Neat picture today Lynda; nice effect, looks like your on the top of a cliff.

starwatcher

Joe_Schmeaux wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2013 at 4:24am:

Nope. Well, naaah. Remember when a @GB HD was the cutting edge bee's knees?

Someone asked me and it made me wonder so I checked opinions and stats. The nearest screen resolution excluding mobile for QJ visitors is still 1024x768. Much of QJ tends to be a bit larger but....

I did a screen capture earlier tonight of the POD inside a PS window that was 1024x768. My desktop was blurred to protect the innocent. As I write this I have 9 windows viewable, some Safari windows have a few tabs. I often need to enlarge text to make it readable to my eyes. Pictures I get.

The other concern may be unauthorized use of other people's property. The biggest size wins.

I'm asking because someone made me wonder. I get to see them all the full resolution received so that's why I'm asking for input from visitors while asking providers what they think.

I'm fine if a consensus said bigger. Verticals are always a judgement call. Curious to see what the board will do with what's attached when new window right clicked.

OK, I guess there are three independent issues here: size of the image on the user's screen, the image's pixel dimensions, and the image's file size.

I've already commented on the first of the three.

More pixels will show a bit more detail, but on the web, the difference isn't huge compared to what we have now. Comparing a recent POD with Photobucket's 1023x682 version,
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
the difference is only noticeable if you zoom in a bunch. (200% zoom of the POD version will give you roughly the size I would like to see on my screen).

The third thing is file size. Once you choose your photo's pixel dimensions, JPEG software lets you choose from a wide range of qualities (high compression or low compression), depending on whether you want a big or small file. In some cases, this seems to make more of a difference to POD quality than pixel dimensions.

For example, in Lynda's morning fog shot, I thought there was a big difference between the POD version and your screenshot version: most of the subtle color graduations were lost in the POD version, and to me the picture had much less of an impact. You can get a reasonable quality photo from a 110k file (good enough for web display anyway), but if the original 1920x1080 got downsized to 640x480, then 110k also got downsized to (I'm guessing) 16k. That's definitely well into "utility grade".

So my preferred POD specs would be (a) twice as big on the screen (200% area, or 1.4 times as big in each dimension), 1024x768 photo dimensions, and 100k - 200k file size.

If that's not too much to ask

Joe:

Yes, please bla-bla away! Bowron lakes has always intrigued me as a place to canoe because, as you say, it is a loop in the mountains. I'd be interested in your impressions of things like campsite cleanliness - given that it is, as I understand, a very popular circuit.

Plus any descriptions you can provide with the photos helps to put things in context.

Thanks for posting this!

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.

Today's POD is from Isaac Lake, looking east.

Bowron Lakes are mostly fed by glacial meltwater, and streams like this have mostly been reduced to a trickle by late September. The park's elevation isn't very high (lakes levels are at around 3000 ft, peaks at 6500 ft) so by September, the water was warm and wetfoot canoe entries in sandals were not a problem.

Isaac Lake is on a big geological fault. The mountains to the east are mostly early Cambrian limestone, with some (Ordovician?) phyllite higher up and quartzite near the mountain peaks.

Here is an anticline in the Cunningham limestone in this area:
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Phoenix wrote on Jan 15^th, 2013 at 12:39pm:

Unfortunately not. The eastern part of the park was ok, but they did have some problems in the west, and some timber management was required. IMO, the most scenic areas were  left untouched, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

More aesthetically jarring was the (normal commercial) clearcutting taking place outside the park, but visible at two points on the route through gaps in the mountains. An unwelcome reminder of how small your protected bubble really is in Bowron.

Wow! Impressive scene...and shot!

Today's POD is at the west end of Lanezi Lake, in the southwest corner of the park.

As you turn the corner and enter the fourth side of the parallelogram, you leave the interior rainforest and the mountains, and enter a much flatter, drier zone.

Wow - beautiful shot!  I've enjoyed these a lot.

Hey, how was the fishing in Sept 2012 (& what part of Sept?).  I've always expected it to be great then, but fished another part of Ontario last Sept (~12th-16th) and got all but skunked.

Back to POD's, the Bowron set was cool too -- I'm not used to seeing mountains in canoe areas!
Thanks.
-Tom

Thanks for the comment about the PODs. We were in the park in mid-September (8-15). But we didn't fish so I can't give you any info there. There were very few people in that part of the park; our last night was the only night we didn't get the campsite we wanted.

The yurt photos were from 3 winters ago - middle of February. The overnight temperatures were -25C but the yurts (there are two of them at French Lake) have space heaters and lighting so we could see what we were eating at breakfast and supper and sleeping was nice and toasty in the sleeping bags.

The plan is to be back there in early March this year.

Phoenix, I see the snowshoes today. Did you ski any of the trails?

Phoenix wrote on Feb 4^th, 2013 at 9:30pm:

Looks like you had great weather! What were the daytime temperatures like?

And how warm did the space heaters manage to get the yurts at night?

"I'd be curious if anyone can identify the tracks made by an animal as seen in the centre of today's POD. This set of tacks led from the east side of French Lake all the way to the western shore"

looks to be Otter  - hop, hop and slide a ways

Thanks Spartan2,

They are late fall phase, loosing their color and getting ready to head south.

starwatcher

Thanks Mk; It was our last day paddling out on Moose.

Thanks Jimmer!  And he gets to enjoy and watch the scenery up there all day long.

Tom:
I can understand your confusion. The picture is actually mislabeled. This is where Beg empties into Bud. Sorry for the confusion. Bisk into Beg is a pretty decent drop. The first time we went through there, from Bisk to Beg, we put in at the bottom of the falls, not a good idea. The trail through the woods adds a bit more to the portage but is an easy put in out of the current.

Jay

My fault on the title db.

No way i would line or attempt to run that with the water flowing like it was. That was September 2011. I had been through there once before and there wan't nearly as much of a flow.

Ouch is right!  Was it yours or already there?

I take it that the pic is shot from the Fern-Olifaunt portage.  I did that one in 2001 & someone asked if I saw "the canoe wedged under the rock", but that was an aluminum one if I recall correctly & fully submerged.  I didn't see it myself & didn't trudge back to look after that "ever so pleasant" portage experience, but it just can't be that same canoe.  Did you see any others lost there?

Again, OUCH!  I'd like to hear how those guys got out. 
I bet it's worse than my lost canoe story!

-Tom

Not mine! I thought it might be yours, Tom.

Old Salt wrote on Apr 1^st, 2013 at 7:32pm:


Not mine or ours either. It was closer to the Fern side of the portage. Didn't see it until I was heading back to pick up the canoe I had unloaded about half way or so into the portage. This was Fall of 2011. My guess is that it got away from someone camping on Fern but have no idea. I would expect that a canoe in that circumstance wouldn't last a winter freeze and spring run off but have no idea how long it was there. My caption in my photos is "I hope they made it".

Tom, didn't see any other carcuses (or is it carci) in that stretch. We did not take the time to fish the pool as we were passing through to our next campsite on Bud.

Jay

Thanks Pat, from one Dylan fan to another. Anytime in canoe country is majical but sunrise/sunset is just a little more special.

J

Looks like Deaux River....BUT there's water in it!! 

The guy in front is busy fumbling with his GPS right?

What's the 2x6 for?

Blueberries in northern BC in late September - who knew?

This is a continuation of the Bowron POD-series-plus-sort-of-a-trip-report started a couple of months ago. The maps and preamble are on page 1 of this thread.

This pic was taken in the southwest corner of the park, on a short side hike to Cariboo Falls.

Phoenix wrote on Apr 13^th, 2013 at 10:43am:

Thanks - it really was that weird rose colour.

I think the dead trees are beetle kill. This is (?) Mt. Hughes, in the SW corner of the park, so it is in one of the few areas that did have significant pine beetle problems.

Beautiful picture today Tim; Makes me want to be there to get over this cabin fever.

starwatcher

Nice set of shots - looks like the kids had a great time.
How old was your youngest, and was he sitting on a pack or seat in yesterday's POD? 
-Tom

Neat photo today Lynda,

I love those foggy, misty mornings.

starwatcher

Spartan2 wrote on May 17^th, 2013 at 4:01pm:

Oh! my mistake; that explains why you are featured in the photos.  Tell Neil they are still nice photos. 

starwatcher

what kind of dog is that pup, looks a bit like my walker coonhound

I like today's photo of the rocky cliff and canoe Spartan2; I wish I was there this weekend. Maybe I'll head up to Ely today.

starwatcher

I certainly can relate to todays photo.  Looks like our normal trip and can use a coffee warm-up
!

That must be a difficult beaver dam; It's taken three days to portage it! 

starwatcher

Mk631 wrote on Jun 18^th, 2013 at 1:24pm:


I agree; thanks for posting the photos Lynda!

starwatcher

gorgeous photo today!  Location?

Mosquito Point it is!

Does anyone know the history of this area?

We found lots of old debris, bottle/can dumps and excavated spots seemed like  small cabins may have been constructed at one time. The POD from a few days ago, was of a small shack in the woods near the campsite. We were thinking fishing, hunting or logging camp.

The POD of the morels was near that campsite also.

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)