On Saturday morning I Drove up to the Madawaska Valley to check out one of Ontario’s hidden gems, Moore Creek as its says on maps. After a foggy 2 hour drive I met up with “Crazy Stan” and we had breakfast at a little place in Combermere and off we were to the river.
The shuttle on this river can be the trickiest part about it because the road that accesses the lake is private and you have to be really stealth about it. Fortunately we had two shuttle bunnies at our disposal to drop us off and get the truck out of there before the owner found it!
I had previously run this river last year with almost no water and knew it would be sweet if it had the right flows. Once we reached the mouth of the river from Moore Lake we knew we had plenty of water to get down it this time although MOORE water would have been a nice treat (haha pun intended!). Once we reached the first canyon we knew that this was probably the lowest you would want to run the river at. There was just enough water to make it a good time though!
The whole run has about 5 significant sections/rapids (3+-5+) on it and ends with a bang called Moore Falls. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough water to clean up the entrance into the 12 foot must make boof onto rocks. Check out the pictures to see what it was all about!
One thing we came across was a nearly empty Bark Lake. The falls were about 5 higher due to the low water and the lake was something like 25 FEET LOW with no run off and little rain forecasted. It should be an interesting summer for the Madawaska system…
