To get there: Look for a book called Backroads Mapbook (volume 4) the Kootenays. You will find it useful for boating in the West Kootenays.

From Nakusp: To get to Kaslo, leave Nakusp, on highway 6, heading to New Denver. From New Denver, turn on highway 31A to Kaslo. At Kaslo, turn left onto Highway 31 which will take you along Kootenay Lake, and eventually Duncan Lake. There will be a road turning off to the right between Duncan and Kootenay Lake. Take it. You will end up at a T-intersection (1km or less). Turn right onto Argenta Road, and head towards Johnson Landing. Here, you must park and either boat along Kootenay Lake (south, back towards Kaslo) or walk for about 3km on the Fry Creek trail, which leads to the creek (where there are footbridges, and a trail cut right inside the canyon).

Another alternative is from Lost Ledge Provincial Park, simply boat across Kootenay Lake, which would be less driving and about the same amount of flat water paddling as parking at Johnsons Landing. You must hike up the creek. The lower part is mostly fanned out, but once you hit the last drop, a gnarly boulder waterfall, the trail is on river right.

From the Ferry: Head towards Trout Lake on highway 31, going around the North end of Kootenay Lake. You will loop around, and end up at the same spot, where you can either head to Lost Ledge Provincial Park, and boat across, or head up to Johnsons Landing, and boat along the lake (boating across make much more sense to me).

Description: The intitial trip we drove and hiked out to Fry Creek. It was late August and there was too much water. Returning two years later Thanksgiving Weekend in October, we found great levels, although we didn't have time to paddle much of it do to a mix up costing us most of our day. We boated accross lake from a point 3-4km towards Kaslo from Lost Ledge campground.

From the bottom, (since you will be hiking up from the lake):

The last 1-2 km of the river, it just tears down a class 3 gravel bed into Kootenay Lake. The last drop in the canyon, is just below the foot-bridge. This drop is pretty high consequences. It involves a big right boof off a boulder (with terminal consequences to the left), and then a large hole on the river right wall, (about 8 m high all together.) At higher water, it was difficult to stop above this drop, but you would be able to on river left when the level was appropriate.

As you hike up the Canyon, there are several steep boulder gardens, one with a car sized sieve towards river left. This section is very steep, and that is why the lowest water is required. About 500 metres up, there is a sloping ledge that pounds into a terminal hole on the left (at higher flows) but punches through remarkably well on the right (about 3-4m). Above this there is another ledge, complicating the line with a large pour over.

From above here, the river seemed to continue in a slightly less steep fashion, mostly class 4-5, without such huge drops. We didn't walk much further, but if I was there to paddle, I would continue up for a ways, because there is bound to be more awesome whitewater.

There are tons of large boulders, and boulder drops, everywhere, mostly around 10 feet high. This canyon is a spectacle of nature when the water is high, routinely flowing at 50cm, creating a true torrent, but occasionally getting as high as 200cms according to a stream database, which must be earthshaking. Go when it’s like 5 cms or maybe 10.

Spencer Cox.

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