The Upper Ryan

The Ryan river is one of the largest drainages flowing off the Pemberton Icecap. Prior to the floods of fall '03, you could drive all the way up to this icecap. But now you only make it to where the remenants of the second bridge cling to the shore. This is where our trip would start. We ferried across the river, hiked up to the logging road, and began our 5k hike uphill. We were told to hike to the next bridge, but after hiking what we felt was 5 kilometers, and looking upriver at a long flat stretch, we decided to get in. As the boulder gardens quickly grew steep enough to lose sight of the majority of the lines, the group experienced a little communication break-down. After a little group huddle, we were back on track, eddy hopping and scouting our way downriver. The drops seem to never stop and almost build in steepness and difficulty. One of the biggest and best drops is seen in the pictures below. Another big drop was only run by Bryan and Jonaven. As the sun fell closer to the horizon we were glad when Jonaven recognized the old put-in to the "middle" Ryan where the run eased up a bit in gradient, but stayed fun and technical all the way to the washed out bridge where once again we hiked up to the trucks just in time to watch the darkness of the North set in.