Canoeing Weekend!

This weekend we went canoeing for the first time! Woohoo! We traveled out to the East Kootenays to Canal Flats.

Here we are...on the way to the put-in... At our put-in spot...We had lots of fun, however our trip was cut short by a day so we could come home and have an extra day to pack up for our sea kayaking trip. I'm sort of bummed that we had to miss the side trip to Lussier Hot Springs after our canoe trip (it would have felt good on the sore muscles!), but it's probably better that we were able to get a good night's sleep in our own bed. I am sore, sunburned and REALLY itchy; the mosquitoes were abundant, as well as some other little biting variety of bug. And maybe now that I'm sunburned, I'll actually have a little color in my skin! What an idea. Regardless, it's still mostly my top half that burned, and not my legs; they're really what needs some color!
I didn't get any pictures while we were ON the water because my camera was safely protected in my dry bag, so as not to ruin it if we dumped into the river. We had a community waterproof camera, as well as Kevan's digital camera that he had handy in a little protective bag in his life jacket. We'll swap pictures later, and maybe I'll get around to posting some of those; I haven't even seen them yet, but I'm sure they're bound to be interesting.
On our very first day after our put-in, brother Mike(who flew in from Ontario to join us on our trip) and his canoe buddy, Dennis, nailed a really big wave and capsized!! We all had tried to avoid the wave as much as possible, and I think what happened was that they had taken on too much water prior to this(their boat had a lot of gear, and Mike's not a small sort of guy!), and when they hit the wave(which happened to have a rock under it somewhere), it just sucked them and the boat right under! Duane and I were up ahead of them, so we didn't even notice until I turned around to check everyone out, and I saw two helmets bobbing in the water and no boat! I think, in the end, brother Steve and his girlfriend Karen, rescued Mike from the water, and Dennis just floated along holding onto the submerged boat until he got towed to an eddy where everyone had pulled their canoes out of the water. Duane and I were still up ahead, and had seen something floating in the water, so we frantically paddled our little hearts out to get to the "thing", only to find out that it was a stupid piece of styrofoam! ARG. Duane was right ticked! We had overheard that the guys had lost a piece of their boat, so we thought it might be something important. It wasn't, but we grabbed it anyway. The guys' boat had been nicely bent in half in the process of capsizing, so when they pulled out they spent some time banging out the dent and wrapping the middle of the boat in some extra rope we had all brought along. They had lost the middle support beam from under the middle seat of the boat, so it wasn't supported very well, but it all turned out ok in the end, and we were able to continue on down the river. That sure added some spunk to our first day out! We're just glad the guys were ok, and that we weren't going to have a severely wrecked boat that we'd have to leave behind! Duane and I took some of their bags onto our boat, as we had the smallest amount of gear, and a pretty light boat.
We found a campsite shortly after that...we had only been on the river about an hour before we set up camp...and relaxed for the rest of the night. At our campsite setting up camp...Drying clothes, etc...very typical...Hackey sack...also typical... Sunday morning we packed up and got on the river by about 11 AM, and our day was relatively uneventful. Nobody else capsized, the guys' boat held out all day, and we had a nice, relaxing paddle down the river. Steve taking an exhilirating swim in the river at lunch break...Every now and then there were some nice waves and converging rivers, which added some pep, but everyone did very well, especially considering that only two out of the ten people could be considered "experienced" paddlers! That river was pretty spirited for all us first timers! Yay us! We even got to see a small amount of wildlife while paddling, so that was neat. The drive home was also really good. It was a beautiful day out, and I had never been down that part of the highway before; it was really pretty! We got to see a bunch of bighorn sheep(minus the big horns) when we were just outside of Radium; they were all over the road. Man, did they look stupid just standing there staring at all the cars! There was a baby one, though, and it was pretty cute! :)
Alright..well, I think this is about all for now...and for the next month we'll be gone, so I will post about our BC visit sometime in August!

~K~