At the put-in, we met a group of elk hunters who had been coming to the Stikine for the past ten years. We talked about the flow of the river, and they reported it was fairly high compared to what they were used to. Next, we walked down to the river to see if we could spot the gauge under the bridge. We were unable to locate it. The river was up in the bushes and was brownish-gray in color.

The paddlers we had talked to, who had run the Stikine successfully prior to our trip, said that the river would look high and gray due to the glacial stilt that is always present. The flow was still a mystery, and we had no idea what the river would be like when it went into the "Grand Canyon", 6 miles downstream.

After scouting, we drove an hour to the nearest town of Dease Lake and checked into a hotel room and contemplated our next move. We decided that we would put-in the next day and paddle the 6 miles to the first class-five "Entry Falls" rapid. We agreed if we thought the water was too high at Entry Falls, we would hike out since it was only 6 miles into the trip.

On the morning of the 17th, we woke from our last night of comfortable sleep and arrived at the put-in at 7am. It was still dark as we packed our boats and the air was nippy at 30 degrees. We packed enough food for 4 nights and all the necessary camping and rescue gear. I was paddling a Wavesport Excel and Jay a Dagger Freefall, both high volume boats. We wore full dry suits to insulate against the ice-cold water and near freezing outside temperatures.

"Losing a paddle, a skirt implosion, or separation from the boat would mean sure death."

Around 8am, we launched our fully loaded, 80-pound boats in the swollen Stikine. For the first three miles, we joked about our heavy, long boats, since we normally trained in short, light rodeo boats. At mile 3, we reached a canyon where we understood were class three warm up rapids. Only these class three rapids turned into class five maelstroms.

We thought perhaps we were already in the Entry Falls area, but we knew we had not travelled very far. The water was moving faster and was more turbulent than any river we had paddled, and we weren't even in the class five-six section! It was tougher than anything else I have paddled, including Chile's Futalefu and the Grand Canyon at high flows. Large boils that were 8-10 feet high in places came off the canyon walls, pushing us out to the middle of the river, where we did NOT want to be. Eddies were non-existent and new rapids came up quickly. Losing a paddle, a skirt implosion, or separation from the boat would mean sure death.