Bloodvein River Solo 2015

Saturday Aug 8 – Day 13 Time: 6 hours 33 minutes Distance: 16.5 km I got up at 8:00am to a clear blue sky, lower humidity and temperatures in the mid-teens. A few white clouds appeared later in the day and along with them came some westerly wind. After the usual tea & oatmeal breakfast I assembled my gear and proceeded to move everything down to the put-in. I was not in any particular rush, unsure how far I would go today and for me at least it was very early. I spent some time playing with a giant green caterpillar then set off at about 10:40am.

For the time being I had a bit of a tailwind, unfortunately it didn’t last. 90 minutes of paddling and I arrived at rapid #27, a mandatory portage. There is a nice well used campsite at the top with a rock walkout to the upper part of the rapid. The 180m trail is wide and flat, like a highway, it goes through the trees and ends in a coarse sand beach that is probably underwater in the spring. Three loads plus a boat drag and then one trip back to take pictures of the multitude of fungi on display along the trail.

Ahead was about 14km with only a small CI near the end, it feels more like a narrow lake rather than a river in this section. There are some cliffs but mostly it’s slopping rock rising from the water at various angles, quite scenic with the sun coming and going. It could have been a totally enjoyable paddle if not for the headwind which kept my moving average quite low. I took breaks when I could find shelter.

At last I reached the narrows where rapid #28 was located, nice bit of current destroyed by an ever stronger headwind! I took a break at a nice cliff face then paddled on to the “hanging rock”, a huge undercut of the cliff face, the result of a giant piece falling away leaving the remaining 80% of the wall suspended over the water.

The wind really picked up now, I struggled to reach the turn where a campsite should be located. To add to the misery a bit of rain fell, I paddled to the left shore searching for the campsite, I found a small site, nothing special other than the view. According to the HW guide there are 2 ˝ sites here, I must have the ˝ site; the others are probably across on river right. I’m in the shade; they would be in the sun. My site is quite sheltered from the wind and has an ok spot for the hut on moss. I’d been thinking of something creative for dinner but went with a miab, Black Bart Chili which was not too bad.

The wind had completely gone away now, I’m missing the sunset but the sky, essentially 100% clear is not providing much of a show, just a hint of pink in the northeast sky. This site is probably not used much other than perhaps as a lunch spot, a couple of very old rusty cans in the fire pit. I went out for some star watching at 11:00pm, plenty of them reflecting from the smooth surface of the dead calm water, in addition to the stars there are high flying aircraft lights, satellites and a few good shooting stars. Time for bed, tomorrow will bring some portaging and with luck some runnable rapids.

No sooner had I got into my sleeping bag I noticed lights in the sky, northern lights! Not a great show but I had to go out to watch and take some pictures. Postponed bedtime by an hour, it will be 1:30 – 2:00am now!

 

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