Hi all, After reading Ari's trip report, I find myself wanting to read about other Paddle-weisenheimers' trips. I've begun reading Max's adventures at www.solomax.com. My fear is that as winter approaches, I will need more kayak stories to carry me through the La Nina weather! So...how about it? Anyone out there taken any memorable trips this year? Tell us about it! Eric Sartoris Seattle, WA http://www.northernlightsphoto.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
At 09:46 AM 10/13/98 -0700, Eric Sartoris wrote: (That's who to blame for this!) >After reading Ari's trip report, I find myself wanting to read about >other Paddle-weisenheimers' trips. >So...how about it? Anyone out there taken any memorable trips this year? >Tell us about it! Below is the short version, basically for nonpaddler friends. We paddled one of our canoes, but saw lots of sea kayaks, even some folding boats. Anyone interested in doing the trip can request a copy of the full version (at least twice as long) with extra info paddlers might want to see, but I won't have it ready for a bit. It might hit the Web sometime (Lightning Paddles Web site), but not soon. Hank Hays ************** Murtle Lake Vacation '98 Laurie and Hank Hays's "Big" canoe trip for 1998 was on Murtle Lake in British Columbia's Wells Gray Provincial Park. The Park is located in southeastern BC, not far from Jasper National Park in Alberta. The lake is about 700 miles by road from our house near Portland, Oregon. We spent eight days there in late August and early September 1998, returning home on Sunday of the Labor Day weekend. House remodeling didn't leave time this year for one of our month-long river paddling trips farther north into Canada. Our first night out we stayed in Vancouver, BC with a friend who had moved there from Portland three years ago. Reached the Murtle Lake parking lot the next afternoon, then had mile to walk with our gear before we could start paddling. A "boat cart" allowed us to get all our equipment to the water in one trip. It's a dolly with two 15 inch bicycle tires that is strapped under the center of the canoe. Put all the gear into the boat, balance the load relatively evenly, and pull it along with us as we walk. I knew this trail would be smooth and wide enough for the cart before we left home, (most portage trails are not). We arrived at the lake about 5 pm, cable-locked the cart to a tree, reloaded the canoe, and pushed off about 5:15. Murtle Lake is almost 30 square miles in area, shaped like a lopsided "Y" with a south, west, and north arm. Paddlers enter the lake via the south arm. Most people choose to go to the west arm from there so we decided to try the north arm first. The terrain around the lake is wooded and mountainous. Lake elevation is 3,500 feet, and the mountains around it average about 6,500 feet with a couple peaks going to just short of 8,000 feet. Treeline is about 6,000 feet this far north. Murtle Lake is a wilderness area with outhouses at the 19 designated campgrounds around the lake shore, but no picnic tables at any of them. Air temperatures during our stay were about 75 in the daytime, and 45 to 60 at night, depending on cloud cover. Lake temperature about 65 degrees. Many of the rivers and creeks entering are colder, coming from snow fields in the mountains. An unusually dry El Nino year had eliminated most of the ferocious mosquitoes that Murtle Lake is known for. We had headnets and lots of bug repellent, but never even thought of getting any of it out. It's late enough in the year and we aren't far enough north for long daylight hours. It started getting light about 6 am, and it was really dark by about 8:30 pm. Laurie and I took a bit over an hour to paddle the five miles up the east shore towards the Strait Creek campground. We saw loons and osprey, one osprey nest had a couple birds near it as we paddled by. The campground is a long, skinny beach with tent sites in the woods behind it. Several other parties already there, some were families with kids, but we found an unused tent pad in the trees and set ours up. Laurie cooked a quick supper, we cleaned up and finished erecting camp, put the food in the bear cache, then went to bed -- it had been a long day for us. All designated campsites on Murtle have a "bear cache" (pronounced "cash" -- like money). These are for storing food so it is inaccessible to animals. Bears are a very minor menace (usually) at Murtle Lake, I consider chipmunks and mice a much bigger problem. Rodents nibble on one or two cookies, but use the rest of the package for a bathroom while eating so you don't want to keep anything they do leave for you. The cache at this campground is a narrow platform 10-12 feet up between two trees 8-10 feet apart. Sheet metal is wrapped around the tree trunks used for the platform, and close-by trees are removed so that pests cannot climb and jump to the food. Humans access it with a removable aluminum ladder. The next morning we ate breakfast and gathered minimal gear for a hike. The climb to Wavy Ridge is four steep miles up to an open ridge for views of the lake 3200 feet below. We took three hours to get onto the ridge (above treeline), spent a couple of hours there, then another two-plus hours getting down. We took a "solar" shower after getting back. A special plastic bag holds about five gallons of water that the sun can shine into and warm up -- like making "solar tea" in a glass jar. Water seldom gets hot, but feels better than a pan of lake water. To use it, we find a private spot in the woods, hang the bag from a tree branch, open a small shower head type spigot at the bottom, and scrub with soap, then rinse. We each get a couple gallons, which is enough to get most of the sweat and dust off. Beats jumping into the cold lake or river, and it keeps soap out of the lake. We stayed here another night and got acquainted with several of the new campers who arrived during our hike. One member of a family was Carlos, a for real Canadian "Mountie," a special investigator for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). We packed up the next morning and paddled 10 miles, stopping about 3 pm at campsite just short of the end of this arm of the lake. No one else is at this one, a very small beach with three marginal tent pads up in the woods. The bear cache here is a large metal locker type cabinet (double doors, about 5 feet high, 4 feet wide, 4 feet deep), which is fine for a small site. It's not lockable, the latching system is just complicated enough, and the doors are tight enough, that a bear or small rodent cannot get into it. The next morning we paddled up to the end of the lake, then about a half mile upstream on the Murtle River to see what was there. We returned to the lake and visited a bit with a Canadian group camped there, then slowly paddled back down the west shore of the lake, looking at scenery and checking out other campsites (all empty). Found another potential hiking area we'd like to visit next trip to Murtle Lake. We stopped to camp about 2 pm, after 15 miles of paddling, at the last campground before turning the corner into the west arm. This is a very small site with only one easily usable tent pad. Set up the tent, cached the food, then paddled two miles across the lake to our first campsite to visit Carlos and family (the RCMP cop) for an hour or so. A 15 minute, very light sprinkle on the way back to our tent was the only rain on the trip. Supper, read a bit, then to bed. Up early again and paddled on around into the west arm, following the north shore. The west arm has more people on it than the north arm. All campsites here had people at them, many had several parties. More birds too -- we saw three large flocks of loons for a total of about a hundred birds. Murtle Lake is a collecting point for the loon fall migration to the Pacific coastal wintering areas. We heard loons every day and most nights, and saw and heard osprey every day, too. It was about 10 miles to the next to the last campground in the west arm, maybe a mile from where the Murtle River exits the lake. We stayed at this campsite for two nights, sharing it the first night with a father and son from near Vancouver, BC. After erecting camp, we checked out the lower end of File Creek, which enters the lake near our tentsite. The water was too low and fast to paddle up it very far. There's a mile-long portage trail around the shallow portion, which starts from our campsite, and we walked it after supper. Narrow trail, rocks, roots, swamps -- definitely not boat cart friendly. BC Parks (the name for their provincial Park Service) has a beat-up fiberglass canoe sitting at the other end that people can use to explore a flat section of File Creek upstream of there. We made it back to camp just as it was getting almost too dark to see. Next morning we paddled down to the end of Murtle Lake, the outlet for the Murtle River. We parked our canoe there and hiked the three mile trail to McDougall Falls on the Murtle River. Many rapids in the river down to the falls, but we'd just have to carry the canoe back upstream, so we hiked the whole trail. It's an hour and a half walk to the falls, which are a 50 foot sheer drop into a deep plunge pool. Quite scenic, but it's hard to get to a spot to take a good picture. Hiked back to the canoe and ate lunch there. Father and son gone when we returned to camp. We read for a while, then hiked from camp about a half mile to Twin Lakes, a couple small ponds near our tent. The first one had very little water, but a few ducks were on it. Swamps prevented us from getting to the second lake. Ate supper, then did an easy, hour-long paddling trip to look for wildlife near our campsite. Saw birds, but no mammals. Two new guys, Canadians living south of the park, were in the tentsite vacated by father and son on our return. They had just hiked back from fishing a remote lake. Their canoe was still up by the BC Parks canoe, on File Creek at the other end of the portage trail. They'll go and get it and the rest of their gear in the morning, then paddle out to their car tomorrow afternoon. An early breakfast the next morning, talking a lot with our new neighbors. We decided last night we had time to use the BC Parks canoe to get up to see a relatively recent (two to four thousand year old) lava flow before heading towards our car. Laurie packed just some drinking water and a light lunch, then we grabbed two paddles, our binoculars, and a camera, and hiked the 20 minute, mile-long trail towards the Parks canoe. A lot of duct tape on the boat, some holding "splints" in place. It does leak a bit, but not bad enough to need the bailing bucket we also brought along (in case!). Most of this part of File Creek is a slow moving flat slough. We paddled slowly upstream on File Creek for about an hour. Clear water, we could see the bottom everywhere, and it was often 10 feet deep or more. A few fish in the water, mostly small kokanee salmon (a landlocked species of sockeye). Lots of birds overhead, and more birds swimming on the water. A couple nice views of some mountains in the distance. We parked the canoe two and a half miles later, and began walking. We hiked about 15 minutes along a not very well used trail (often indistinct, with a few narrow logs as bridges over creeks) to get to the lava flow. It looks like McKenzie Pass at home in Oregon, but has a heavy moss and lichen cover with some trees on it -- at least as far as we went. We wandered around for about 15 minutes, starting back about two hours after leaving camp. Returned to camp about noon, where we found our neighbors cooking fish. They had caught an extra rainbow trout for us, which we accepted thankfully and cooked as the main course of our lunch. Sure beat our planned cheese and sausage! We paddled the south shore leisurely, visiting other campsites, plus the ranger's cabin. Several camgrounds now empty as people head home. The rangers weren't there, out checking campsites, we think. 10 or 11 miles brought us to the next to last campsite on the lake at about 5 pm. A family of six from Seattle, WA (paddling four sea kayaks) has been here since about noon, and another Canadian family of four arrived at the same time as us. The smaller family is just starting their trip, the larger one, like us, will be finishing theirs tommorrow. Up early the next morning, ate breakfast, then on the water before 8 am. A half hour paddle (2 miles) into the wind to the last campsite, where we rested, then the last half mile towards the trail to the parking lot. A large bull moose was feeding in the water at the end of the lagoon, the only large mammal we saw on the trip. We unlocked and loaded the boat cart, then towed our load to the parking lot. We stopped at the campground in Blue River for a shower ($2 each) before starting the real drive home. Stopped for ice cream a while later, then saw a black bear along the road just afterwards. We stayed the night in the last available room in a cheap downtown motel in the city of Hope, BC. Hope's claim to fame is that some Sylvester Stallone "Rambo" type movie was filmed there several years back. Ate supper at a Chinese restaurant, then to bed. Up early and back home late the next day. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:32:52 PDT