The glacial fed creek of Clendinning, BC

Photos and story:
Darin McQuoid

The glacier fed creek of Clendinning

The Clendinning was once British Columbia’s most popular multi-day trip. Somehow that title now goes to the Stikine, but that’s a whole different story. Personally I’d written off the Clendinning as class IV and something that I would do in my ‘early retirement paddling.’ Little did I know how wrong I was – no surprise there then!

Having done the Stikine first on our trip, we also paddled most of the Whistler classic runs like the Box Canyon of the Ashlu, various Cheakamus runs, Callaghan Creek and what not. Two of the team from Austria were due to fly out and we had just enough time to squeeze in one last bit of excitement.

We had been watching the Elaho gauge for days, and it seemed to be dropping to 200cms. Still rather on the high end, we read that it is ‘Class V at 200 cms and up,’ while another write up from well-travelled paddlers described it as a positive portage fest at 200cms. There was only one way to find out, so we headed to Green Lake in north Whistler to talk about flying.

Clendinning Creek starts just 47 miles from Whistler as it flows out of its namesake; Clendinning Lake. From there it’s nearly 20 miles to the confluence of the Elaho. Getting to the said lake is no simple task, there are no roads or trails. When the founder of Whistler Air owned the company he would fly to Clendinning Lake with eight people and kayaks in a de Havilland Otter.

A short time ago Whistler Air was bought by Harbor Air, the world’s largest float plane operation. Harbor Air had no interest in flying us to Clendinning Lake. Eventually we were able to talk directly to the pilots and they were more than ready for a break from being glorified taxi drivers shuttling wealthy tourists from Vancouver to Whistler.

Due to new corporate policy there is no way they could take all of us in the Otter, because kayaks would block an exit door. The best we could do was take six kayaks and one person in the Otter, and the other five of us in the smaller Beaver. Prior to the trip we’d read about $250 a person, but oh the times have changed. Now it takes two pilots, two planes, and around $500 a person. We take time to consider. It’s not every day that four Austrians and an Italian are in British Columbia, so we were all in.

quite incredible

With our gear unloaded we wasted no time getting ready to go. Half the team were to fly home three days later and with the high water levels we wanted to be sure to make it out in time. It’s quite incredible, Clendinning Creek flows right out of the lake with no log jams or other obstructions.

There is certainly no shortage of water as we began the trip, there were many routes and not too many rocks showing in the first rapids. Many write-ups talked about boulder garden creeking but this seemed far from a creek.

Some nice warm up behind us and a glacier sits high above on the right. An old avalanche path leads to the river and it makes sense to see a boulder pile just downstream. We routed through one rapid then scrambled for eddies. This one didn’t look so nice. The whole team portages 15 feet then it was time to make a decision.

From what we could see the river wasn’t going to get any easier for some time. We either need to start running it, or walking. As we had portaged on both sides of the river there was no way to communicate the decision process. Oddly enough we managed to make a decision unspoken, in that odd way experienced teams can come to conclusion. The team didn’t want to portage the rest of the river, so we put back in and it was then one endless boulder garden with big moves, high consequences and just enough eddies.

Heavy rain

The race was on, a tent full of gear is in the river. Heavy rain began to fall. It was a scramble to keep other tents from flying off while stuffing dry gear into shelter whilst another person charged after the tent that had headed downstream. Water levels had risen quickly.

Once everything was safe we figured it was time to cook up some hot food so we wouldn’t have to waste time cooking after the recovered gear came back wet. We had a brand new unopened fuel canister that we couldn’t cook on because the company forgot to put threads on it. We had not planned on having a fire, but things had to be done to cook food and avoid hypothermia. We dried our gear at sunset and thankfully the rain had stopped and the skies cleared.

One would never guess that it rained the previous night. Water levels were back down to their previous levels and glorious blue skies reigned above. Unsure of the day ahead we soaked in the sun but make sure to get on the water just before nine. Paddling around the first corner below camp a team member was lucky and found his own jacket. Lost with the tent in the previous night’s debacle, we never thought the jacket would be seen again. Twisting through an open section, the day started off with some nice warm up. Looking downstream we saw another avalanche path and knew that rapids resided ahead.

We are cruising along nicely with some aggressive read and run. The nature of Clendinning Creek is a lot more like the Austrian Alps than California. I was happy to follow. Suddenly the brakes were on and we scouted a big cascade full of possible routes. None looked ideal but many looked feasible. Rok Sribar opted to probe, followed by Manu Koehler. They ran completely different lines, Rok went hard left and Manu hard right.

Really it was one large rapid in there. By eddy hopping we had minimized scouting, for the third time that day. There was one large hole to get around. Then more downstream as always.

more challenging whitewater

Below the crux hole the river was rowdy for another kilometre. We opted for a lunch break and paddle repair, not sure how long the action would continue. Satiated with food we returned to the water, ready for more challenging whitewater, yet fingers crossed that we were through. Paddling a fantastic rapid around the bend, suddenly it was all over. We relaxed and enjoyed the scenery on the paddle out, happy to have finished safely around one in the afternoon.

Floating on the Elaho we formed a flotilla and all agreed that with our flow of 200cms, the Clendenning was more challenging than last week’s trip on the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. Then again, on the Clendinning one could always walk every rapid, unlike the Stikine!