River report Red Deer Creek,Upper Wapiti

Joined : 23 May 2007 Posts : 7

Hi cSpuared, have been down the Narraway from the bridge down to Wapiti Gardens. It is class 2. I don’t remember how long it took to run into the Wapiti, maybe 4 hours, but from Narraway, Wapiti confluents to Wapiti Garden is 7 hours. 2 weeks ago we went from OJ main to Narraway, Wapiti confluents. The water was low and it took 2 days. There is a lot of flat water, but there is some good class 4 as well. It is about 36km from OJ main to Red Deer Creek, Wapiti confluents, 1 day.

Joined : 29 Jul 2008 Posts : 3

I'm not an experienced kayaker, but I was down to the bridge(about km Cool

over the Narraway on the Narraway Road (km 114 on the Two Lakes Road) last week. I walked down to the water from the bridge. It is steep and lot's of rocks to scramble over, but it would be no problem to put in there-especially on the west side of the bridge-just watch out for the trucks that come down like all hell was after them when you are pulling of the road...
Also, has anyone run the Wapiti from the bridge on the OJ main?(Wapiti FSR) I was working in there alot this year, and there is a nice little campground there at the put in.
It's not that much farther in from the Red Deer Creek bridge. I think that the red Deer is the first major bridge on the OJ Main, and the Wapiti is the second bridge. From the map it looks like about a 20 km quad ride up to Wapiti Lake, and on the way there, you should be able to get a look at Wapiti Falls as well. It is supposed to be quite beautiful.

Joined : 28 Jun 2007 Posts : 1

i enjoyed the upper part also , but discovered it might be time to learn how to roll . am going to go check out the path/road down to narraway camp spot this weekend.

Joined : 23 May 2007 Posts : 7

We set out Friday evening at about 7.30 pm from Beaverloge with a crew of 1 canoe ( Paul and Jack ) and 2 kayaks ( Jason and myself ) to the Red Deer Creek. It is about 180 km from Beaverlogde. From Heritage highway, turn off on to Wapiti F.S.R. at Red Deer Creek F.S.R. follow Red Deer Creek road for 20 km to bridge over Red Deer, this is the put in spot. We reached the put in at 11.30 pm.
Day 1
Started at 9 am on river, at 9.45 am we reached the Wapiti river junction. The Red Deer is class 1-2. As soon as we reached the Wapiti the fun started. Class +2 pretty much all the way to slide area, with one class 3-4 drop. The class 3-4 can easily be portaged if necessary. At 11.45 am we reached the slide.
The slide starts off with class 4-5 ledge with about 2 ½ foot drop and frowning, following with a boulder garden class -4 +4. About halfway down the slide area it is down to class 2-3. We portaged our gear and canoe almost a ½ mile to end off slide and kayaked the lower half.
At 2.30 pm we where through the slide area. The portage was brutal, the bush is full off dead fall and the ground was broken up and the river shore steep and full of boulders. If we just had kayaks we could have done it in 45 min.
At 6.30 pm we reached the Narraway confluence. From end of slide area to Narraway almost continues class 2-3. We camped here.

This was the best river run I had in a long time, except the portage, of course.

Day 2
Started at 8.45 am and reached Wapiti Garden at 4.30 pm with about an 1 hour of breaks. Class 1-2, booooring and loooong. A lot of work and no fun.
I would love to do the section down to Narraway again, but from Narraway take a river boat or something else out.
I took some pictures, if you care to see them, let me know and I will E-mail you some.
Werner