Bloodvein River Solo 2015

Monday Aug 3 – Day 8 Time: 8 hours 31 minutes Distance: 26.3 km Had a poor night, long convoluted dream which woke me up several times only to restart with another chapter of the same story. I finally got up a bit after 9:00am after hearing a motorboat pass by. Another cloud filled sky, grey and threatening which would continue for most of the day. Fortunately there were never more than a few drops of actual rain. I left camp at 11:30am, the ever present wind was with me all day, somewhat less intense than previous days and less open water as well once I was done with the first few km’s to the SW turn.

I saw one other motorboat today, no other paddlers. Slow and steady was the theme of the day, I got my moving average up to 3.8 at one point and ended the day at 3.6, other than a bit of drifting at the pictographs it was constant paddling against a minor headwind. About 5:00pm I arrived at the rapid/portage into Artery. I had chosen the RR channel as an alternate to my upstream trip a few days earlier, that was obviously the better choice as it had only been a short drag over while here there would have been a much longer full portage going upstream. For this channel going downstream I only needed to do a very short portage to pass the small falls at the top then run the pool and bottom CII. I walked the trail which gave me a nice high view of the falls, the end looked easy enough, keep right for the smooth run or centre left for more thrills, I took the easy route as this was my first rapid of the trip and I’m always a bit nervous on the first few. Adding to the “fear factor” was the half end on an Old Town canoe at the end of the trail, nice “crosslink” sticker on the boat, somebody probably thought that meant unbreakable. I carried the heavy packs over the 30m portage and dragged the boat with the rest of my stuff. No problems with the run, maybe too easy. I was able to go hard right all the way, perhaps not possible in lower water.

I paddled on to the pictograph site, took more time than I had on the way upstream, had a snack before continuing through this scenic narrow channel out to Artery Lake. I went right into the north arm in search of another pictograph site, the obvious rock wall location revealed nothing, I paddled up to the end of the arm and then back again carefully scanning every rock face but found nothing (not alone in that I later read). Not a complete waste as I did see a very large spider clinging to a vertical rock face, big one, almost the size of my hand!

The sun was breaking through small cracks in the cloud cover, naturally the wind also picked up. There is supposed to be a campsite in this area, while I saw a couple of places that might work there was nothing obvious. I decided to head south to my starting point; I could see the beach in the distance. I pulled in at 8:00pm and quickly set up the hut, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped rapidly to 13 degrees, I shuttered the hut against the wind, made tea and a miab which I was unable to finish. After dinner I studied my maps and other reference material and of course updated my journal with the events of the day, this took several hours. The wind had calmed but I was still shocked when I went out around midnight to find a bright moon and clear skies, the temperature was now down to 11.5, perhaps a change in the weather was on tap for tomorrow, a bit of sun would be nice after the last few days. I’m feeling pretty good given last night’s bad sleep and the fair distance covered. One more picto site for tomorrow then it’s the beginning of the long downstream journey with the rapids and portages of a “real” river. Had another shock at 1:00am the moon is gone, the clouds are back!

 

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