| Region: | River: | NTS Sheet: | UTM Type: | Zone: |
| Central | Exploits - Canyon | 2 D\13 | NAD83 | 21 |
| River Description: |
| A short, but fun big water play run. Big, crashing waves define the nature of the canyon. |
| Difficulty Rating: | Hardest Rapid: | Flow Information: |
| II+ | -IV | The canyon portion of the Exploits is always running. It |
| is dam controlled by the pulp mill and levels flucuate |
| rapidly and regularly. |
| How to get there: | Gradient |
| Put-in | Northing | Easting: | Section: | Avg |
| 5420523 | 597300 | Distance | 1.9 | km |
| The put-in for the canyon section of the Exploits is at the | Gradient | 8 | m/k |
| Salmonoid Interpretation Center. Signs from the TCH lead |
| you through town, past the pulp mill, and over the river to | 42 | fpm |
| the interpretation center. It takes a bit of care to get |
| down to river level below Grand Falls. You'll get a good |
| audience here during peak summer season. |
| Take-out | Northing | Easting: |
| 5420073 | 599828 |
| The take-out for the Canyon run is down aways (1.1 km) |
| from the last rapid (Virgin Wave) on the river left side of |
| the steady. It is a small municipal day park. There is |
| some camping available here for free, but it may only be |
| a matter of time before the town cracks down on it. Other |
| options are the trailer park right there and Beothuk Park |
| Detailed Description of the River |
| The Canyon run starts in a large bowl at the base of Grand Falls. Becareful climbing down the |
| rocks to the put-in. A swift flowing current takes you around a few boulders and to the first |
| rapid. Apparently at very high flows this short section has a massive, munching, bent shaft |
| eating hole. The first three rapids can be scouted from the island on river center. It starts |
| with a class II+ slide into a narrow chute of swift, squirrely current leading to the second rapid. |
| The second rapid has an eddy on river right and consists of a large, hard to punch hole with a |
| tongue on river left (III). A few short meters after this rapid is a river wide hole with a tricky |
| tongue on river right (III\-IV). Water levels play a big part in the nastiness of this hole and it |
| can become very unfriendly at higher levels. At some water levels the 3 m falls (IV) to the |
| right of this hole can be run (Jim Brown\Paul Rose). It looks rocky, but is quite deep below the |
| falls. If none of this is to your liking it is possible to portage on the right side and seal launch |
| 5 m off the steeply dipping sandstone beds. |
| Below this is class II boogy water and good stern squirtin' eddy lines. At the corner of the |
| power plant where the water is released back into the channel the current is squirrely. Bob and |
| duck through this section watching out for fishermen and boogy for river center. The next |