Day 4: The Chute to Lanezi Lake
Navigating the Chute and the Cariboo River was the part I was dreading the most. The guide books we briefly looked at warned the novice canoeists that trying to navigate the chute was very difficult and gave several stories where things went wrong. One story went something like this, "The father and son tipped their canoe while trying to navigate the chute. Both were upset and the father couldn't understand what had gone wrong. He had been around the circuit several times with no problem." The book went on to say that the father was an inexperienced canoeist who had merely been lucky on his previous three trips and that his luck had finally run out. He also said that the boy and father were shaken and had now lost all confidence. What a story to tell in a guide book! Before reading this story I had thought that we'd be fine because Chris had been down the chute before without a problem, but now I was really worried.
Luckily we were able to watch two groups go through the chute before we went through ourselves. They went through without any problems and it didn't look that difficult so we went for it! This picture is of the group who went before us. We later camped with this group several times and got to know them better. Jim, Diane, Carol, and Randy were all very nice, fun people, and we had a great time camping with them.
The broken canoe parts make you wonder if anyone has ever accidentally gone over the waterfall or if they just put them there for dramatic effect. As we paddled through the Cariboo River we saw several more broken canoes, and it was rather eerie. They were warning signs that you have to stay alert as you paddle through the river otherwise you'll end up like those canoes.
This is Isaac River Falls (the waterfall the sign warns you about). It was just a very short hike from the trail, but easy to miss.
McCleary Lake. Apparently everyone else who paddled on this lake that day saw a moose off to the left. We completely missed it.
Day 5: Lanezi Lake to Una Lake
Packing up the tent! Another skill we had perfected by the end of the trip.
Lanezi Lake. Another beautiful morning without a cloud in the sky!
This pit toilet was a little less... private than the rest.
While paddling on Lanezi Lake we noticed that the water was very calm and we got a few great pictures with the reflection of the mountains on the lake.
We arrived at Una Lake and underneath the sign it had a "Bear in area" warning sign. Luckily, by this point I was less afraid of the bears and this didn't bother me too much.
Shortly after we arrived at Una Lake we had a short rain shower (2 mins :) and then there was a lot of thunder and lightning. We saw the lightning strike on the mountain to our right. Soon after we saw flames and smoke on the mountain side as you can see in the picture. This fire didn't last too long and burned out about a few hours later.
Here is the campsite we shared with our friends at Una Lake. We're the tent on the far right!
Here we are playing Bug Your Neighbor with (in order) Jim, Diane, Carol, and Randy.
Day 6: Una Lake!
We stayed an extra day at Una Lake, and we were sad to see Jim, Diane, Carol, and Randy leave, but they had to press on. We did make a new friend though... a squirrel! The squirrel would drop the pine cones from the trees with the intent to come down and eat them later. Chris thought it would be fun to gather them all up and put them on this tree stump. The squirrel really got upset at Chris for moving its pine cones, but we came back later and the squirrel had eaten them all.
We hiked to the Cariboo Falls. Here is the view of the falls at the top.
Rainbow over Cariboo Falls.
Though we couldn't have a fire, we still had our brand new, ordered-specifically-for-the-Bowron-trip ax. So Chris chopped wood sometimes, just for fun.
This smoky cloud is from the second strike of lightning that we saw the first night on Una Lake. We couldn't see the fire or the smoke on the first night, so we assumed it had also died. Apparently the fire was going pretty strong. At the end of the circuit we talked to the ranger and discovered that they had actually closed part of the circuit because of the fire. They weren't allowing people go past the end of Isaac Lake and they weren't allowing people go down the west side past Pat's Point. Also, we didn't know it at the time, but the rangers were also hurrying people along the circuit where they had closed it. We were one day ahead of the closure and so we still went at our own pace.
We had a little bit of fun while swimming in Una Lake. Woohoo for a day with no paddling!
To view Bowron Lakes Part 3 click here.Labels: Summer 2010 Road Trip
