| Region: | River: | NTS Sheet: | UTM Type: | Zone: |
| Avalon Penninsula | Avondale River | 1\N6 | NAD27 | 22 |
| River Description: |
| A pool drop river with nice ledge rapids in a very pretty, narrow canyon. |
| Difficulty Rating: | Hardest Rapid: | Flow Information: |
| | III+ | | V | The higher the better for this run. It will flow after spring melt |
| | and heavy rainfalls. |
| River Levels: |
| How to get there: | Gradient: |
| | Put-in | Northing: | Easting: | Section: | Avg |
| | 5250831 | | 331628 | | Distance: | 4.40 | | km |
| | The put-in is located at the site of an old mill. It is a fabulous put- | Elevation Loss: | 68.6 | | m |
| | in with easy access to the river, good parking and several fire |
| | pits. Access to the put-in is located along the Avondale access | 225 | | ft |
| | road 3.7 km north of the TCH. A gravel road is located in the left- | Gradient: | 16 | | m/km |
| | hand side of the main road. Follow this gravel road past the | 82 | | fpm |
| | railroad tracks to the end of the road, next to the river. |
| | Take-out | Northing: | Easting: |
| | 5254107 | | 334345 |
| | The final section of the river meanders across a shallow, cobble |
| | river bed. Two possible take-outs are available. The first is at |
| | the bridge where the Avondale River enters the ocean. The |
| | second is the bridge on the CBS highway and is conveniently |
| | located next to a small bar. To get to the take-out from the put-in |
| | follow the Avondale Access road and turn left on the CBS |
| | highway. Park at the bar. The shuttle is approximately 4.5 km, a |
| | fairly long hike. It is best to bring two vehicles or arrange for a |
| | shuttle driver in the town of Avondale. |
| Detailed Description of the River |
| First Descent: (2005) Steve Arns, Chris Buchanan and Kev England. |
| |
| A bit of rain, some snow melting. Since we didn't get a New Year's Day surf in again this year a bit of |
| creeking on the Avalon sounded like a pretty good idea. The North Arm and Mahr's rivers were running, |
| but we had a hankering for something new, a taste of the unknown. After unsuccessfully searching for |
| a run near Bay Roberts we cruised down the Avondale access road and found some decent looking |
| ledges dropping into a small canyon. |
| |
| The first few drops into the canyon were fun, even at really low water levels. In fact this class III section |
| with an easy class IV- ledge will be excellent at high water. Deep in the narrow canyon the first horizon |
| line loomed up and we scouted the broken ledge from both shores of the river. There is several lines on |
| this rapid, including a sneak on the far river left side. Kev styled a nice line over the river centre portion |
| of the 2.5 m (8') ledge. Steve and I strugged with his frozen spray skirt before deciding that he had to |
| walk the drop. I hastily ran the ledge to tell Kev what was going on, but I didn't style it. I accidently |
| probed a narrow slot on river right. It actually looked ok while scouting, but was narrow from |
| overhanging ice. Unfortunately there was no room for a boof stroke while running the slot backwards |
| and I pitoned hard in the drop. I was forcibly ejected from my boat, breaking my backband in the process. |
| After a short swim in the pool, I could not pull my boat out of the current as it floated by and it became |
| pinned under a log jam at the top of the next small ledge. A log was lassoed and moved before Kev |
| nimbly climbed onto the log jam and clipped a pin line to the boat so Steve and I could pull it free. Ironically |
| it was Kevin, the only member of the team without a drysuit, who ended up climbing around in the river at |
| -12C. We decided to call this drop the feather, because I was deep fried in it. |
| |
| After the "incident" was dealt with we continued downstream, paddling through reasonably continuous |
| class II to III whitewater. This run will be fabulous at high water. A brook called the "The Rattles" joins |
| the Avondale River about 100 m above a significant class V waterfall called the "Fin." My beaten body |
| wasn't feeling to good at this point of the trip and we didn't stop to scout the narrow brook, but it looked |
| pretty interesting. I don't recall any big eddies above the "Fin" and it is best to get off the river 20 or 30 m |
| above the horizon line. The drop consists of a 1 m entry ledge above the brink of a 3 m waterfall into a 25 |
| m long box canyon. There is a true last minute eddy on river left below the entry ledge, but it would |
