Kristin and I got in a couple canoe trips this summer, in addition to the usual paddling in the local lakes.
The first was an attempt to paddle Goldstream north of Revelstoke. But the access road was washed out a ways from the takeout when we scouted it ahead of time, so we decided to camp on Lake Revelstoke instead, and just do paddles from our campsite. We were surprise by the beauty of this lake, given that it is a reservoir. However we were a fair ways north (roughly 90 km) so it was quite narrow and almost river-like. We agreed that we would go back again.
Later that same week we put in at Penticton, paddled to Commando Bay in Okanagan Park where there is one of the many little marine campsites. We camped there two nights, hiking up from the lake into Wildhorse Canyon one day. Then we paddled out to Bertram park where our daughter picked us up. It was quite hot all three days- mid thirties- and the final stretch home was into a very stiff headwind. We noted that it would have made sense to paddle a bit further to Cedar Creek Park where we wouldn’t have to carry our canoe and gear several hundred yards up to the vehicle.
Now we are up at Fort St John for a while so we are looking forward to paddling in the area and have already found some people who have paddled most of the rivers in the area. The Peace was looking pretty nice in low fall water when we got up here, so we hope to paddled the stretch from Hudson’s Hope to Taylor, just below FSJ, before the Site C dam is built.
In the meantime, we are getting the know the cross-country ski trails in the area, which are a mere 15 minutes away, making it easy to get out and stay in reasonable shape for paddling season.
