Get Me Outdoors: Kicking Horse River

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Kicking Horse River

Trip Date: June 2007

Kyle and Mike decided to come to Alberta for a camping trip this year. They were looking for a little adventure and I was more than willing to show them a good time. We broke the trip into two different parts. The first part of the trip was out in Golden, British Columbia, which is approximately 265km west of Calgary along the Trans-Canada Highway. We headed that far west because we wanted to go white water rafting down the Kicking Horse River. The second part of the trip was spent closer to home in Kananaskis Country, which you can read about in my next post.

For the rafting part of the trip we chose Wet N' Wild Adventures because they came highly recommended to me by a co-worker and they did not disappoint! We wanted a full day on the water so we chose The Challenge package, which essentially means you get 33km of rafting along the upper, middle, and lower canyon sections of the river, plus a BBQ lunch. The upper section of the river is basically a scenic float where you can practice some different paddling strokes. It would have been worth it if none of us had been rafting before, but since most of us had rafted previously it wasn't very exciting. After lunch the real fun began with the middle and lower sections of the river that feature Class 2-4 rapids. The trip ends with a leisurely float back into Golden.

I apologize in advance for the quality of some of the pictures. We took this trip before waterproof digital cameras were a dime a dozen so we ended up using those waterproof disposable kind. They weren't perfect, but they worked!

We got a little lost looking for the raft company's campground on the first night. We did, however, find a logging camp and Kyle wanted a picture with one of their machines. We also ran into a mama Black bear and her two cubs!