Class 5
3-4 days on River
110km
Not really at Terrace but kind of on the way to Terrace
From Williams lake drive 3 hours inland until you reach Tatlayoko Lake turn off, drive for 30 mins until you reach the lake, carry on driving down to the South end of the lake. The road was discontinued so we had to paddle the last 5km south across the lake.
Day 1 (5 hours)
Paddle the last 5kms of flat across the lake, paddle approx 20kms of flat class 2.
Amazing scenery, we camped with views of glaciers.
Day 2(9 hours)
Starts off class 3, picks up into low volume class 4-5 boulder garden action.
Flatens out for a short distance and drops into Birthday canyon, This is a short canyon and is bigger than than it looks!!
1km after Birthday canyon Doran Creek drops in from River left, doubles the flow and immediately drops into "Abortion Canyon" THE ONLY DODGY CANYON ON THE RUN.
We scouted on river right, there is a huge rock in the middle of the canyon with a class 6 rapid on the right of the rock. There is a possible portage at river level on the left side of the rock. Although it appeared to be chocked 30 feet high with logs and we were not game to drop in. We took 2 hours to scout the canyon from river right, only to decide to portage the whole canyon on river right which took 2-3 hours. After the canyon we dropped back in and paddled the last 1km to the Trifluence of Homathko, Mosley and Tiedeman where we camped.
Day 3 (7 Hours)
This is the big water day, a couple of kms of open big water, the walls start closing in and you are faced with the biggest rapid on the Homathko "The Bet". We all took the easy 15 min portage option on river left. There is another three canyons after this, all were good to go. Scout all the entrance rapids and the rest of the big rapids in the canyons could be scouted from river level at the flow we had which was just under 200cms.
After the last canyon "Waddington Canyon" we paddled for 2 hours and set up camp. We saw a 1000 pound Kodiac Grizz about half an hour upstream of our camp!
Day 4 (5 hours)
Flat but moving water all the way to Bute Inlet. We were picked up by a float plane and flown back to our car at Tatlayoko Lake.
Put In: Tatlayoko Lake
Take Out: Bute Inlet
Float Plane Company/ www.tweedsmuirair.com
Helicopter Company/ www.whitesaddleair.com
It is possible to be picked up by Helicopter after Waddinton Canyon, skipping out the last 50km of flat and cutting a day off the trip.
We put on end of September with the recommended flow of around 200cms.
Check flow here British Columbia-Homathko River near mouth-Discharge
