Day 5 - Tuesday July 11
Dreary but mild start to the day....rain showers off and on as I make breakfast. Everyone likes the fire boxes, so convenient and easy to keep going as well as being more environmentally friendly, leaving no ugly black scars on popular campsites. Any wood ashes are disposed of in the river - the current greedily eats them up, leaving no trace in seconds.
The landscape reveals itself: distant peaks between the rain clouds tease me....the rain moves like a dense curtain, drifting up river, towards us, passing over us, meandering on, unperturbed by our fleeting presence. About 15 km later, Flood Creek is easily recognizable with its massive washed out gravel fan. The occasional gravel bed arises in mid river. Sweepers line the banks, their trunks throbbing to the watery rhythm.
The rain gets heavier as the day progresses - all don full rain gear - a test for our gortex - my legs get wet as water seeps through the full length leg zippers. My bum is cold and wet. Feet are wet, hands are chilled. Luckily, there is little wind with the drizzle. Yesterday’s heat seems long ago.
Suddenly, a black bear pops up from the high embankment....I’m sterning close to the shore and before I can yell back to the other canoes, with a sudden ‘whuph!’ he disappear back into the dense spruce forest. Total viewing time: 10 seconds.
No one is in a hurry to paddle...we sit hunched, mostly drifting on the river’s back...at 6pm we camp, at the mouth of an unnamed creek junction river right. The Sunblood Mountains glow red, as the sky clears a bit - rain clouds still linger about 1/3 of the way down the slopes. Hong does dinner Chinese style, we gobble up baby eggplant, beef teriyaki, green beans etc. before retreating to the tents as rain starts again, in earnest. A few water droplets make their way through the fly and drip annoyingly on to my face...the ‘bathtub’ floor seems to be dampish as well....sigh...another renovation project I was going to ‘get around to’ ....hmmmm. Good night.