Vancouver Whitewater Club
For All things Whitewater...
River Gauges
Capilano River
If the graph below isn't loaded you can Visit Metro Vancouver Levels site here and read the "River Flow m3/s"(CMS) (GREEN line) from the Capilano River gauge.
Use the chart above to roughly covert the CMS (in green) to the level on the painted gauge at the fish hatchery.
2; 20 cms
3; 30 cms
4; 50 cms
5; 70 cms
6; 90 cms
7; 115 cms
8; 140 cms
*9; 160 cms
*10; 200 cms
Low Flows 20cms can be very managable class III-, middle flows are nice class III paddling, as the river level gets higher it moves into big volume class IV- , above 200cms a swim could be very bad as the boils get very large and eddies are smaller.
* these levels are over the weir and are approximations, be aware that a powerful and unavoidable recirculating hydraulic forms around these levels (video here https://vimeo.com/151471317)
Seymour River
There are multiple gauges for the Seymour, it's important to know when it's raining hard the MetroVancouver gauge may be inaccurate for the canyon and lower section as the gauge is far upstream. If the river is just running on melt then the correlation is good. For the Seymour Canyon check out the gauge on RiverApp which is at the put-in for the canyon.
Using the Metro Vancouver Levels and read the "River Level" (BLUE line) from the Seymour River gauge.
Use the graph below to roughly covert the gauge level to the level indicated on the rock.
You can view the rock on the river from the end of "Heritage Park Ln, North Vancouver"
Mamquam River
https://wateroffice.ec.gc.ca/report/real_time_e.html?stn=08GA075
This gauge is relevant for the Upper / "Middle" Mamquam, Mamquam Falls, and the Lower Mamquam (and kayak site) and may also be valuable for estimating flows in Skookum Creek. It's below all the power projects on the Mamquam, so it represents total flow in the river (the falls will have less flow than this gauge indicates and the correlation may change depending on generation rates).
Thanks to BC Whitewater and their ambassador Scott McBride for his work on this.
Other Rivers
Check out the "River App" on Android and IOS and the "Government of Canada water office website"