Bowron Lakes Circuit! (Part 1)

The Bowron Lakes Circuit is a Provincial Park located in British Columbia, Canada. It is a circuit of 10 lakes, about half of them connected with water and the other half have a portage from one lake to the next. The round trip was 72 miles, and we spent 8 days on the circuit. This may make some of the Jones family very jealous, but I have to report that we had a total of only 10 minutes of rain the entire trip. It was a beautiful 75 degrees the whole time we were there. Every day we, and all the other campers, were astonished that it still hadn't rained. We had a wonderful time on our trip and only got minor scrapes and blisters :)


Day 1: Ranger Station to Indian Point Lake

The first morning we had a big breakfast at the Bear River Mercantile Restaurant before our 9 am orientation meeting.


We got out canoe gear weighed (couldn't put more than 60lbs in the canoe) and somehow got the rest of our gear strapped onto our packs. Chris is a stud because he carried this huge pack nearly the whole trip because his pansy wife just couldn't carry that much on her pack. For those unfamiliar with the canoe circuit, to portage from one lake to the next we put our canoe on the wheels, like in the picture, and we push/pull the canoe and haul our packs anywhere from 100 yards to 2 miles from one lake to the next. It didn't sound too hard, but the terrain is not all that flat or smooth. Portaging was not my favorite part of the trip.


The circuit starts with a long portage and then you finally arrive at Kibee Lake! The first time we tried to fit all of the gear into the canoe it took awhile, but by the end of 8 days... we had it down pretty quick. We finally got all the gear in and Chris tied everything down pretty good - just in case.


We set up camp and it was such a beautiful afternoon we pulled out the hammocks and took a nice nap.

We were only able to have a campfire the first night because of a campfire ban. So we took full advantage of the campfire and had lots of smores! It was delicious. (We're not going to mention the fact that my thumb accidentally touched a piping hot marshmallow and got badly burned.)



Day 2: Indian Point to Isaac Lake

Ah, more portaging. My favorite.

Bowron Lakes is very beautiful, and it is so hard to capture it in a picture. I kept trying though. Here we are paddling on Isaac Lake. Our second day was a very looong day by accident. We decided to go just a little bit farther and then we found that the next 5 campsites were full so we paddled a lot farther than we intended to trying to find a campsite.



As we were paddling we saw this brown thing in the lake then suddenly it disappeared. After about 30 seconds it popped up again. We were so far away we had no idea what it could be. After awhile we determined it had to be an animal of some sort.


As we got closer I got really nervous... it could be a bear! Then it would pursue us, pull us out of the canoe, and tear us apart!! Ok, so my imagination went wild for a second. I was still terrified of bears at this point. We reasoned that it couldn't be a bear because just the head was above water and it didn't seem like a bear was likely to do that. We got even closer and we realized it was a moose. We also noticed that on the shore was a calf.
Day 3: Isaac Lake
Still trying to capture what we saw and experienced on the lakes. So pretty! We took it easy the third day because we went so far the second day and my arms sure loved the rest.



So comfy in his cocoon. Great way to keep bugs off of you. These parachute camping hammocks are fabulous.


Can't go anywhere without popcorn! My favorite treat.


To view Bowron Lakes Part 2 click here.

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