Whitewater in B.C.'s Southwest: A Guide to Accessible Runs for Beginner to Advanced Kayakers
Steve Crowe | Jim Hnatiak


Compras Nikon
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1 Decent attempt to fill a need, but not quite there
I have to say that I found this book fairly disappointing. Having long waited for Stuart Smith to publish his much-anticipated whitewater guide to Southwest BC, I was excited to see that someone else had taken the lead to get some current information published. As many folks know, the only other guidebook to the region's whitewater was published by Betty Pratt-Johnson back in 1986 and the material in that book is now two decades old. Rivers have changed as have paddling styles and Pratt-Johnson's guide, although well written and comprehensive, is now out of date.

The problem with this guide however is that it really doesn't add anything new to Pratt-Johnson's guide and the only new material you get is some updated information on logistics. The run descriptions are very brief and not particularly comprehensive. Some of the information on logistics is helpful, but you get the sense that this guide was written over the course of one paddling season and that few of the rivers were visited more than once. Basically, it appears the authors drove around with a copy of Pratt-Johnson's guide on a long road trip, made edits in the margins, and then published their edits as this book.

This guide is a decent start and if these guys were to expand this for a future edition it might be worth a second look, but for my money a used copy of Pratt-Johnson's guide supplemented with current information from the internet is still the better deal. What we really need is a guide to the dozens of new runs that have been discovered in recent years throughout the Whistler area and along the Fraser Valley, and for that I guess we'll just have to wait.



Sunday, 06-Jul-2008 23:25:45 CDT
Quote of the Day:


Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward?  That's the trouble with

time travel, you never can tell."
-- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara"

Depart not from the path which fate has assigned you.