Split Rock Blog

We finally got out and hit the spring flood-water with our Esquif Canyon. It was… different. On May 10, 2025 Stefan, Jacob and Tim ran the Opeongo river for the first time. 

I’ve long assumed that those sort of big wave trains aren’t really the kind of whitewater we’re after. We enjoy and crave the complexity of rapids with exposed rocks, with obstacles to be avoided, ledges to drop, eddies to grab, and lines to find and discuss. Big spring water isn’t like that. All the rocks are well underwater and the water just kind of flows along making wave trains. It was some real splashy fun though, and we would have definitely been swamped on many occasions if we didn’t have the spray deck. It felt like what whitewater rafting would be like—just massive waves, but not a lot of navigation work. On several occasions we had to do some firm braces to stay upright, or paddle hard to try to get into the biggest of the waves, but overall, there wasn’t much work to do. I was surprised. Of course, the large waves look like nothing in the GoPro videos. 

The experience was fun, but we missed the complexity. Following a recommendation in George Drought’s “Madawaska and Opeongo” river guide book, we got out to scout a set of three category 4 ledges. Turns out, we didn’t need to scout it at all and it was the same as the rest of it, but still safest to scout! 

I think this river would be a blast in a five-person whitewater raft—just laughing and spinning around randomly. With our spray deck on, and maybe a few good braces, we could have gone down most the rapids sideways and we’d be fine. This was the exact experience for Stefan in his kayak. Still, it was still some good splashy fun. It's something different to do once in a while. 

The experience in the spray deck wasn’t as pleasant as I was hoping. The skirt part that wraps around the paddler just isn’t designed well. If it’s too loose, it falls down. If it’s too tight, it just starts pulling the velcro open. So, it just stays sort of loose and you have to wrestle with it the whole time. It needs some kind of snap that holds it up firmly, but snaps off under the kind of pressure of a capsize. Someone needs to do some innovation there. 

We had planned on doing Opeongo the first day and the Upper Madawaska the second. But for whatever reason be it age, or maybe the Opeongo took more out of us than we thought, we we're pretty sore the following morning and were content to sit around the site and chill. 

It was still worth getting out there and trying out the big water with my Split Rock brothers, but in the end, it validated my (and I think our) assumptions about big water. It’s fun, but the highwater waves felt like a shallower way to enjoy of the river.