Botched Homathko, Commitment Canyon, and Drive Home

Driving from Deese Lake to Williams Lake to possibly paddle the Homathko was long. Arriving in Williams Lake we found that the planes that are usually in the Butte Inlet (The takeout for the Homathko) weren’t there. That means instead of paying 700$ to fly back to the vehicle it would cost about 2,400$. We exhausted our resources finding that we could book a Helicopter for about 2,000$. Even that was more than we could afford. One option remained; four of us paddle the classic Homathko and meet the other two at Skookumchuck Tidal rapids. That would require about a 90 mile ocean paddle tagged on the end of the regular Homathko run. It was doable and the paddlers were game. Unfortunately, a forgotten license was enough to keep one shuttle driver from being willing to risk driving.
We cut our losses and decided that half the group (Daz Clarkson, Dave Thompson, and Andy Round) would go to Skookumchuck, and the kids (Me, Tristan McClaren, and Max Bechdel) would creek in whistler.
With flows low our first target was Commitment canyon of the Ashlu. The canyon starts off with a great drop named, Fifty-fifty. We decided it was named that because you could only hit your boof stroke off the second lip fifty percent of the time.
Here are a few glamour shots of max as he gets dressed before commitment canyon.

Once we were dressed we dropped into this falls. Max had to go first becuase he lost the Rock Paper Scissors competition the night before.

Here is a shot of the Falls from below

We each hiked up and ran it again because it was so much fun. After the initial drop it was nearly impossible to keep from being swallowed into the pile.

Once you make it through the falls the rapid isn't over. The current goes straight into a bad wall and we all had to fight off the wall each time.

With an incredible, fun trip behind us we all began the pilgrimage home. Daz and Dave went back to the UK and into the workforce. We dropped Andy off at his pickup truck in White Salmon, Washington where he is planning on building a self-sustaining home this winter. And the Idaho crew is back in Idaho now, Max is going on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and Straight to Chile. Tristan and I have been cutting logs out of creeks and preparing for the spring creeking season. Plans are also underway for a trip to Asia this winter putting Tibet or Afghanistan in as possible destinations.