A day in Gold River

24 hours on the North Island

What to do when you only have a little bit of time in Gold River?

Well you go paddling… Lots. Arriving on Saturday night I met up with the gang in Gold River, specifically at the Gold River pool. The one building that is open the latest in town. We played a very aggressive game of five on five basketball for the next 40mins. The game had been on for awhile. Made it back to the campsite for a bit of single malt, snacks and sleep after a bit of book reading.

Next day we were up, breakfast was on and we were out of the campground after 8:30, which = 2 cups of coffee, a cup of tea, a dips bar, and three packets of Oatmeal. Raring to go, six of us headed off to the Lower Heber River.

The Lower Heber is a classic run on the way into Gold River. Lasting almost 4.5 mms from the put in, it consists of two canyons. The first is lots of fun with a few interesting drops and some fun lines, one great boof. After that comes a bit of boulder gardens and class 2 for almost 2 kms. The 2nd canyon is where the hardest drops and the one portage around a manky drop. It is lots of fun. The Portage is fun as you make your way to the eddy, feed the boats through a crack in the cliff wall, push them through an eddy, and seal launch in below the mank.

Below this is the best drop on the Lower Heber. Has a commitment feel with a committing boof off of a 10ft ledge, avoiding a rock, punching through a hole, and then heading toward river right to avoid the undercut on river left. Good times on the Lower Heber. 

After a great run down this river we headed off to the Upper Gold. We had 11 boaters and made our way through the logging areas of Gold  River to the put in. There is some amazing machinery cutting some big swaths of forest down. Like the Faller Buncher, Fast worker that machine.

The Upper Gold is a classic Vancouver Island run. The river was running at 110cms when we were on it. It was a nice flow. It had a bit more push on a couple of the rapids. I found it made Tombstone, which is one of the main rapids on the run, lots of fun. There is lots of neat spots on the river and it was great to have a large group out on the river. Everyone seemed to have lots of fun. 

After that run we checked out the level of the Upana, but found that it was too low. So with a bit of a shuttle shuffle Joe, Shayne and myself headed out for the third run of the day down the Lower Heber once again. The nice thing about doing the river again was we remembered it quite well and we could just blast through everything and quickly portage the one manky drop. Having the level around 7cms made the river really smooth and not too pushy. We were able to blast down in less than 40mins.

A great 24 hour time period in the sensational paddling town of Gold River. Till the next time.