Bowron Lake Provincial Park, British Columbia

[Glenn MacGrady]

Man, Bowron has gone viral on this website. I was actually thinking of driving there, perhaps to watch Steve'n Idaho pole the mighty Cariboo River and Babcock Creek. But what a downer denouement by PortagingPitt.

Let's do a quickie cost/benefit analysis. I could drive at least 6,000 round trip miles in my clunky 24 year old Magic Bus, which gets 14 miles per gallon, to arrive at some long skinny lakes that may be (a) closed due to microbes, (b) closed due to fires, (c) cold, (d) dark, dismal and rainy, and/or (e) populated by the throngs of Calcutta.

Haha. Not a close call.

Anything's better than this chicken cooping.

 

[yellowcanoe]

I am not sure where the Throngs of Calcutta were when we were there.The first and second nights we shared a campsite with similarly creaky aged people who were not about to do three long portages in a day. ( What is the sense of running through this area?) There is a very pleasant basic car camping trip at the start of the circuit. We however did park our trailer in the parking lot so we were not taking a campsite nor paying for one. When we finished our loop ( after sharing a campsite twice out of six nights and the sites are designed for multiple cells as some are here at home) we hitched up our trailer and took a looky loo around the campground.. Out of some thirty sites. one was taken..

Eeny meeny miney mo. We picked one and backed in and started our cleanup. Nice to have a shower right at the end of a trip. Then we drove to town ( bit of a drive ) for dinner.

Yes it was not quite a wilderness experience but it was nice to find portages that are actually packed dirt and not a jumble of rocks. And I thoroughly enjoyed the varied and different flora.

We were there in August 2017. It did not rain the entire week.. Nor had it much that summer hence the wildfires. We did pass one still burning.. Interesting small fire up the side of a mountain.
Swimming.. not much.. These are glacial runoff lakes.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

I agree with your rhetorical question, yellowcanoe: “What is the sense of running through this area?”

Well, one guy in our canoe club, Steve, was young, strong and athletic. He and a similarly-blessed friend did exactly that. I can’t remember the specific number, but they completed the circuit in under 20 hours. I think it was 17 hours. Were probably travelling light.