OK, here's some preamble for the trip - more long-winded than I had intended (for Phoenix and db's benefit) - plus some bla-bla to go with yesterday's pic.
My trip was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment thing: (a) the 7-day weather forecast was excellent, (b) I had the time available, and (c) I figured in late September, most of the crowds would be gone. I might never get (a), (b) and (c) together like this again, so I'd better pack some food, throw the canoe on the roof of the car and just go.
Sometimes things actually do work out the way you planned.
The weather turned out incredible - warm with blue skies every day. That is not normal for this part of B.C. : the Bowron area gets a lot of rain, and the weather aspect of this series of PODs is not at all representative of typical conditions.
Bowron is a *very* popular trip. There is a quota which gets filled up during the summer, something like 25 people per day going in. So 25 times 5 days divided by the number of red dots on the topo map and you can figure on having to share your campsite most nights. But even with the great weather, my entry day had only 10-15 people, and I had a campsite to myself for each of my five nights. If you go, especially in summer, don't expect this.
Like I said, Bowron gets a lot of traffic, and a lot of noob traffic. As wilderness, it definitely falls into the "heavily managed" category, so things are done a bit differently from what you might be used to in Quetico.
The park's management has been outsourced by the B.C. government to a private contractor, so if you go looking for a "BC Parks" website for Bowron, there is none. Here is the main site for Bowron:
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)IMO, the private contractor does an excellent job: the staff are competent, and seem to really care about taking care of the wilderness.
You start off at the visitor centre with a mandatory orientation talk (8 am and 1 pm) and bear safety film. Bowron is grizzly country, so the stakes are higher than out east where you only have those wussy black bears. (Re bear safety, I can't believe some of the stuff I read on QJ: taking peanut butter into the backcountry? ghee? wtf?) Anyhow, the film includes some footage of a bear taking down a tent. Whether staged or not, it was exactly the way I had seen it done for real in Banff some years earlier (belly flop method).
Next you have a weigh-in (Bowron portages have a maximum GVW per axle just like roads). You then get your permit specifying which of your packs are allowed to be in the canoe on the cart on the portages, and more-or-less en masse you and the rest of the daily entry quota of canoeists are on your way.
OK, so about yesterday's POD. There are seven portages total on the circuit, five of which are in the one to three km range. The portages are all wide and not too steep, something you could probably drive a golf cart on in dry weather. So some 80% of visitors use "canoe carts". These are basically collapsible dollies made of two bicycle wheels, some steel tubing and a cradle, and cost $50 or so to rent for the trip. I figured why not. (Note: if renting, you need to get your cart from a local outfitter before you arrive at the park visitor centre. I used Becker's, and had no problems).
Continued tomorrow.
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Picture of the day - POD (cont. 21) (Read 32569 times)
