MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Summer 2019

50 character there is “manky”, appearing unrunnable. River- left of the Lightning Bolt showed flat slate rock, easy to move along and possibly a platform to launch the kayaks into the water below to pass the cascade. So we added climbing rope, harnesses, ascenders, and belay devices to the packing list. The option to get out to the rim and portage the whole canyon if necessary—combined with approval from search-and-rescue in Jasper, Alberta, who would answer any call of distress—finally gave the team a green light to board the Beaver. There must have been a kayaker on that Jasper rescue squad. The Ram River flows over the Scimitar’s 60-foot cascading entry and into a narrow pinch. The rock in this area is flat, making scouting easy. After “The Slot” the walls open before closing down into the Lightning Bolt where the river flows into the Scimitar proper—a nearly five- kilometre hallway, 300 metres tall. To stare down that corridor from the seat of a nine-foot whitewater kayak was our objective. We copied our plan from the first descent attempt: fly into Sun Dog lake, hike to Sun Dog River, paddle or wade to the Ram, paddle to the Canyon and figure it out. The Slot was a gift, the whitewater was a C- for quality but it was runnable and the path was clear. The Lightning Bolt was a different story. At river left, flatrock features had collapsed, and the rapid was ugly and not runnable. We had three options: sketchy entrance low on river left into a nasty boulder garden where the final kayaker would be left alone after helping the others; get up and out and hope for a spot to rappel back in but risk having to portage the whole Canyon; or, a launch on river-right from an eight-metre shelf into a shallow surging boil of water. Deciding on the launch meant taking on much more risk than we said we would. Eight metres is more than enough height to cause some damage. While the water in the target landing zone was aerated, it was shallow. Water sporadically surged to river-right from the main chute. The lows revealed the questionable depth and the boulder that created a bit of a channel, the deepest zone. Arriving in this narrow zone while adjusting the boat angle to around 45 degrees CHRIS KORBULIC After The Slot the walls open before closing down into the Lightning Bolt where the river flows into the Scimitar Canyon proper—a nearly five-kilometre hallway, 300 metres tall.