Goin’ Surfing – Tamihi MicroWave, Chilliwack River

by cynthiamchale

The Chilliwack River is following it’s normal summer trend this season leaving us with pathetically low water at the end of the summer.  Not to be the bearer of bad news or anything, but there’s a good chance that it’ll stay that way until we’ve had some snow, and then a thaw of some sort – this usually happens sometime around Remembrance day.  But don’t worry, it’s not all bad.

In early September we were out on a low water run from Slesse Trailer Park to Raft Ranch, which seems to be the best chunk of river to run at low water because although it’s not heart stopping whitewater, there’s enough water to actually get down it, and enough obstacles to make it somewhat entertaining – plus a LOT of good rock splats etc to be done.  Anyway, I’m getting off track here. On this particular day we were pleasantly surprised by a little micro-wave just above Tamihi.  It can be found in the section of  river just above Tamihi where there is normally a train of standing waves at higher water.  It seems to have formed a nice wave that has a great eddy and is surfable at a variety of low water levels without taking out your head on the bottom should you find yourself upside down.  We’ve been out on it at any water level from about .67 to about .82 (yup, I mean the river is running at less then 1).  To much lower and the trough is too narrow causing you to pearl incessantly, and well honestly we haven’t had any opportunity to test it out higher than .82 because there just hasn’t been enough precipitation to bring the water up any higher than that.  You can check the water level on the online gauge if you’re heading that way we use the ‘Chilliwack River above Slesse Creek’ gauge.  Finding this wave has proven to be a bright spot in the low water season and has resulted in MANY after work surf’s.  It seems to be entertaining for paddlers with a variety of surfing skill levels from just learning, to learning new tricks.  For your viewing pleasure I’ve attached a slide show of just a few of the many many pictures we’ve taken while we’re out.

Micro Wave – Chilliwack River from FVWW on Vimeo.