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This trip started about 11 years ago. In August 1998, I went to Bowron with family friends. There were 10 of us in five canoes. My daughter was 11 at the time. This was the first time I had ever been in a human powered watercraft.
I had all the wrong equipment and clothing. I also had no clue how to keep a canoe pointed and heading forward. I had a great time but knew I would not get into a canoe again. Five years ago, I started kayaking. I knew at that time I would have to go back to Bowron. I figured this year was as good as any.
The planning started in September 2008. I had called Bowron Lakes to see what the limits are concerning people and boats. I told the people in charge that all paddlers would be in single Kayaks. I was informed that we could have 14 people. I posted the trip with two of the kayak clubs to which I belong, requesting victims to come with me. Within a week, I had the 14 people group. All paid the required deposit.
The first day to make reservations was January 2. I started calling early that day and after 45 minutes of busy signals, I got through. I was told that I was misinformed. The limit of boats was seven with a 14 people limit. I guess the first people didn’t hear the part about single kayaks.
I contacted the 13 people who agreed to come with me and gave them three options. I could do another trip, they could back out and get their money back, or they could find someone to be in a double with. It worked out that between cancellations and using doubles we got down to seven boats and nine people, – five single kayaks and two two-person canoes. Seven people are the minimum for a group reservation.
A week or two before the trip three people had to cancel for very good reasons. I could not give them their money back because it was too close to the departure date. I was worried about losing group status by only having six people. That did not happen. Since we registered at a group, we stayed as a group.
People attending: Mark Peele, Mark Gringo, Rich Hahn, Frank Satta, Scott Chapman, and Jackie Brown.
I had never planned a trip like this before, so I needed to find out what the group was thinking. We had a meeting at the end of June to go over details for the trip. The consensus was that we were all responsible for our own meals and belongings.
The trip went from July 17, 2009 to July 24 - Eight days and seven nights in a wilderness setting. The total mileage was 70.72 NM according to my GPS, not including any side trips that we took. This is 81.39 statute miles. All references will be in nautical miles since we had more water time than land time. The driving distance one way from my house in Lakewood to Bowron Lakes Provincial Park parking lot was 591 statute miles.
Other scenic sites around the area are Barkerville, an old mining town, and Hell’s Gate on the way up the road.
Friday 7/17 – 5.9 NM; 3.9 max speed (downhill); 2.1 average moving speed.
We had an appointment for an orientation at 9:00 am in the visitor’s center. This orientation went over a few ground rules for the trip. Our equipment then had to be weighed. Each boat could not carry over 60 lbs. This did not include water, axes, PFD, spray skirt, or paddles. They were considered necessary.
Anything over 60 lbs had to be carried on our backs over the portages.
The two-people canoes had to carry stuff on their backs because they could still have only 60 lbs in the boat. The kayaks could have most of their stuff in the boats. The ranger was very helpful. We were all packed, weighed, and on our way by 10:00 am.
The first part was a portage a little over a mile but it seemed much longer. Portaging a canoe is easier than portaging a kayak. Hauling 100+ lbs over a hill was very hard work. I had to put the boat down often especially uphill.
After the portage, we landed on the waters of Kibbee Lake. I had never seen anything so wonderful in my life. I do much better in the water than on land. This lake was warm and shallow but it was too short. The distance across the lake was the same distance as the first portage. We made it across the lake much faster than we did across the portage.
The next portage was shorter but more difficult. I put the wheels further back because most of the weight was in the back. Bad idea! Tongue weight was too much. I had to put the boat down more often.
Mark Peele came up with an ingenious way to make portaging easier. We wore our towrope belts and put the rope around the cockpit combing. This put the weight on our bodies instead of our arms. I also had help from Rich Hahn. He felt sorry for me and came back to help pull the boat up the hill.
At the end of this portage was Indian Point Lake. It was good to be back on the water. Our first campsite was about half way down Indian Point Lake. The weather was warm and mostly to partly cloudy. The bugs were “very friendly.” The wind picked up late after noon just after we got off the water.
Saturday 7/18 – 6.06 NM; 3.8 max speed; 2.4 average moving speed.
We took off about 8:30 am. It was a beautiful morning. The weather was cooler than it was yesterday with a high thin cloud cover and a few cumulous clouds. We finished the Indian Point Lake paddle.
At the end of this lake just before the third portage, we saw a big bull moose. He didn’t seem to be bothered by us at all. He moseyed from the lake bank to the water. We spent about 15 minutes watching him eat the grass along the bottom of the lake edge. It was a very impressive sight.
This portage was not as steep or as long as the other ones. It was, however, more rocky with ruts. The boat capsized going over a rock. I can’t even stay upright on land! At this point, I was thinking that this was a stupid idea to take the trip.
I was discouraged. We had spent more time portaging than paddling. Things did get better though. The scenery and the paddling were all worthwhile. Mark mentioned that we had to pay the price to get the reward.
We got to our next campsite at the bend in Isaac Lake. There were very few bugs. We had a wide variety of weather. The wind picked up and we could see large white caps on the other side of the lake.
Two unknown canoes braved the conditions and kept going. We watched them as they struggled across, but they stayed upright. The wind stopped, the sun came out, and then it started raining. The rain let up long enough for us to cook dinner and then started again. It was an early evening in the tent to escape the rain.
Sunday 7/19 – 8.58 NM; 3.8 max speed; 2.7 average moving speed.
It rained most of the night off and on. The rain was still coming down as we got up. I cooked breakfast underneath the tent fly and ate in the tent. We packed up very soggy camping equipment and headed out. The rain stopped about the time we started paddling, but it was still chilly. I wished I had put on socks. My feet were cold.
The paddle was beautiful. The water was like glass most of the way.
We saw incredible reflections, which were deceiving. As we looked across the lake, we saw paddlers that looked like they were floating in air. It was a very strange feeling. Waterfalls were along the lake at regular intervals. We could hear them before we saw them. Most of the falls went way up the mountains sides.
The lake water was greenish and very clear. The bottom was a bit eerie. Close to shore, the bottom went from shallow to a deep drop off. Trees littered the bottom like a tree graveyard. We stopped at our campsite about noon.
Since we are considered a group, the park people assign the campsites so we have no choice as to how far we paddle in a day. After landing, we hung up our stuff to dry and then had lunch. We had paddled down on the right side of the lake, the same side as our campsite.
The other side had some old trapper’s cabins. I decided to go look for them. They were a lot farther away than I thought. I kept saying one more point then I’ll turn around. After three, “one more points” I found the cabin.
I think that added about 3 miles to the journey, but I don’t know for sure. I had turned off the GPS because I didn’t want to mess up the total mileage. The cabin was OK nothing spectacular. I expected it to be much older.
The sun came out later in the day, which warmed us up. The bugs weren’t that bad. We did learn that flies are attracted to yellow. Mark Gringo wore a lot of bright yellow, and was covered with flies. The rest of us were grateful because that meant the flies left us alone.
We were met by some Loons at our campsite. Loons were widespread along the circuit. They have a mysterious call. We really enjoyed listening to them. This was night two on Isaac Lake.
Monday 7/20 – 11.1 NM; 3.8 max speed; 2.7 average moving speed.
What a beautiful day!
We woke up to some fog. It came and went over the far side of the lake. Another 8:30 start time. That seems like this is the norm. We first went across the lake to explore a delta. We couldn’t get very far because of a lot of downed trees.
We saw a place where there were two beaver dams. One was a bit farther up the stream from the other. The space between the dams was calm while the rest of the water was moving.
We then headed down to the end of Isaac Lake. It was peaceful and calm. The only sounds I heard were regularly placed waterfalls, birds, and the sound of my paddle in the water. Waterfalls were on both sides of the lake. There were big ones, small ones, and ones you could only hear but couldn’t see.
I spent a good deal of the day paddling by myself. I was just enjoying the beauty. The day was warm with mostly blue sky. Wind was minimal to nonexistent. I heard the cry of an osprey; saw a bald eagle sitting on a nearby rock. As I passed by, the bird decided to fly around me and up to a tree.
A wide variety of songbirds serenaded as I went by. The lake still had the greenish bottom and the close-to-shore drop off. We still had the boats on the other side of the lake floating in the air due to the reflections. We stopped at the southern end of Isaac Lake.
You couldn’t ask for a more perfect day.
The bugs are even getting more tolerable. Another note: The mountainsides had avalanche slide areas at periodic intervals. As I got to the bottom of these, I found that these areas were wider than I had expected them to be.
It was also fun to see the succession of trees along the slide. The landscape in the middle of the path where the most frequent avalanches are was just bushes and small plants. At either side of this were various sized deciduous trees. The edges were back to the pine trees. It’s nice to see book learning in real life.
Tuesday 7/21 – 8.35 NM; 8.3 max speed (down the chute); 3.3 average moving speed.
Another fabulous day! Mark Peele and I went down “the chute and roller coaster.” This is a fast moving part of the Isaac River with a series of standing waves. That was fun. It took no time at all to get to the mandatory portage at the bottom. Sorry no pictures. I had to keep both hands on the wheel.
The people with the canoes portaged this part of the trip. They didn’t want to take the chance of capsizing and losing their stuff. The mandatory portage took us around Isaac Falls. No one was allowed to paddle down. It was pretty intense.
This portage wasn’t long, but it was muddy and rocky in places. I capsized once. Then we went back to the water for short jaunt down the river. Another short but steep portage past another waterfall. The hardest part of this portage was trying to keep the boat from running away as we went down the hill.
A little more river, then we came to McLeary Lake. This lake was very small but I saw a mother wood duck with a bunch of babies sitting on a rock.
After this lake came the Caribou River. This river has horror stories about deadheads and sweepers that damage and capsize boats. The water level was high so the river wasn’t nearly as difficult as I remembered it. In 1998, I ended up going down part of the river backwards and had to be rescued.
Life is better when you know what you are doing. The current was swift. I’m not sure exactly how fast we went through this part, but we averaged 3.3 knots for the day even with very slow portages.
Lanezi Lake came after the river. It is a glacier fed and a silty, greenish lake. We couldn’t see very far under the surface. We landed about 12:30 to set up camp and have some playtime.
Wednesday 7/22 – 11.8 NM; 4.9 max speed; 3.0 average moving speed.
We were a little pokey this morning and didn’t get on the water until 9:00 or so. The weather was hot. When a breeze came up I felt good. When the breeze stopped, I had to put my hat in the water and then dump it on my head to stay cool.
The mountains faded away as we got to the southern end of the park. We finished the Lanezi Lake paddle, went through Sandy Lake, and back to the Caribou River. The speed was about 4.5 knots going down this part of the river.
We stopped at a little lake called Rum Lake. We had to go through Unna Lake and a reed passage to get to Rum Lake. This is also affectionately called Leech Lake. We saw some 4-5 inch long leeches. The lake was really warm so we put on our PFDs and just floated for a while.
Semi-cold lake water on a hot day felt good.
We had a 3-foot long garden snake of sorts visit us at camp. He just sat by a log for a long while. Frank Satta got bored looking at him so he finally dumped water on the snake to get it to move. We set up camp, ate lunch, swam for a while and then paddled back across Unna Lake to take a hike to Caribou Falls.
The hike was a bit strenuous because of the unevenness of the trail, but the falls were spectacular. A lot of waterpower goes over the falls. Well worth the hike. Mark Peele stayed behind because of sore wing. While we were gone, he saw a momma bear and two cubs.
Mark didn’t get any pictures because he was in his tent and his camera was in the boat. He figured it wasn’t a good idea to go get the camera. On the way back from the falls, Mark Gringo and Scott Chapman also saw the bear and cubs.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did not see the bears.
Thursday 7/23 – 7.74 NM; 3.3 max speed; 2.0 average moving speed.
We got out of camp early. The bugs were so bad we left in a hurry. We left Rum lake went back through Unna Lake and up the Caribou River to Babcock Lake. Before we turned into Babcock Lake we saw a mamma moose and her calf. We watched for a while but she got nervous and left.
We had three portages today. The first was longer and steep. I went as fast as I could because the bugs were awful. If we stopped on the portage we were bitten to death. It was safer to keep going. It was a slow day. The weather was very hot and it was obvious that we were getting tired.
The passage from one portage to a small lake was a reed path. I saw a frog. It swam in front of me. It was a quiet day for animals probably due to the heat. We did see an active osprey nest. It was quite easy to find because of all the noise inside.
I saw another beaver dam. I paddled up as far as I could. It was hard to bet back out due to the shallow water. I kept getting stuck. We had a small breeze on our faces. That felt really good. The water was so shallow at one part of Spectacle Lake, we only had a very small space to get through.
We had our first injury today besides bug banks. Frank was sitting on a stump in camp and fell asleep. He fell off the stump and scraped his elbow. We gave him a bad time about having a reportable injury.
It was so hot in the afternoon that watching a sleeping frog was preferable to going up to camp. There was a lagoon between the beach and the camp area. A wooden bridge over the lagoon had a nice breeze.
This was the best place to be.
I stood there watching the activity in the lagoon, which consisted of fish, dragonflies, water skippers, and other very small game. While I was watching I saw a frog. It was fun to watch until it decided to take a nap and float spread eagle.
He did not move for a very long time.
Mark Peele came by and also watched the frog. He started throwing raisins at the frog. The first few splashed around the frog but no luck. He then hit the frog on the head and it still didn’t move.
No the frog was not dead. It’s amazing what people – or frogs – will do to stay cool.
Friday 7/24 – 11.4 NM; 4.1 max speed; 2.8 average moving speed.
Today was the last day on the water. Rich got the idea to get going very early so we’d have a better chance of seeing wildlife. We all agreed. The plan was to be up at 5:00 am and leave by 6:00am.
Some of the people were up by 3:50 and made no secret about the fact that they were up. That made a very short night’s sleep for the rest of us. We were on the water before 6:00 am.
This part of the journey had a stream going through a marsh, which is the best place to watch animals. We paddled for quite awhile before seeing any animals though.
I was ready to give Rich a bad time for making us get up so early when we came to a small pond. A bull moose was in the pond area. Once again, he stayed quite awhile to let us watch him eat for as long as we wanted.
As we got a little further down the stream, we saw a female moose. Just as we got to Bowron Lake we saw a young bull swimming across the water. I also saw a river otter. He swam in front of me and then along the side the boat. I stopped paddling and just coasted along beside him until he slipped into the reeds.
We were out of the water by 10:00 am. I wasn’t even sore or worn out this time. In 1998 I was never so glad to see dry land. I was very sore and worn out that time. It is much easier to do the circuit with a kayak than a canoe, and knowing how to get a boat to do what I want it to do is a big plus.
I had an overall incredibly great trip. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Things learned.
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Having a group of six or less could cut the trip shorter by two days. Most of the we could have had more paddling time and still had a great trip.
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Get a mosquito netting hood and jacket for survival. Going later in the year would also produce fewer bugs.
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I got a lot of good ideas on what to bring and what not to bring as far as supplies and how to pack them.
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Eggs and butter can be taken without refrigeration so I did not have to eat oatmeal every morning. Many regular off-the-shelf food items travel well. This is much cheaper than the ready-made freeze-dried meals from hiking stores.
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Small wheels are not as good as large wheels. That’s why my boat fell over on the portages.
Jackie Brown |
Photos from the May 21-23, 2010 Basic Sea Kayaking class are available for viewing in the Sea Kayaking Gallery on WKC's website:
