Bowron Lakes: Solo by Canoe

After the Apple Triathlon, I took a week off.  There were a few options for the trip - riding my bike up the Icefields Parkway, a mountaineering trip in the Purcells with Tom, mountain biking all the must-do trails in the Interior... but when I actually thought about all of those, none of them were actually a week "off", considering the training load we have been under.  Spending a week canoeing the Bowron lakes circuit, on the other hand, sounded like exactly the opposite of  triathlons.  I could even get a tan.

Clicking here will take you to the full album.

Or maybe not so much of a tan.  Day One started out as on and off drizzle all day.  Day Two it rained harder, and got can't-hold-this-enormous-canoe-straight-stormy to boot by lunchtime.  

But then it started to clear.  And it was all worth it.

Other definite highlights of the trip:  being able to pack whatever I wanted for food and not worry about weight, being able to use wheels on the portages, and one of my better encounters with a moose cow and calf.

In the end, it was 105 km of paddling, 11 km of portages (with wheels, mind you) in 15 minutes shy of 4 days (3 full days and two half days).  If it had been warmer and I hadn't been alone, I think a week would be very comfortable. 

There was also a short section of Class 1 river, which reminded me just how much fun river trips are.  Scheming for next year has already started.