Bax & Dad's excellent adventure

For those of you who havn't taken a river trip it is important to recognize the hazzards. The things that look benign can end up becoming potentially life threatening if you are not careful


This is a log jam with some sweepers that can your boat can get caught up on. The problem with a sweeper is that water still runs through it. The log can grab you while the water pulls you under.


The white water that looks harmless identifies a change in current underneath which might mean shallow water or a huge boulder that is resting inches below the surface.



Here is a below the water sweeper. The problem with these logs is you don't know how long they extend into the river. For our raft this wasn't a problem as it bounced off most things that were at the same height as the logs.

A large log jam in the middle of the river usually means that something is behind it. It also had a strong gravitational pull for the raft which essentially was a well organized floating log jam.

Here you can see what is behind the jam.


A high sweeper can pull your stuff off the raft. The sweeper that we hit on the Chinlak rapids was about 3 feet about the water level and was a densely branched spruce.


Here is a water level sweeper which you would not want to meet while floating in the river.