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Here it is the trip itinerary I hope you all have a look at it. You may be able to meet up with us at some points. Tweet from the bridges or banks of these towns that you saw us paddle on by. We only have three food/content drops along this journey of over 1500km. At each town you will be able to purchase one of our expedition support t-shirts that will help support our expedition and the not- for- profit we are raising money for all season. We are pleased to announce our new found partnership with Watter-Matters.org. Five dollars from every shirt sold will go toward this ground breaking and fantastic organization that’s promotes community stewardship of our water shed, an essential need to the future health of our Alberta Rivers.
For maps there are about sixty 1:50,000 scale maps that you would need. There are also 1:250,000 scale maps available, which you would need a lot fewer of, but the detail may not be sufficient and there are some insane obstacles such as Grand Rapids. Be careful of digital topographic maps they may be missing details in these remote areas. Maps available at maptown.com
Our expedition report broken into 5 sections:
1) Jasper to White Court
2) White Court to Athabasca
3) Athabasca to Fort McMurray
4) Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan (no food drop)
5) Fort Chip to Fort Smith (no food drop)
Info on each section:
1) Distance 275km, Duration 6-7 days, Overall Grade 2, Rapids Class I-III
2) Distance 365km, Duration 8 days, Overall Grade I, Rapids Class I-III
3) Distance 384km, Duration 8-10 days, Overall Grade II, Rapids Class I-VI+
4) Distance 298km, Duration 6-8 days, Overall Grade I, Rapids - none
5) Distance 185km, duration 4 days, overall grade 3, Rapids Class 1-V1+
Total trip distance: 1507 km
Duration: 35 days (estimated max)
Food Drops and content exchange @ White Court, Athabasca and Fort Mac (Volunteers needed!!!!)
Dates:
May 24th Departure Jasper with Seekers Media following us for three days. (Media)
Hinton: Seekers departs from the Canoe Guys expedition as they push further into the Athabasca Wild.
May 30 - White Court (Media)
June 7 - Athabasca Landing (media)
June 17 - Fort Mac (Last food drop from our crew, no roads after this) (media). We will need to pack enough food for 12 days as a just in case. The more remote the settlements are, the more expensive the food will be so try and pre pack as much as you can and organize food drops. It is not uncommon in areas with only winter road access to see a 4L bottle of milk for twelve dollars, imagine the other costs.
June 24 - Fort Chip (media)
June 28 - Fort Smith (media)
*Section three has fifteen named rapids. Grand Rapids is rated as Class VI+ and must be portaged. The other rapids are classified as I to IV and it indicates it's possible to run or line all of them depending on Water Levels.
*Section Five, the Slave River before Fort Smith is a 20 km stretch of class five white water and is the longest set of class five in North America. Believe it or not it is larger than the Colorado River running though the Grand Canyon.
*No Roads to Fort Chipewyan in the summer, you are better off finishing at Fort McKay or Fort McMurray. If you go to Fort Chipewyan you will have to be flown out and your canoe may have wait until the winter highway is up and operating for you to get it back home. There used to be a company that flew out of Fort Chip with the canoes attached to the outside of their plane but they no longer do that. I couldn’t imagine why? If you push a little further you will end up at Fort Smith Northwest Territories where there is an all season road. Our exit is Fort Smith where there is a road out for our canoe. It will be a long drive past Great Slave Lake, further West then South down into Western Alberta for a total distance of 1365km.
*For one week of paddling in Western Canada’s wild you should add in one day for immobility so if you plan a trip for 14 days, 2 of those days should be planned for when you pinned or the weather is just too terrible to even bother.
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