Mahood Lake

 

This is Mahood Falls, I think

Our friends were going camping at Mahood Lake in Wells Gray Provincial Park so they invited us to join them.  We've been to Wells Gray many times but never to Mahood Lake, which is accessed from 100 Mile House rather than Clearwater.  

But Leo has a busy schedule so we could only go for one night.  Also, we sold our trailer so we had to sleep in a tent and organize camping equipment from the various piles we put our trailer equipment in.

Also we didn't bring a boat so we just went on a few hikes and checked out three waterfalls. 

This is Canim Falls. You can walk right up to the rim and peer over if you want.

There are falls everywhere in Wells Gray.

This one is Deception Falls

  And Leo went swimming. I declined, it's late September, too cold. We didn't take any pictures of the lake.

Leo and Mark posing near Deception Falls

And Patti and I acting silly: 

These last two photos thanks to Patti.

Back in Willliams Lake

 I still haven't found the charger for my camera, but Leo snapped this shot of a painted turtle he and Mark found in the creek valley.

Featuring Henry the wonder dog.

And the underside:

Also years ago they planted sea buckthorn bushes in the creek valley when they built some retaining ponds.  Bad idea!  They are an aggressive invasive species from Eurasia though they haven't really spread yet from where they are planted.  

This year they are laden with berries.  We'd eaten sea buckthorn jam in Finland, and it was delicious, so Patti and I went berry picking last week. It's not an easy job. They don't strip off easily and the bushes are very thorny.  The best way is to take clippers and gloves and clip off the stems with berries attached. 

Bucket of sea buckthorn berries on their stems.

Then you take them home and put them in the freezer. When they are frozen you can snap the berries off the stem with a fork.

So far I've made buckthorn apple jam and buckthorn apple sauce to eat with yogurt. Yum.  Tastes like apricots to me but maybe it's the similar colour.

Sea buckthorn jam

We've been out paddling on the Horsefly River several times this week.  Water levels are dropping and the surf wave at Fast Eddy is perfect.  Everyone's worried about the salmon run with the blockage in the Fraser River near Big Bar. We hadn't seen any salmon in the river yet, but yesterday just as we reached the takeout Leo saw a single lonely salmon.  We hope to see more when we return on Tuesday.

The smoke from US fires that's been plaguing southern BC has finally arrived, but so far we're getting off easy.  Yesterday evening visibility was down to 10 km (versus 2 km today in Victoria) but now it's up to 24 km.

If we can see across the Fraser River to the Chilcotin Plateau in the distance air quality is not that bad.

Compare this to 2017

or 2018.

More photos

Birgit came through with some photos from our paddling trips in Golden.

The beautiful Columbia River Valley.

Paddling the Columbia

Putting in on the Kicking Horse

The takeout on the Kicking Horse would make a fantastic campsite.

And here's a photo of everyone but Birgit on the mountain.

And the lodge from the outside.

Golden - Kicking Horse Mountain Resort

 Our last day in Golden we took the gondola up to the Kicking Horse Ski Resort.  

Once at the top we had 3 hours to hike before our lunch reservations in the restaurant.  First we hiked along the ridge to the top of Terminator 1 peak.

A photo for our mantelpiece

Then we came back and headed in the other direction up to the top of the My Blue Heaven ski run.  

Trudging up to the 2nd peak

Two peaks in one day!

Excellent views all around.

Including a long distance shot of our lodge.

Lunch at the Eagle's Eye restaurant was excellent by the way.

Thanks to our host Steve and his team at the Kicking Horse River Lodge for a great getaway.

A Few Days in Golden

View back up our paddling route on the Columbia River from the Kicking Horse Ski Resort. 

 Our friends know the manager of the Kicking Horse River Lodge (soon to be renamed the Moonraker Lodge) so we were invited to stay there a few days and do a little paddling.

The lodge is a beautiful dove-tailed log building. A cut above our usual low rent accommodation.

The day we arrived they were having a Tarantula demonstration in the basement.  Sure, why not.

The lodge's cook also runs a tarantula breeding business, as one does.  They had an assortment of spiders on view and you could handle the gentler ones if you wanted. 

To be honest I was more worried about being in a room with a bunch of strangers (all masked) than I was about the spiders.

Supper was tortilla Soup and beef pies at the lodge courtesy of Steve.

The next day we paddled from Parson to Nicholson on the Columbia, about 35 km.  The scenery was incredible with mountains in every direction, but the current was very slow and it ended up being 5 hours of constant paddling.  We were all pretty tired by the end.

Supper was burgers on the Wolf's Den's patio.

Looking for a little more excitement and a little less hard work, the next day we scouted out some easy routes on the Kicking Horse River.  What started out as a scenic flatwater section braided through an open valley eventually narrowed into a lot more excitement than we expected with big waves and two big rapids.  Fortunately we all came through upright.

All in all it was a great way to celebrate Leo's 69th birthday, and there was even cake!  What more could you ask for?

Supper was on the patio at the Island Restaurant, located on an island in the Kicking Horse River in downtown Golden.

Unfortunately no photos from the water as the battery charger from my waterproof camera has gone AWOL.  I hope to post some later.

Full Disclosure: We got a discount on our rooms in the hope that we'll spread the word amongst our paddling friends.

What's Blooming - Pink Flowers

Sedum

Echinacea

Hollyhock

On Sunday we woke up to a temperature of 3 degrees Celsius.  Brrrr!  Fall is here.