Coordinator: Donna McKenzie
Despite a rather rainy weather forecast, 9 brave individuals landed at Trenville Campground Friday night. None of us had ever been to Trenville before, but it’s a lovely little campground on the banks of the Red Deer River, roughly near Elnora. We had 5 campsites in a row, strung out along the river. It started to rain about 7 pm, and didn’t really quit until 1 pm on Saturday. Everything was wet! Ironically the river was running 27 cubic meters per second (cms) on Wednesday, actually causing one person to back out of the trip. By 9 pm Friday night it was already at 47 cms.
Saturday June 21 we awoke to solid rain, and began considering our options. The river was now at 58 cms, but the rain was steady and miserable. Two more of our group had already packed up and headed for Edmonton, and one more was soon to follow. The remaining 6 of us talked things through and decided to play tourist for the day. Don and Gene elected to stay in their nice dry camper van, so Siobhan, Denise, Janice and Donna headed for a nearby Garden Center – DNA Gardens. They were having a day of tours and wine tastings, and we were their only customers.
We had a lovely tour, tasted some great wine, and had a fantastic lunch in one of the greenhouses. Then we headed for Torrington, to tour the “World Famous Gopher Hole Museum”. It was actually busy and we had to wait to get in, but it was totally worth the trip. What a wonderful and quirky place! We had a great hour there, being told stories by the museum manager. They have a world map (with the pins stuck in) of every place of origin of their visitors and the map is FULL.
Amazing! By now it was 3:30 pm and the wind was blasting. On our way back to Trenville we decided to stop at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, to check out our intended destination for Sunday. The road down to the river is treacherous, very slippery when wet and not recommended for cars with trailers at any time. By now the river was so high that taking out at the park was going to be very tricky, so we were glad we had checked it out. The wind was really howling, and when we got back to camp we had to pound a few tent pegs back in. We passed a fun evening visiting inside Denise’s “gazebo”. Denise really comes well equipped to camp! Our last readings of the river before we lost cell service said it was 156 cms. Yikes!
Sunday dawned with clear skies and no wind, and when we finally got onto the River Basins website the river was down to 80 cms. PADDLE ON! We had to shuttle cars down to Tolman Bridge and finally got paddling about noon on Sunday. That stretch of the river is really scenic and a very easy paddle. The current was about 6.0 km/h and we paddled about 2.6 km/h, giving us an average speed of 8.6 km/h and we paddled the 36 km in 4 hours 15 minutes. It was such an easy paddle! We were disappointed to see the Tolman Bridge, as we were having such a great day! Ironically, the only place we could find to pull out for lunch, was the takeout at Dry Island Buffalo Jump. It wasn’t the easiest place to stop, but it was almost the only place we could stop. It was a wonderful day of paddling, not quite the weekend we had tried for, but a good compromise as everyone was safe and dry. Even Bentley!!