The weather forecast on my satellite device was grim, indeed. The rain was supposed to taper off by mid-morning; however, it was supposed to come back with a vegeance in the evening. The following day had a prediction of 40 millimeters of rain! Yikes! 

Looking at our maps and trip research, there was supposed to be a decent campsite at Chute du Diable. We decided that would make a good day's journey of a little over 20 kilometres, so it became our destination for the day since it seemed like a good place to hunker down and ride out the coming deluge of rain.   

After our morning routine of having bacon n' egg wraps and coffee, we began breaking camp. The only deviation from our normal routine was cooking our breakfast on our camp stove rather than over an open fire. We hadn't stowed away any wood under a tarp the night before and the world was far too wet to deal with a fire. 

An interesting feature of the campsite was the thunderbox which was apparently augmented by the work of Hap Wilson. 

We speculated on whether he affixed the plaque himself or if that was done by someone in his honour. I mean...I guess it's an honour to have one's artwork fastened to the place where one poops. When I first saw it, I was impressed. His artwork is good. Having travelled to some amazing museums in Europe, it wasn't the best I have ever experienced, but it was a solid number two. 

Apologies, I can't resist a good poop pun. They just come out. I mean, poop puns aren't just jokes, they're movements. Oops, was that my turd poop pun in a row? 

Ok...I'll try to stop. Jokes aside, Hap is an amazing artist. Anyone who has one of Hap's guidebooks has seen some of his incredible sketches that greatly augment the reading experience and the magic of the described routes.  Those interested in seeing more of his art, or even purchasing one of his originals or prints, can do so here.

The rain stopped and we finished performing our doodies...I mean...duties to break camp. We departed the site just before 10 AM. 

We launched on the Corneille River side of the junction, ferried across the river, and ran the easy C1 rapid next to the left bank and into the rapid on the Coulonge. Before we knew it, we were quite a distance downriver from the site. I turned to take a photo of the junction from a distance. 

The river made a straight line heading southeast from the junction with only a couple of minor turns about 40 minutes downriver. There were some formidable ridges on the left bank; they were strikingly scenic in the mist. 

By 11:20 we arrived at Chute Gauthier, a series of rapids and falls. We decided to simply portage the entire set since there were two falls in the series of drops. In retrospect, and once we started humping it down the portage trail, we realized we should have run the top C1 run because there was plenty of room to eddy out and get to the portage trail on the right, cutting off the first 100 meters of the portage. We should have taken the time to examine it more carefully at first because it was an easy little centre run over a small drop. We couldn't quite see it clearly from the portage take-out. 

The portage trail on the right to bypass everything was clear and easy to follow. It wasn't a difficult carry. 

The falls and rapids below that first CI drop were a different story. If one were to continue trying to run the set before the final drop, Hap suggests moving to the left in order line and liftover the first falls. From there it would be a cross-river front ferry to the right above the large rock you see in the photo below. At that point, it would be a CIII run into the CII ledge you see in the foreground. A wiser option might to be carry past it all and put in at the spot where the photo was taken. 

From that point, it looked to be a straightforward run on the left. Here is a shot of that section from below it.

The only issue was the falls immediately after that. The take-out spot to portage around the falls was on the right and dangerously close to the lip of the falls in the high-water conditions. Furthermore, it was littered with deadfall. 

After spotting all of that, we were happy with our decision to just portage around it all. It was obviously easier to portage past everything in one go; with the in and out of the boat in high water, just to run a few rocky rapids in between falls, it seemed like more work than a straightforward 475-meter portage.  

There were a couple of spots on the portage that were obvious campsites. 

However, the beach at the put-in spot below the final falls seemed to have the nicest views of the river, though it was more exposed.

There was a very odd arrangement of rocks at that site. Someone had painstakingly taken the time to arrange an image of...ohh...let's just say a "rocketship". 

Below Gauthier, the river continued on its southeasterly trajectory through some swifts. Before we knew it, we were coming up to the start of Wolf Rapids. We pulled over to the left and beached our canoe on some rocks so we could get out of the canoe and scout the run. We saw a clear run down the middle but would have to do a bit of maneuvering toward the bottom to avoid some rocks. There were some nice standing waves in the run. At the water levels we had, it was a CII rapid. 

We ran them well and had fun doing it. In my excitement and exuberance, I forgot to take a photo of the set. 

Beyond Wolf Rapides, our trip down the Coulonge was expedited by a series of swifts and an easy CI straightforward center run. We were having fun despite the ever-present threat of impending rain. The dampness in the air made it cool, so we donned our rain jackets for the remainder of the afternoon. 

At about 2:15 PM, the swifts had all but disappeared and we came across some cabins sitting high atop the sandy river bank on our left. In fact, we would see various structures sporadically throughout our trip down Coulonge. In this particular location, as nice as the view most likely was from those cabins, we wondered about the difficulty of river access for the inhabitants. 

There were some nice sandy areas on turns in the river along the following section of the river. They would make nice places to camp for tenters, not so much for hammockers like myself. 

At 3:20 PM, we spotted the footing of an old lumber road bridge ahead in the middle of the river. 

From there we knew we were only about a half-hour away from Chute du Diable, our destination for the day.  We were happy when we finally arrived at the top of the chute. We were ready to make camp. 

From the river above, we could see the formidable drop in elevation to the river below. We immediately moved to the right and looked for the portage landing spot. 

Leaving our canoe and gear at the take-out, we walked the portage first to see where the best spot to camp would be. There were actually three sites on the small 300-meter walk. The one at the take-out was a cleared-out area in the woods. It didn't have the best views of the river and felt a little closed-in. The one toward the end was a well-established site but again, was tucked back in the woods somewhat. The one in the middle of the portage was smaller, on the trail, but overlooked the site with fantastic views of the falls and river. Despite its distance from a water source, we chose the latter for the views and ambience. 

No sooner had we set up camp and were getting settled, than it began to rain. It would consistently rain for the next 24 hours. We were prepared for it with our tarp set-up, however. 

We took some time scouring the area for appropriate firewood and stashed it under the tarp in an attempt to keep it dry. During lulls in the rain, we managed to expore the area a bit and take some wonderful shots of Diable Falls. 

We made some dinner and enjoyed sitting next to a fire for a bit. Incredibly, in the third week of August there were still quite a number of mosquitos out. More incredibly, there were some blackflies, as well, in the late afternoon! Yep...blackflies in August. It seemed we were just 'lucky' enough to experience a late hatch. They weren't much of a nuisance, barely noticeable for the most part, it was just a little surprising to see them out so late. It was just a bad year for bugs.

There was a camp high on the opposite bank of the river below the falls. The inhabitants came out at night had a large bonfire, so we weren't entirely alone on the river. What a gorgeous spot the owners had! Very lucky folks, indeed.