About our '03 Mosely Creek Recon Expedition
Around this time last year, our crew was gearing up to attempt the first descent of Mosley Creek, which flows into the Homathko River, deep in the heart of the Coast Range.
The goal of our trip to the Homathko-Tatlyoko Protected Area was not just to run the mighty Homathko River, but also to become the first paddlers to ever drop into the heart of the run via the steep and high volume Mosley Creek. During our Sept 11th trip in ’01, Willie Kern made note of the ‘definite’ run ability of the lower gorges, at least from what he could tell nearly a thousand feet off the deck in Gideon’s Beaver sea-plane. I concurred, along with Dustin Knapp and a few others we began to spread the gospel of Mosley.
an article about our trip in the new Kayak Session Magazine.
To check out the mag=> Click Here
It goes something like this;
“Well you definitely want a dry suit. The gradient is only in 9 of the 50 miles, the rest is flat, or lakes or bogs or some such. It’s gonna have to be real cold to turn the glaciers off enough to get the flow down. The first bunch of miles drop at the magical gradient of 183 feet per mile, perfect for the volume of the river, but the last two drop at 250 fpm, gonna be a steep bitch. When we get down to the Homathko we will be right above the three most difficult sections of the river, Class V+ wilderness river running at its finest.”
Winding away from the highway out through the Chilcotin Plateau, Mosley flows through all forms of flat water, from big lakes to dogwater bogs for over 40 miles, as the river nears the place where it turns south and cuts through the Mountains, the river becomes a lake for the last time and gains two very steep glacial tributaries. When it drains from this natural lake the river carves a gorge along the Southeastern edge of Mt. Waddington, the tallest of BC’s glaciated peaks. Mosley then joins, in one great trifluence, Tidemann Glacier Creek (Waddington’s main glacier) and the Homathko River.
Jed Weingarten Hiking up to scout Mosley Creek, with the noble Mt. Waddington on the horizon.
photo by Tommy Hilleke
Our plan was to paddle from the main put in on the Homathko and paddle to this trifluence, we would then set up a base camp and scout the lower/inner gorges of Mosley to determine the feasibility of making a run. The river looked pretty good to go, but the flow was a bit too high. We bailed on the ’03 Mosley attempt, but hopefully will be back in future years to give it a go. But this year our goal is paddle the Ultra Classic big water run, The Grand Canyon of the Stikine.
John Grace running 'The Bet' just below the Waddington Trifluence.
phoo by Tommy Hilleke.
Homathko Quicktime Video
Here is a web version of the “Mosley Creek recon Mission’, part of John Grace’s global kayaking documentary “Amongst It”.
The video files are very large and are broken into 2 parts. Each video is 32 mb long and will require a bit of time to load. If you use safari as your browser they will play as they load.
Click Here For Part 1
Footage by John Grace, Daniel DeLaVergne and Ryan Casey. Edited by John Grace.
Click Here For Part 2
To view the Theatrical Trailer for John’s movie "Amongst It".
Click Here
To order a copy of Amongst It
Click Here
The goal of our trip to the Homathko-Tatlyoko Protected Area was not just to run the mighty Homathko River, but also to become the first paddlers to ever drop into the heart of the run via the steep and high volume Mosley Creek. During our Sept 11th trip in ’01, Willie Kern made note of the ‘definite’ run ability of the lower gorges, at least from what he could tell nearly a thousand feet off the deck in Gideon’s Beaver sea-plane. I concurred, along with Dustin Knapp and a few others we began to spread the gospel of Mosley.
an article about our trip in the new Kayak Session Magazine.
To check out the mag=> Click Here
It goes something like this;
“Well you definitely want a dry suit. The gradient is only in 9 of the 50 miles, the rest is flat, or lakes or bogs or some such. It’s gonna have to be real cold to turn the glaciers off enough to get the flow down. The first bunch of miles drop at the magical gradient of 183 feet per mile, perfect for the volume of the river, but the last two drop at 250 fpm, gonna be a steep bitch. When we get down to the Homathko we will be right above the three most difficult sections of the river, Class V+ wilderness river running at its finest.”
Winding away from the highway out through the Chilcotin Plateau, Mosley flows through all forms of flat water, from big lakes to dogwater bogs for over 40 miles, as the river nears the place where it turns south and cuts through the Mountains, the river becomes a lake for the last time and gains two very steep glacial tributaries. When it drains from this natural lake the river carves a gorge along the Southeastern edge of Mt. Waddington, the tallest of BC’s glaciated peaks. Mosley then joins, in one great trifluence, Tidemann Glacier Creek (Waddington’s main glacier) and the Homathko River.
Jed Weingarten Hiking up to scout Mosley Creek, with the noble Mt. Waddington on the horizon.
photo by Tommy Hilleke
Our plan was to paddle from the main put in on the Homathko and paddle to this trifluence, we would then set up a base camp and scout the lower/inner gorges of Mosley to determine the feasibility of making a run. The river looked pretty good to go, but the flow was a bit too high. We bailed on the ’03 Mosley attempt, but hopefully will be back in future years to give it a go. But this year our goal is paddle the Ultra Classic big water run, The Grand Canyon of the Stikine.
John Grace running 'The Bet' just below the Waddington Trifluence.
phoo by Tommy Hilleke.
Homathko Quicktime Video
Here is a web version of the “Mosley Creek recon Mission’, part of John Grace’s global kayaking documentary “Amongst It”.
The video files are very large and are broken into 2 parts. Each video is 32 mb long and will require a bit of time to load. If you use safari as your browser they will play as they load.
Click Here For Part 1
Footage by John Grace, Daniel DeLaVergne and Ryan Casey. Edited by John Grace.
Click Here For Part 2
To view the Theatrical Trailer for John’s movie "Amongst It".
Click Here
To order a copy of Amongst It
Click Here
posted by LVM my brothas and sistas at 1:19 PM
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