Running the downtown brown

Let me start by acknowledging that Calgary is a cultural backwater that equates urban planning with more suburbs! and that is cold 8-9 months of the year.


But, BUT!


I live in Inglewood, which was originally downtown Calgary and is on the Bow and Elbow Rivers.  I can ride my bike to work in 10 minutes without crossing a road.  I can paddle to work in 30 minutes (and home in 10).  It's being rapidly gentrified, which means there are lots of home renos happening and new shops and restaurants popping up all the time.  Further, the city has decided that its new wealthy residents require things like stoplights, re-paved bike paths, regular lawn-mowing of the parks, etc... which former residents lived without for decades.

Paddle to work.

It's also home to the weir, now known as Harvie Passage.  The weir used to be a drowning machine, but, over the last few years, they've backfilled behind it and made a whitewater park.  

Harvie Passage, the new weir and my backyard

The last month has brought high water to the Bow in Calgary, so I've been paddling there a lot.  The usual routine is to drive down and run home, then paddle down and go surfing.  Maya swims down to the site, then I ferry her out to the island, which has no other access and serves as a self-declared one-dog off-leash park.


From the picture above, you can see there are two channels.  The river-right (and photo-left) channel has small, flushy drops and big pools between them.  It's great for slalom and for learning to paddle and, at current flows, it has a few really good play features where you can do tricks like this.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=943447338015

There is a pretty big crew out on most weeknights now.

The river-left channel has great surfing waves in the first two drops.  The third drop is not very friendly, especially at high water.  I've run it occasionally in the last month, cleanly until the last time...  

Jon Allen and Jazmyne Denhollander came out a few weeks ago, on their way to Junior Worlds in Wausau, and I offered up a tour of the new site and floorspace to crash on.  Jon and I took a good look at the last drop and I decided to run it.  I ran over a boil on my approach and lost some, speed and when I hit the hole, I stopped like I hit a brick wall.  I cartwheeled fruitlessly for a minute and eventually got out the wet way.  Scheisse.  

The obligatory bootie shoot.

We are all between swims.

Unbeknownst to us, a rafter drowned in the same hole a few hours prior.  As a result, we got some not-so-positive press.

Jon makes the news.

I don't want to rant about this, but use your head.  Water is dangerous.  By dangerous, I mean it can kill you.  In a bathtub or a swimming pool even.  So, before you go swimming, you should learn how to swim.  Don't try to swim across the lake on the same day as the first time you get your toes wet.

The same goes for paddling whitewater and for everything else.  


If your first experience is this

you're liable to break your back.