Paddleboarding is an amazingly versatile sport. You can pick up a paddleboard and sit on it like a pool float, do small loops with your kids or pets, go for a 20km workout paddle, load 20kg of gears and go camping, or… go full adrenaline, river SUP on whitewater.
And river is what we did this weekend.
Thanks to our amazing Facebook group, it was easy to find enough like-minded and similarly-skilled paddleboarders to register for a River 1 Paddleboarding Course with Ken Larsen in Chilliwack (actually we had so much interest, we organized 4 groups of 5-6 students).
Ken is a great teacher (literally, as he has been a high school teacher for 20 years and holds a Masters Degree in Outdoor Education). He is skilled, patient, clear and fun to learn from. He also has intimate knowledge about gear and boards, as he had industry experience on the design and manufacturing side as well.
Our learning started months before our actual date of instructions. First we need to learn about and acquire a whole new set of must-have gear for river paddling:
- Immersion gear (basically always a dry suit regardless of weather)
- Whitewater Helmet
- Quick-release leash (a flatwater ankle leash can be deadly on the river)
- Throw bag
Of course the usual gear for paddling are still needed and extra important since the chance of falling in is 100% instead of the usual 1%:
- PFD
- Dry bag
- Leash for glasses
Ken was generous enough to lend us his river boards and had a few extra helmets as well. This is fantastic as you can hold off on making such hefty investments if you aren’t sure how much river paddleboarding you are going to do.
With our gears ready, we gathered at Vedder Park in Chilliwack for dry land instructions. Ken walked us through the basics of how a river behaves, what hazards to watch for, and the theory of how to use Power, Approach, and Lean to tackle the river.
We then went down to the river at the most ideal spot one can imagine for beginner river boarders: a straight stretch of river with a huge eddy pool immediately downstream to pull out in. It’s technically the Vedder River as Chilliwack River changes names downstream from Vedder Crossing. On our particular day, the discharge rate was 110 m3/s and height was 2.52m, with water temp at a cold but not freezing 9.2oC. For future reference.
We learned about ‘swimming’ defensively in a river (lean back, look downstream, legs up and ready to brace on obstacles), standing up safely in a river (look upstream to avoid foot entrapment), and we practiced throw-bagging. With the basic safety knowledge down, we took turns jumping into the river to be rescued by our group mates. Flowing down a river at a rate of several meters per second with minimal control was quite the experience.
I always wondered what the point with the throw bags are. Ken specifically informed us that we never throw bag to rescue a swimmer from our boards. What, then, is the throw bag tied to the board good for? By the time a paddler goes overboard and loses control, their partner has no chance to rush down, pull out, and throw the bag from shore.
The mindset of playing on the river, as it turns out, is very different from the other 99% of paddling which is going from point A to point B. The river paddlers would pick out a fun feature like a surf spot or a wave train, and just take turns playing on it for a long time. As they do, their partners are downstream with the bags out ready to throw.
With that skill learned, we turned to the big eddy and practice nose draw paddles, river ferrying, and C turns.
We also hiked our boards upstream and launched to run a small section of the river a few times.
We threw in some pivot turns for fun. The river boards were wicked. The short and wide shape made them very stable so pivot turns and switching stance were easy, but going straight was very tricky. I had to incorporate a nose draw phase at the start of each forward paddle to keep the board going somewhat straight.
Time flew by quickly, and everyone got tired from all the paddling and remounting. By the time we finished our lesson, we were already making plans to form a group to take Ken’s River 2 course, plotting out river paddle plans (eg. Vedder Park to Keith Wilson Road Bridge, a 10km class 1 paddle), and overall getting energized about finding a new horizon in the sport of paddleboarding that we all love.
A final word on safety, because it can’t be over emphasized. Do NOT attempt a river paddle without taking a proper lesson from a certified instructor. This is not something you can learn by watching videos. Do NOT attempt without the proper gears and knowing how to use them. Do NOT paddle alone, always with someone who has also taken river paddle training. Again, the chance of taking a swim is 100%. Even our very skilled instructor fell in a few times.
With these safety issues in mind, I will deviate from my usual practice on this blog and not post the exact location on where we dropped in and paddled since I do not want to encourage people to just come out and try. Give Ken a shout and take a lesson with him. He will make sure to find a section of the river that’s suitable for a beginner. It’s well worth it.
