3 DAYS ALONE ON THE RIVER - Adventure, Exploration and Solo Camping. Part 1

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, learned something there. Folks, how you doing? I didn't get into the video, but first I want to give a huge shout out to my sponsor for today's video, Bright Cellars. Bright Cellars is a monthly wine subscription that wants to make the world of wine enjoyable for everyone. They handpick wines based on your taste preferences, which they calculate based on a short seven question quiz. Those wines are then shipped to your door every single month. Based on this short quiz, Bright Cellars matches you to wines from all over the world curated just for your palate. Bright Cellars can gather your taste preferences and deliver your wines you're guaranteed to like. The more you rate your wine matches, the better matches you get. There's member perks as well. 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How you doing? This is going to be an adventure. I've got my gear with me. There's 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 going to 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 inReach with me so I I can text her whenever I get there, but this is going to be a matter of exploration, running rapids, fishing, finding spots to camp, and trying to stay dry and warm. I can see the river from here. We've got to hike down this first portage and we'll get back with you once we put in the water. This is amazing already. Dramatic sky, really cool scenery, and I'm on a river that I've never paddled on before, all by my lonesome. It'll be a good trip. well as pretty as it is it's about that shallow so on we go into the wind and the the lay of this river is quite odd i've gotten not not odd just different i got all these sand banks everywhere 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 and little channels little canals look there's 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 and 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 ever seen anything remotely like this 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 multiple heights and multiple entrances this thing is a work of freaking genius some snow still holding on over here it's like clay sand yeah and then look you can just see remnants of beaver chew everywhere probably a bunch of tracks yeah turkey tracks maybe a crane but this has all got to be flood plain too so when i do make camp i read 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 Man, I feel so remote here. Okay, well, this is quite shallow and meandery. 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 good for fishing, but it's all too shallow right at the mouth there. We gotta find some deep pools, I think, and 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. sandhill cranes and geese coming up i mean you no harm i mean you no harm canadian brethren all is well you do not need to fear me do not fear me friends birds are beautiful animals are our friends goodbye fish on is my second cast and it's a trout no it's a pike mistake that as a trout a little frickin snot rocket 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 a 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 can 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 well 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 layering it all up and uh time to get back on the water i have more of a uh white watery type boat coming but i just don't have it yet um 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 even know what this will be if this qualifies as white water or not i'm definitely not trying to talk it up but in this year coming i do want to do that more often just off there 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 have this Little rocky boat. Rocky, no, I wanna go around this. So very rocky. It's not runnable, so I'm gonna try to line it instead of portaging it, which will be a lot better. Easier than famous last words. So portaging might be what we're doing, let's see. Let's see, looks a little bit deeper here. Yeah, okay, okay, okay, here we go. Much, much better with the deeper water. Oh, okay. I was starting to think it was going to be like that the whole time. Nice. Super happy with that. Turned something there. Okay. We're okay. With a scare for little Joe, we're good. We bumped up onto a rock on the front. 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. Trying to get the hang of it. I'm gonna pay attention here but I'll get back with you if there's something better than this. Uh-oh. Learn how to ferry over. Slop, sloppy Joe. Slop Joe in it. Okay. I know some of you are laughing at me who have experience with this and I get it. Believe me. I'd be laughing too. 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 even think these are class ones little swifts but uh anyways 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 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 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 uh in the summertime this river would not even be paddleable 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 spots 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 see ya i'll say hi to him i guess i'll be friends 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 friggin takes off wants nothing to do with you especially over here where there's like no campsites and it's not like a populated park where people come all the time this hair so there's no habituated bears they're not used to garbage being left behind or food scraps or fish left by people or anything like that so oh man they don't associate people with food with you i'm sure you can tell to get out and stretch my legs let's go ahead to that hop out and check out the map so walking on this sandy beach i also found what i think to be wolf tracks which is pretty awesome there we go do that one there we go even better i don't think they'd be coyote out here i could be wrong could be coywolf highly doubt they're dog though considering we are in the middle of nowhere so here's some more that's my track next to it is the canine and all up here still anyways they obviously run the shore oh down here even more oh no these are like a mix of them a little track trap truck truck dog and there was a webbed one here like the otter beaver 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 uh 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 swifts but for the most part i'm paddling against the wind and it's much maybe easier if i was going against the current 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 and on my gps it said there was could be a campsite there because i 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 going to 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 sites along the way just depends where I'm out on the river right now it's not a too bad of a spot but I still have a little room for me if I stop by six eating by seven everything's set up by seven I can get some firewood and hang out till 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 of 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 good 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 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 at 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 just go to the line to the first little pool in between rapids so I can at least get there I think we're gonna try this and for the best oh this is fun I don't know, but it's something for me. Nice Joe, good 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. Seeing as how it worked out pretty good last time. So I gotta get out of here actually, pay attention. Shoot, shoot. Okay, there we go. That was fun. Honestly, that was really fun. Confident at this. Helps when the water's actually deep enough to go through. With that, my friends, it is time to find camp. 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. Must be 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 slopey and it's too close to the water. So I hiked up in there already and 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 a view of the river, but these shoots, these saplings are all way too many here. So I'll just tuck back in right there. tell you I am going to eat the out of some chili. I am super hungry Joe. Isn't as elegant as I had hoped. Big Agnes, Fly Creek UL1, Old Faithful. Love this tent. Justin from Alone gave it to me. How many times have I told you guys that? One million? Probably. Anyways, I'm gonna 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 oh that looks relatively flat I will loft up my sleeping bags I'll let my my top quilts lofted up I've got two I was afforded some luxuries because 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 gonna be leisurely paddle downstream and I was fought 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 go deal with everything else myself a nice little spot here I'm just gonna cook up in my bush buddy and if after I'm done eating if I still feel like it I'll make a little twig fire on the sand here no problem 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 the whole nonsense that way so nice and flat I'm happy to be on this sand beach a little bit of open I didn't if I didn't have this beach I'd be just in the woods there and that would be enclosed and dank and fancy these guys up love it just being able to light the twigs dry I don't think this river has raised up you know I'm heating the warnings I just I've been walking along the shore and everything is bone dry so all right i got some water on just uh burn up the bush buddy 2021 i don't know how many years i've had this thing for now another set of rapids right there i can hear only done for the day good day joe what a nice day though you know we had snow it's warm way warmer now than it was earlier 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 caught 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 in 30 now it was a little bit slower today than i thought i checked it all out and that was the case slower than i thought i would have been but i figured that so anyways tomorrow looks like i can make up some distance trying to look for some good spots to fish at just find some cool stuff there's supposed to be a big 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 that's it because i want to keep warm and dry 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 We'll camp out tomorrow night as well But a nice sleep in Would be nice You guys have a good night