PNC Days 84-86 – The unpredictable Columbia

This stretch of our trip included a little bit of everything — weather, lakes, rapids, and a town! We paddled through Sinixt & Ktunaxa ɁamakɁis ancestral lands.

Day 84 – CR Mile 376.8 – Headwind

For the first several days of our paddle our bodies were sore. Our arms were sore, our fingers were sore. Our backs were sore. Our butts were sore. One morning even my elbows were sore! Not anymore. We are feeling stronger every day and more confident in the canoe. We’d like to be increasing our mileage. But, the river has other plans. We fought an intermittent headwind all day today. We took a break from fighting the wind as we passed the town of Nakusp for some store-bought coffee (yum!), and when we started out again the wind had died down. But shortly after we got back on the water, it kicked back up in full force. There were powerful gusts that pushed the boat backwards and big waves. We pulled off to a sandy beach that was full of people enjoying the holiday weekend and watched a few stand-up paddle boarders struggle to fight the waves just like we had been. Eventually we decided to fight the wind some more and paddled on until camp. At the end of the day we had paddled for fewer hours than planned and at a slower pace. But, that’s life on the water — we have no control over when we will encounter obstacles, and we just have to enjoy what the river throws at us… During the beach break, I took an extra swim. We are still in a relatively populated area, but we managed to find a decent place to camp pretty far from any houses. For dinner we had chili with noodles. Yum!! -T

Day 85 – CR Mile 414.7 – Losing sunlight

We got on the water this morning at 6 am and had a nice couple hours of paddling. Then a strong headwind started up and shortly after some really big waves. Twice the front tip of the canoe dipped underwater because of the waves, so we decided to pull over and make a coffee. The wind and waves were still going, but looked better, when we finished our coffee, so we headed back out into it. It was a tiring hour or two fighting the wind and waves, but eventually the water got calm again and remained calm for the rest of the day. This afternoon it got quite hot, so we went for a swim during one of our breaks, which was quite refreshing! (We haven’t showered in about a week.) We had nice sandy beaches all day, but when it was time to look for camp at 35 miles on the day, there were nothing but rocky cliffs. We noticed that sunset was quickly approaching. We normally try to start looking for camp about an hour before sunset to give ourselves plenty of time and light to find a campsite. The days are getting shorter, and we are headed south, so a 7:30 pm sunset just snuck up on us today. At 7:50 we finally found a place to camp. -R

Day 86 – CR Mile 472.0 – How much can we fit into one day?

We woke up this morning 30 miles away from the lock and dam that marks the end of Arrow Lake. We wanted to use the lock, but it closes at 3:30 and we had decided we wouldn’t make it in time to go through today… 30 miles by 3:30 seemed crazy. As we got into our canoe just before 6:00, we had the crazy idea to go for it. All the stars aligned: the water was calm with no head wind, plus we’re getting stronger. We made it to the dam at 1:30 and were through the lock by 2:15. Woohoo!

The book we’re using as a guide to the paddle talks a lot about the rapids below the dam, so we were very nervous with high adrenaline as we exited the lock. We were ready to be thrown into whitewater! Instead we were confused when it was extremely calm and pretty slow moving. We paddled on towards the towns of Castlegar and then Trail, and the current + rapids did pick up. Still, they were nothing like the raging torrents the book had made them out to be. We made it through fine and got to Trail by 5:45 — we expected to get there tomorrow afternoon! We checked the map and realized there is no camping until 3 miles downriver from Trail, so we grocery shopped and got back on the water in less than 1:30. That must be a record for us. Right before the municipal campground was supposed to be the sketchiest rapid of all, and we hit it just after sunset. Sure enough, this one did confuse us. The river was flowing fast and turbulent, but we had stayed so far to the side that we ended up fighting against a backwards-flowing current to move down river! We were in water swirling backwards. We worked our way out of the back-flow, but then water was moving too fast for us to cut across the river to make the municipal campground, so we just floated on until we found a flat-ish bank on our side of the river. 57.3 miles — what a day!! For dinner we had sandwiches and chips we picked up from the grocery store. Yum! -T