnot – multi-channeled, multi-lined drop). It was more of a rapid with multiple channels and lines. We encounter a small issue with a slide we are scouting on private property and are told of another fall down stream. We find the farm and find a magnificent drop – after negotiating a field of cows. We also come across a church constructed in 1913 on the top of the hill overlooking the fall. The church is still used 3 times a year. The water looked too high so we’ve put this fall (a double - 40ft onto a 60-footer) on the A-list to return to once the water drops to the ideal level. A good dinner and beers were well deserved.

May 30, 2006
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We sleep the night at the same camping spot used for the initial big waves (bus eater) so we start the day by checking levels – or should I say we start the day with the siren of the dam releasing water. Rather excited we head to the river. The channel we had been surfing weeks earlier was barely flowing. It’s definitely a springtime overflow channel and we decide to come back next year. We’ve heard of a waterfall in Chicoutimi town centre. We go and scout –but find that although beautiful, the rapid is fairly unrunnable. The rock is sharp from dynamite blasting and the river disappears through undercuts throughout the drop. No worries – we have been told of another drop a few hours drive east. A short hike takes us to a dam site with a 30ft slide into a 30ft waterfall. Three channels converge in a canyon followed by a few rapids downstream. Sweet. I decided to run the center-most impressive channel. As I came down the slide I got slowed down by the rock, which was rough. As I went over the fall I went over the handlebars and hit the pool below upside down – not good. I was immediately ejected from my boat and had to have Vince Ratte rope me to shore before I swam down through the canyon. My boat immediately reached its expiry date as it ran a rapid or two and wrapped around a rock downstream. Dom C helped me retrieve it and we hiked back up to try a different line. This time we both ran clean lines down the 40ft fall in the river right channel. I called the line the redemption line. Swim #2! And counting? Hope not.

May 31–June 5, 2006
At this point everyone on the team has had to go their separate ways forother engagements. It will be 5 days of rest and re-energizing for the next month of our adventure.

June 5, 2006
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What a day in kayaking. Our core team has reconvened for part two of the trip – with a few additions. From this week forward our core team (excluding our new local friends) is as follows: Scott Lindgren – SLP shooting Super 16mm film, Dan Campbell – SLP shooting P2 HD footage, Nate Nash – Matchstick productions shooting HD beta cam, Demian Whitley – MSP/ Freeride – Cable cam operator, Ben Brown (NZ) – Kayaker/ photographer, Desré Pickers – Trip photographer, Steve Fisher – Kayaker/ photographer. Local kayakers: Dominic Chaput, Vincent DuPont. That’s what I call firepower!

June 8, 2006
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Chutes de la Saint Ursule. This is the day we’ve all been waiting for. On a trip like this there’s usually a drop and/or a shot that afterwards we’ll call ‘the one’. After seeing this drop 10 days earlier and monitoring its flow the stars have finally aligned. There was also other planning to be done. This type of drop requires (for me anyway) a full-face helmet, mountain biking body armour and ice hockey elbow guards. This drop is well known by kayakers Dominic Chaput and Dominique Fourniee as they ran just the last stage at low water two years ago. Dom C is the one who brought us here, believing that the whole thing was runnable. Just as well, we had him on the team, as no other kayaker has ever believed it’s ‘good to go’. The drop is a multistage slide something like 200ft long. Halfway down is the crux – gnarly boulders in the centre, a bad slot on river left and an under cut wall on the right. The line is to skirt the right undercut and bounce off the right wall. Keeping it together here is key so that you can run the rest upright and forwards. The drop ends in a 70ft sliding drop and you get air off the 30-40ft. This is the best/worst/gnarliest/sweetest drop I’ve personally encountered. As I dropped in, everything went white and I had to go by memory. As I’d anticipated/hoped, I bounced off the right wall with my paddle, elbow and deck of my kayak. The next time my eyes cleared I was entering the last phase on my side and got it together just in time to hit the final rooster tail. I hit the bottom dead flat and broke my helmet visor on the deck of my kayak. All was well and I couldn’t believe I was in one piece at the bottom of this drop. It was one of the best moments of my life. Would I do it again? Probably not. Dom C was sitting in the eddy at the bottom (for safety) and was now fired up to give it a shot too. With no chit-chat he started the hike up the hill. He was un-phased by the fact that he was in his regular kayaking gear minus the extra body protection. Again, a smooth run through the crux but then unexpectedly he got spun backwards. For a few tense moments things looked bad, but with not a split second to spare, he spun back around as he dropped into the final slide. He too had a clean run out the bottom. Two for two! The drop was shot from all kinds of angles on HD and super 16mm and I’m sure the segment will be pretty sweet.

June 11, 2006
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We’ve been spying on a crazy slide that we’ve affectionately called ‘@#$% in your pants’. We’ve been back to it 6 times to check on varying water levels. So far we’ve only seen it too low and now the heavy rains have pushed it way too high. Although it’s frustrating, this drop is worth the wait. In the words of the camera crew, it will be “all-time”. We’ll keep waiting it out. The rains have now stopped and the water is dropping slowly. In the meantime we’ve kept ourselves busy by shooting some ‘B roll’ and have run another sweet double drop nearby as well as a photogenic slide called Chutes Shawinigan. Next, whilst we wait for flows to drop, we plan to return to the Mastagouche River. We previously ran it at the highest flow ever. It’s now at double that flow so we’re going to go see what it looks like.

JUNE 12

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Vincent DuPont has come to join us on his few days off. We check the flow of ‘@#$# in your pants’ falls and it’s still too high, so off we return to the Mastagouche to run the river at the highest flow that’s ever been attempted. The run was pushy but good to go. The bugs were still outrageous but seemed to have tapered off a little. This time we had Nate from MSP as well as Scott L and Dan Campbell all shooting. What was good about this day is that we got to push the line of what is possible. The flow was more than double that of previous runs – once again, people just haven’t made the drive to check the river at this flow. Most paddlers are ‘weekend warriors’ and can’t risk a paddling day driving to something that may not go. That’s where we come in…sometimes it feels like we specialize in driving far to runs that just don’t go! But not today – the Mastagouche is one of Quebec’s best runs at 7.5 cms. As we leave we have a few car issues, but nothing that 4 boys in bug suits can’t handle. End with a late night drive back to Quebec City before heading northwards.

JUNE 14

We find the farm that the fall is on – but after hours of looking for the path to the falls we decide to do it the honest way - if not harder way - straight through the bush. The local community is less than helpful (except the farm owner who is very welcoming) so when we find it’s not good to go (it lands straight on rock), we start looking for another drop on the same river a few miles down stream. It’s a sweet double drop – perfect for the Cable Cam, which we set up for Scott. Ben and I run both drops multiple times. As it starts getting dark, the bugs come out (first day with few bugs) so we hurriedly pack up and tackle the long drive back to Quebec.

JUNE 15

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We’ve spent a couple of days driving in circles scouting gnarly drops. Some just didn’t go and with recent rains some levels returned to earlier spring levels. Quebec has been showing us why many of her drops haven’t been run. At this point Scott L and Demian leave and our slightly streamlined team have decided to head to what we’ve nicknamed the ‘Ring of Terror’.

JUNE 16 - 17

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We are still driving… We had camped the night at Manic 5 (Dam number 5 on the Maniquougan river) and having another troubling night with no-see-ems (unanimously decided they are worse than mosquitoes because they can get through anything!). Ben has been particularly hard hit – after taking sedatives to get to sleep, he lay sprawled and uncovered for all the bugs to feast upon. Sounds crazy but these bugs are serious. Our glands are up and we’ve all had to take antihistamines just to stay sane.

The second day of our drive, and after a short ferry ride, we are still on the road. The road turns to dirt and the main town in the area ends up being a gas station and fire fighters base camp. I’ve travelled all over the world and there aren’t too many places that feel so isolated and inhospitable. Great. This is what we’ve been looking for… lets just hope the rivers give it up!

JUNE 18

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Lake Manicougan - A circular ring of water, 40 miles in diameter, formed by some sort of meteorite impact. Looking at images from Google Earth, we’ve established that with the geology and runoff, there are a number of rivers leading in and out of this lake – all with potentially runnable white water. We have no firsthand information and we know that there are just about no access roads other than one main road. We cross the 51st Parallel and keep driving north. The water seems a little lower than expected but we keep heading up to our goal river – le Torrent (the name itself gives us hope!). Despite pouring rain, the ‘Torrent’ is too low. We spend a few hours bush-whacking and find that it is a run well worth revisiting in the spring when there’s no bugs and the water is high. Further along the road – another river – good to go, Ben, Steve, Nate and Dan all put on for the 2-hour paddle.

JUNE 19

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We can see that the area has gradient and water, but access is tough and the water is a bit low. So we decide to head back to highway 138 that runs along the St Lawrence River – and across all the rivers that run into it. We take one of the major forestry roads that runs Southeast across the valley – it’s a very bumpy gravel road through Canadian wilderness and forestry areas, with few or no signs of which direction to head. Our only vague navigation is by GPS. Much of the area has been destroyed by the forestry and logging industry, but a group of tree planters were kind enough to give us some directions. They seemed rather excited to see some other people.

We spend most of the morning crossing the valley and much of the afternoon looking for a waterfall that had been clearly marked on the map (but the map was wrong). Thinking we’d found the section, Ben and I paddled the 2 km section but with no luck. Another night with bugs doesn’t sound appealing so we tackle the drive to Sept Illes.

JUNE 20-21

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Ben’s car has had an incident with one of the many bumps along the dirt road so we attempt to find someone who is willing to fix it – in a town the size of Sept Illes that’s quite a feat. Car trouble is an integral part our way of life. We leave it in service and scout some of the waterfalls and rapids along the 138. Later that night we scout on Google Earth again and narrow the selection to one river called the Riviere Rochers.

It’s raining again today so we set off gingerly towards the river. BIG RIVER DAY. This run has been high on my list for some time. It’s been done before but most of the rapids until now have been called portages. We got on to a world-class wilderness trip. Multiple channels, with each a channel broken up into multiple rapids. Class A higher volume creeking. The run ends in a spectacular rapid under the highway bridge before dropping into the St. Lawrence River.

For a change we start to drive south towards Forestville to catch the ferry across the St. Lawrence Seaway towards a legendary waterfall in Gaspésie. Another late night and early morning…

JUNE 22

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We catch the ferry early - it’s a gamble as we have no idea about the water level on the fall at this moment, nor do we know if the fall is even runnable. The only info we have is a tourist pamphlet with a low quality pic. But after an hour ferry trip and short drive we are rewarded for our good faith – about a 100ft long slide dropping about 60ft. Conveniently there were our favourite ‘Belvederes’ – strategically based balconies for filming from.

Have to rush back to get to the ferry so we can drive to find a 90ft drop further south before the sun goes down. We pass the time on the ferry having a boys “ugly face contest”.

We get to the St. Marguerite River Valley and spend the remaining daylight hours looking for the fall – there are a few in the area and we’re sent on a wild goose chase. At nightfall we settle in for the night and plan to wake up early to complete the search.

JUNE 23

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This is the last day of our adventure. Tomorrow is the Formula One Grand Prix in Montreal – not to be missed. We get a good tip as to where the 90ft drop is and confirmation that it may be runnable. However, we have one small problem – an unfriendly (and a few other words) farmer who won’t allow us to cross on his land. We drive for a few hours looking for other entries but we are stumped. The only way to access the drop would be with a jet ski from down stream and our jet ski is back in Montreal. Oh well, we’re all tired and ready to go from the bush to the city, the hard life to the high life. So what now? We head towards Quebec City to have our ninth look at ‘#@$$ in your pants’ falls. If it’s good to go, we plan to stay the night and set up the cable cam – but will it give it up or stay an un-run slide? The water has come down to the level we were waiting for but after sending water weighted kayaks down we decide to give up. The kayak pretty much explodes as it hits the crux bounce on a 200ft slide. So this time there is no grand finale. It’s time to head to Montreal to join the Red Bull crew at the Grand Prix.

JUNE 24

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As we look back on a tough but incredible two-month experience exploring Quebec, we get a heroes welcome in Montreal. All that’s left is a weekend of Red Bull parties with the two Red Bull F1 teams. There’s also something to be said about sitting in a VIP suite sipping cold beers whilst watching the world’s fastest cars race by.

What’s awesome for our little sport of kayaking is how much respect we’re starting to gain amongst the heroes of other much bigger worlds…and the way we do that is by pushing harder, raising the bar and doing what people thought wasn’t possible – like what we’ve done on the Red Bull Recon. And our mark of achievement, not only for us athletes but for our sport in general, is the recognition and the faith that gets put in us by companies like Red Bull, Matchstick Productions, Scott Lindgren Productions, other sponsors and all the magazines and TV entities that make our lifestyles possible.

All that remains as we wind down is a few days of classic jet ski kayaking in Montreal.