This is going to be an adventure i've never done a river trip where i have to run rapids and i've never done a river trip solo  very shallow here okay learn something there talk about a rush.

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This is going to be an adventure i've got my gear with me there's no snow on the ground it's pretty cold it's really early in the year i've never done a river trip where i have to run rapids and i've never done a river trip solo so i'm gonna spend the next few days i don't know if it's one night two nights.

Or three nights however long it takes me to get to a meet-up spot where i've told my wife to pick me up i have my in reach with me so i can text her whenever i get there but this is gonna be a matter of uh exploration running rapids fishing uh finding spots to camp and trying to stay dry and warm.

I can see the river from here we've got a hike down this first portage and we'll get back with you once you put in the water this is amazing already dramatic sky really cool scenery and i want a river that i've never paddled on before all by my lonesome should be a good trip.

Well as pretty as it is it's about that shallow so on we go into the wind and the lay of this river is quite odd i've gotten not not odd just different i got all these sand banks everywhere and look at this i thought this was a beaver lodge but who knows it might just be wash up.

I think i'm gonna go on land and check it out it's pretty interesting to me if it is a beaver lodge that is too cool you can see entrances in little channels little canals look there is one right there an entrance into the beaver lodge another and i think another down there for the different heights of the river.

When it when it raises and falls now i've only been paddling for about a half hour or so but this is too cool to pass up this is what i want to do on this trip just paddle down the river if i see some cool spots stop check it out if i see a really nice spot stop at camp see a good spot to fish do that take my.

Time no rush no agenda check this mess out this is the coolest i've never seen anything remotely like this or i could see right in look how high up it goes like that's enormous so it does rise up and the water.

Rises up and falls so i imagine that's why the mr and mrs beaver here have uh multiple heights and multiple entrances wow this thing is a work of freaking genius some snow still holding on over here it's like clay sand big bird oh yeah and then look you could.

Just see remnants of beaver chew everywhere probably a bunch of tracks yep turkey trucks maybe or crane but this has all got to be flood plain too so when i do make camp i write on some trip reports that you need to make camp about six feet higher.

Than the river just to give it room to grow a room to raise and lower this is another little secondary river coming in or a stream at least maybe there's some fish in here let's check this out this is awesome man i feel so remote here.

 okay well this is quite shallow and meandering there's a bunch of snow back in here  all right let's get back on our way there's not much to see here i thought that where this entered the actual river it might be.

Uh good for fishing but it's all too shallow right at the mouth there we got to find some deep pools i think that might take a day who knows and it's really cold still so i'm not sure if the fish are active tomorrow's supposed to warm up quite a bit though that's a bonus.

I see sandhill cranes and geese coming up i mean you no harm i mean you no harm canadian brethrens that all is well you do not need to fear me do not fear me friends birds are beautiful animals are our friends goodbye.

 with  my second cast and it's a trout no it's a pike little baby pike how do i mistake that as a trout a little freaking snat racket first pike of the year though.

That's cool nice to know they're in here i'm pretty hungry because like i said that was the second cast first or second cast since i've been here little snot rocket and off he goes smelling of tin okay i'm happy with that a little pike.

To start the day no problems with that how about that hair though problem with that what a beauty spot this is there's another little piece of water on the other side of this little land i could definitely camp there but it's too early in the day i just uh i'm happy to see those spots.

Like that for camps oh i told you it was cold everyone pulled over here a little bit of a snack somewhat of a lunch and she's snowing it's doing pretty good so i'm layer it all up and uh time to get back on the water i have a more of a white watery.

Type boat coming but i just don't have it yet it's from swift as well so that's what i want to do this year is get more into white water type stuff and this is just i'm not even i don't know what this will be if this just qualifies as white water or not i'm definitely not trying to talk it.

Up but in this year coming i i do want to to do that more often there's something in the water like it's nothing it's nothing it's just super shallow little moving water let's go uh let's just let's just paddle it and see this is.

Nothing i know it's nothing i just had this little stinky boat oh it's so rocky no i want to go around this so very rocky it is not runnable so i'm going to try to line it instead of portaging it this will be a lot better.

A lot easier to think famous last words well we're not even a halfway support tajiki i don't know we'll see let's see looks a little bit deeper here yeah okay okay okay here we go that much much better with the deeper water oh okay.

I was starting to think it was gonna be like like that the whole time nice super happy with that okay okay learned something there we're okay we're okay a little bit scared for a little joe we're good we bumped up onto a rock on the front i just got a i was trying to watch around.

Beside me i think maybe pay attention more in front right that makes sense anyways we're good there's a little bit more and i know these are nothing this is just my first time really trying to do this somewhere i've never been and by myself in the wrong boat for it.

Yeah okay all right kind of get the hang of it i uh i gotta pay attention here but i'll get back with you if um there's something better than this so i gotta learn how to ferry over okay we're sloppy slop sloppy joe stop joe in it.

Okay i know i know some of you are laughing at me but who have experience with this and i get it believe me i'd be laughing too and just again it's me and all the variables this is fun though i'm super happy i'm having a lot of fun lots of adrenaline.

And these are nothing no i don't think these are class ones little swifts but uh anyway sun's out sun is out still my sunglasses kicking around somewhere i'm sure there's a lot of those spots with pools that i wanted to fish but uh i had to keep going you know the river.

Waits for no one all right i'll get back with you very happy i'm out here doing this well i've just gone through about a series of like 10 of those small little uh swifts with the low water none better than that that deeper water one the second one that you saw me run so i haven't really filmed any of them.

But there's been a whole lot and it's taken a lot of uh scraping and stuff i'm not trying to get my feet wet it's freaking cold it's like zero one one degrees out so anyways in the summertime i would get out or even if a little bit.

Warmer weather i'd get out or if i had no other choice but i was able to skirt by so in the summertime this river would not even be paddlable like i'm in a boat like uh like that's my paddle hitting the ground i'm like in a foot of water here and that's the tip been the typical uh.

Flow so far except for a couple of squats gorgeous though like a lot of sound tons of spruce as i scrape across the bottom here's a bunch more shallow spots i got a bear swimming across the river right in front of me let's say hide them i guess.

You going don't be friends so good boy that was cool well there's your answer but what if you see a bear joe do you carry anything for it no what do you see a bear that 99 of the time that it freaking takes off wants nothing to do with you.

Especially out here where there's like no campsites and it's not like a populated park where people come all the time look at this hair so there's no habituated bears they're not used to garbage being left behind or food straps or fish left by people or anything like that.

So oh man i'm sorry so yeah so they don't associate people with food they don't want nothing to do with you i'm going with the current but i'm paddling against the wind like crazy as i'm sure you can tell i've been paddling for hours i have to get out and stretch my legs.

You can see a sandy beach let's go ahead to that hop out and check out the map maybe beaver raccoon or otter so walking on this sandy beach i also found what i think to be wolf tracks which is pretty awesome there we go see that one there we go even better right i don't think they'd be coyote out.

Here i could be wrong could be coy wolf highly doubt their dog though considering we are in the middle of nowhere so here's some more there's my track and next to it is the canine we're all up here still.

Anyways they obviously run the shore oh down here even more oh no these are like a mix of them little track trap truck truck dog then there was a webbed web here like a otter beaver or something like that joe.

Homo erectus all right well i uh see a potential camp spot up maybe a little ways from here so i'll go paddle over to it maybe it's about a half hour or so away and we'll see what it's like and we'll see what time it is and everything i'm getting pretty beat there's a.

Constant headwind there's zero uh flow on the river like there's no there's no current uh only when i was hitting those little bits of swift but for the most part i'm paddling against the wind and it's much maybe easier if i was going against the current it'd be easier if i was going same way as the wind but.

Turkey vulture sees me but anyways get back in the boat it's nice to stretch my legs though there's no portaging so i'm constantly in the boat well it's just after five o'clock i came into this little bay behind me it was pretty sheltered now my gps said there was it could be a.

Campsite there had a little triangle but i think it's far enough away from the river might be on an atv trail even a couple hundred meters that way or something who knows because i saw no sign of a trail coming to the water at all but i'm at that point where i'm probably.

Gonna start to look for a camp spot tonight i need to find a relatively flat spot and you know six feet away from the shore like i was saying so that's not gonna be hard to do i've scoped out a lot a lot a lot of decent sights along the way it just depends where i'm.

At on the river right now it's not too bad of a spot but i still have a little oomph of me if i stop by six i'm eating by seven everything's set up by seven i can get some firewood and hang out until about nine or so and hit the hay um that sounds good to me so we'll keep paddling for roughly an.

Hour unless i see some fantastic spot right off the hop so i'm up on shore now uh it's almost time for me to stop for the day and then i come to a bunch of small little rapid swift things so my only concern is that i can see tons of rocks in there.

And it's moving real quick um and i don't know i pulled over initially to just put all my stuff in my bags that was loose in my canoe but then i uh i was scoping it out a little bit more and it looks to be substantial so i don't know i can potentially camp here.

Somewhere in here there's a little bit more open spot over excuse me over there that might be a an option and run them in the morning or i might even be able to or i might have to portage around them i'm not sure i certainly don't want to get wet this late at night.

But i do know that this is just a game trail i'm walking on uh and i've seen nothing but moose poop on it so i don't really want to camp on the trail itself i'll have to tuck into the woods but trying to get a good look at this for this river and see what the deal is.

Maybe i can get out onto that group of boulders there check it out it's pretty long it eases up there and there's another stretch you know what i came here to do this this is what we're doing i scouted a line to the first little pool in between rapids so i can at least.

Get there i think we're going to try this and hope for the best wish me luck guys okay this isn't so bad at all once you're in here oh this is fun nice this isn't even anything i know but something for me nice nice joe.

Nice job joe thanks buddy that was cool all right all right something else happening this is as far as i scouted so oh shoot big rocks this is as far as i scouted i should probably get out and scout it again and not be foolish.

You know seeing as how it worked out pretty good last time i gotta get out here actually pay attention shoot shoot okay there we go oh it's fun honestly that was really fun there we go okay i'm getting uh a little more confident that this.

Helps when the water is actually deep enough to go through and with that my friends it's time to find camp well i finally found somewhere to camp i've got a nice beach here check out what else i have just wolf prints as far as the eye can see.

That one's as big as my hand but look at this it's like a whole pack like they converge all here okay it's a ton of them i'm telling you these are wolves like for sure look at that looks like a good spot to camp right i'm not worried about it but we do need.

To get up off of the sand it's super sloppy and it's too close to the to the water so i hiked up in there already i found a flat spot so let's go on up i'd love to camp just right here you know in the last amount of sunlight and with the view of the river but.

These shoots these saplings are all way too many here so i'll just tuck back in right there i'll tell you i am going to eat beef oh that's some chili i am super hungry joe that wasn't as elegant elegant as i had hoped wow.

Big agnes fly creek ul-1 old faithful love this tent justin from malone gave it to me how many times have i told you guys that one million one million probably anyways let me get this all rigged up i'm not blowing up my air mattress right now i'm too hungry and thirsty and.

There's still so much to do so we're just gonna toss everything on in there deal with it later we will you know what i will uh oh that looks relatively flat i will loft up my sleeping bags i'll let my my top quilts loft up i've got two i was afforded some.

Luxuries because uh not too much portaging i should have brought more food i didn't realize how much energy i was going to spend paddling i thought it was going to be a leisurely paddle downstream and it was bought a headwind all day long so much much hungrier than i anticipated.

But anyways i'm glad i brought some extra sleeping gear it's always nice to be warm at night okay this is good let's go deal with everything else i got myself a nice little spot here i'm just gonna cook up in my bush buddy and if uh.

After i'm done eating if i still feel like it i'll make a little twig fire on the sand here no problems but i want to eat and i know this bush buddy will get the job done quicker than if i try to light a fire and do the whole nonsense that way so nice nice and flat.

I'm happy to be on the sand beach a little bit open i didn't uh if i didn't have this beach i'd be just in the woods there and that would be kind of like uh enclosed and dank right though all right nothing fancy light these guys up love it love it just being able to light the twigs.

It's dry i don't think this river has raised up even though i i'm heating the warnings i just i've been walking along the shore and everything is bone dry so all right i gotta get some water on she's going good first uh burn of the bush buddy 20 21.

I can't i don't know how many years i've had this thing for now there's another set of rapids right there i can hear but i am certainly done for the day done for the day joe what a nice day though you know we had snow it's warm way warmer now than it was early in the day.

It's supposed to be nice tomorrow so maybe it's gonna get warm overnight but uh we had snow i paddled right next to a bear cut a little baby pike ran a bunch of rapids more so than i've ever done before um didn't really get to fish too much.

But that's okay explored found new spots beaver stuff super happy with today great trip so far a little bit of a wind block here  so temperatures dropping about 9 30 now i'm uh i was a little bit slower today.

Than i thought i checked it all out and that was the case and uh slower than i thought i would have been but i figured that so anyways tomorrow it looks like i can make up some distance trying to look for some good spots to fish at maybe just find some cool stuff there's.

Supposed to be a big uh 200 foot cliff walls on either side at one point too so that should be nice it's almost 10 the moon is super bright it's actually casting a shadow on me fire's all but out i'm gonna head up to bed i do have something for bears i was wrong god i brought this little air horn.

Look at all the necessities my water i'll hatch it these things i want to keep warm and dry all right here we go ah that's the view from in the tent well folks i'm just uh getting settled in here.

Getting starting to feel my toes again after a day of numb toes so i'm pretty tired i imagine i'll sleep pretty well i'm in no rush to get up tomorrow morning all day tomorrow can't put tomorrow night as well but uh a nice sleep in would be nice you guys have a good night.