Saturday morning, July 15.
Drizzle and mosquitoes set the tone, but spirits were high.
The Little Nahanni is a gem. Canoeing it would suck. Well, thats harsh. But it would suck in a loaded tripping canoe. There is a lot of really good whitewater that would be very difficult in a loaded boat.
In a packraft, it was Fun, Fun, Fun. Crooked canyon in particular was PR heaven.
Don't undertake the Little Nahanni lightly however. A swim in Crooked Canyon could be long.
We boat scouted everything which included getting a bit surprised by Crooked Canyon. It was harder than we were expecting. Canoeists run it, right? Well, turns out most canoeists don't and portage it.
We ended a fantastic first day at a bug free, idyllic camp where Steele creek (river) joins the Little N.
The next day the sun was poking though and stoke was high. After all, this was the day that would get us to the South Nahanni, as well as getting to run the big ledge rapid just downstream.
We scouted it and then ran it. Good fun. Pretty straight forward drop and pool. The water was high and I imagine a loaded canoe wouldn't have been as stoked in its frothy maw.
Large standing wave trains livened things up all the way to the South Nahanni.
Living up to its trade route status, we encountered a group of canoeists as soon as we hit it. This is the exception rather than the norm, as they were the only canoes we saw.
We floated another 10km or so to the mouth of the creek which would theoretically provide (easy?) access to the ridge tops and our pass over to the named creek which would takes us to the broken skull.
