Upper Stave River

Everybody has at least one of them, you know the river you've been meaning to paddle and have never got around to yet. Sure, most people have more than one but isn't there one that sticks out just a bit further than the rest? There is for me, and that is the Stave north of Mission, in British Columbia. The access road for Stave Lake will take you to the north end where the river dumps in (also known as my future take out)This is actually less than 20 kilometers from my front door in Abbotsford. This might be a contributing factor for why this river sticks out just that little bit further.

The only people I know of to have run it were Russ Brown from Chilliwack River Rafting and his 2 friends. They float planed in to the lake and, from the story I got, spent most of the time hiking around massive grade 5 drops in a shear vertical canyon and belaying around waterfalls with a couple of throw bags. He did however say the bottom half was really nice big water grade 4 - 4+. That's the chunk I'm after. I believe their trip took a total of 4 days which was 2 days longer than they expected.

As for access there is a road that follows quite close to the bottom half of the river. This is nice, but would be even nicer if that road actually connected to any other road that you can get to. Basically there is a massive mountain range that cuts the end of the lake road and the river road in two. I know the lake like the back of my hand from years spent 4x4ing and quading in the area. The road that follows the river is a old logging road, accessible only by barge, and what looks to be an old air strip. The mountains on either side must have just been too steep to build a road on. I'm told that there is still a barge that operates and occasionally there is still logging in the area. I am currently trying to get in contact with the operator. If that doesn't work out I`ll borrow a car top boat and motor to get the boats over there and hoof them up. Not my first choice if I can help it.

I'm gonna see if I can track down the trip report Russ made after his trip which was in the early 90s.