We had a bit of rain, mostly on the central/north section of Vancouver Island. After looking at a number of flows and areas, and getting some beta from Shayne, Corey and myself decided to head off to the Memekay system. The Guage on the Salmon river above the Memekay was at 76cms when we arrived at the takeout. It was a easy drive 8kms up the road to the W300 connector. From there we hiked down to the river, Corey having his boat slip off a log and end up with a small hole. Glad I had a roll of duct tape in my Watershed drybag.
This river was first discovered by the kayaking community in 2006 when a group of paddlers explored the Middle Memekay. Steve Rodgers, Braden Fandrich, Alistar Champion, Jakub Drenc, Chris Mennel, Jan Dettmer and Shayne Vollmers put in during January that winter and checked out this fantastic river. It has seen a number of descents since then.
We put on and headed off down river around 12:45pm finishing around 2:45-3pm. The first bit of the river was wide open before it tightened up into very impressive deep canyons. The majority of the river was class 3-3+, at our flow it was a bit continuos, with some smaller pools in-between rapids. There was a few bits of wood, one comes as a bit of a surprise around a blind corner. We had just enough room to duck it. The main two drops are back to back. The first was a nice 6-8ft boof, the next was a ramp over a hole followed by another hole. Great times.
Highly recommend this run if you come to the island.
Take-out Bridge
After river beverages
Start of Hike in
Can you see the Karma
Safety first
Checking out the river
Corey not so happy, but glad we had duct tape
Corey looking pretty happy
One of the harder rapids
The 2nd harder rapid, which is right after the first one.
Shrooms
Deep canyons of the Middle Memekay
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