Bloodvein River Solo 2015

Friday July 31 – Day 5 Time: 7 hours Distance: 18.6 km At 7:00am the sky was covered in grey cloud, it had been a warm 13 overnight. At 9:30am I heard a couple of motorboats pass, the sun was starting to break through the cloud so I got up. I made Tea & Oatmeal along with some fresh raspberries for breakfast. I left camp just after noon; there was a mix of sun and cloud that would last for rest of the day along with a fair breeze that was mostly pushing me along. The first stretch was through a narrow section with areas of reeds, there were numerous large birds here including a group of turkey vultures posing along the shoreline. Around 2:00pm the first storm of the day passed over, I sought cover on shore and watched it quickly turn into a sun shower. The next section varied from “lake” to “river” with a group of islands where I got slightly “directionally challenged”! Another storm passed over, another on shore smoke break.

Eventually I arrived at the bottom of the rapid at the exit from Larus Lake, it’s a CIV drop, I don’t think I’ll run it on the way back although it didn’t look too bad. On the return I will be able to shorten the portage, maybe even line the bottom on RL. The portage is about 150m with a good trail, 3 gear loads plus the boat, took my time, and picked a few raspberries along the trail. I paddled out on to Larus Lake, it’s a fair size lake but at this end there are a number of large islands which make it seem much smaller. I had wanted to get to the SE corner near the portage from Murdock Lake but given it was almost 6:00pm I decided to pass on that since it could take 2+ hours. I headed instead for a marked campsite a couple of km’s along on the north side, there was an alternate maybe 2km further just in case. Once again I had some minor navigation issues, a recurrent theme for me when combining lakes filled with islands, generally flat topography and a sprinkling of rain! In the end a small detour through a pleasant channel brought me to the campsite at about 7:00pm.

It was a nice site on a rock point with a slightly tilted tent spot in the back which had just enough space to squeeze in the hut on dirt. I set up camp then sat out on the rocks to watch the sunset and make a MIAB. Although there didn’t seem to be bugs something was biting me! I moved into the hut as the sun dipped below the horizon to get away from the no-see-ums; something I’ve rarely encountered while paddling. It was not long before the nearly full moon rose; I had a great view out the hut window. Made a tentative plan to circumnavigate Larus, there have been a number of different burns along the shore, at the north end there had been some in June, in other parts they dated back many decades. I had pretty much given up on the concept of going any further upstream so circling this lake seemed like a reasonable alternative.

 

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