Mosley Creek Day 4- The Portage

After a pleasant evening by the fire, the confidence level of the team was on the rise. Pat had suffered a brain tingling spill while portaging late in the day and was nearing shutdown. Grace saw him fall off an eight foot tall boulder with the initial impact occurring to the back of his head, the second occurring as his whole body landed in a frigid pool between the house sized boulders. John said the impact would have damn near killed one of us, but the young and resilient Mr. Keller carried on. After some good cheer at camp he was back and the group began to speculate about the final push to the Homathko River. We had paddled around six miles and now there was only the final ¾ mile to the end. John Kern mentioned a review our footage from the helicopter.


photo by Johnnie Kern

The review of the four remaining rapids did not support of current mood of confidence, in fact it sent us all to bed with thoughts of marginal, unprotected rock climbing in an un-passable box canyon with as many choked off sieves as rapids.

As soon as I awoke from my pleasant dreams I sat up in my cave camp, smashing my head into the overhanging rocks. The reality of the here and now struck home, literally. This day would require an enormous amount of effort, dexterity and drive, one way or another.

Utilizing the camera to scout one more time.

photo by Tommy Hilleke

Johnnie Kern self-portrait. Expression says it all.

photo by Johnnie Kern

Upstream from our camp, notice the bluebird skies.

photo by Johnnie Kern

During the AM a variety of plans were discussed. We knew we had 6 rapids and at least 4 were completely unrunnable. We also knew that we could, with a tremendous amount of effort, cross the river and portage up the river right canyon wall, and walk to the base of the river via the ridgeline.

Here is Tommy scouting the first falls downstream, “It don’t look so good boys, you might be able to…nahh”

photo by Johnnie Kern

John and Daniel scouting the maelstrom below the saddle camp.

photo by Tommy Hilleke

After extensive scouting and deliberation we decided not to gamble on the river left portage and set out to go straight up the right wall.

The going was near vertical at times and required extensive boat hauling and teamwork.

photo by Tommy Hilleke

We reached one rock band of cliffs that could not be passed without a few “up and over” hauls. The crew was beaten and exhausted after schlepping our 100-pound kayaks 1000 vertical feet straight up.

photo by Tommy Hilleke

Near the top of the ridge the snow became even deeper, one miss-step and a dropped boat would plummet back toward the river, an unacceptable situation.

Here is Riley ‘topping out’ after 3.5 hours of uphill portaging.

photo by Johnnie Kern

The view from the top was nothing short of spectacular. Making the whole trip worth it.

photo by Johnnie Kern

After another hour of slogging through the snow at the top of the ridge we got our first glance down into the mighty Homathko River.

photo by Johnnie Kern

Enjoying the view from a grove of yellow cedar.

photo by Johnnie Kern

Another shot of the Homathko gorges.

photo by Johnnie Kern

After nearly six hours of portaging we popped out of the snow and blow down to this amazing bench. The beauty of the panoramic view cannot be expressed in words, barely in pictures. It was a truly spiritual experience to be so deep amongst it and so far from civilization in such an inhospitable place. It could be said that life was created for moments like these. Surely a day in the woods I will never forget.

photo by Johnnie Kern


With only 30 minutes of daylight remaining we were faced with the decision to sleep waterless on the bench or bushwhack our way the Tiedemann creek flood plain, down to our right. Although exhausted from hauling our kayaks through the snow and terrain we decided to push on.

photo by Johnnie Kern

Here is a shot of the mighty trifluence. Tiedemann creek to the left, Mosley in the closer crack to the viewers left and the Homathko in the distance flowing from left to right.

photo by Tommy Hilleke

We made our less-than-graceful final push straight off the bench and onto the Tiedemann flood plane, at last we were out of the snow, on flat ground and loving life.

photo by Tommy Hilleke

John Grace prepares the fire to ward off the extremely cold temps that were about to flush in from the heavens.

photo by Johnnie Kern

We were treated to some amazing alpen glow up an un-named glacier.

photo by Johnnie Kern


Dusk settling on the mountains around our camp. We went to bed, glad to be on the other side of the lower Mosley gorge, eagerly awaiting our push through the meat of the Homathko gorges.

photo by Tommy Hilleke