My last blog post covered the basics of the Bowron Lake Circuit and a re-cap of our first day on the circuit. After a warm and cozy night on Indianpoint Lake, we were up early to continue our adventure to Isaac Lake. We packed up the boats and were on the water by 8am. Sadly, we only had a short 1km paddle to the end of Indianpoint Lake, followed by yet another portage. Fortunately, the portages keep getting shorter. This one was only 1.5km, and it would be our last portage for 2 days.

I’m really glad we opted to stay at Campsite #8 on Day 1 rather than pushing to Isaac Lake. I was exhausted after our second portage on Day 1, but I felt a lot more rested on Day 2. The portage was a bit annoying in that it had a lot of potholes and Seth’s kayak took a sideways tumble early in the portage. But overall, it was pretty flat and it felt like the easiest of the 3 portages to me.

I should note that Seth and I did not purchase or rent an expedition cart for this trip. We already owned small carts that we use to get our kayak from the car to the launch, and we opted to just use those. They have plastic wheels and are lower to the ground then the expedition carts, but honestly, they worked great! Everyone else was using expedition carts, which are a little higher, and everyone complained about them being really tippy. At first, I babied my cart, but by the end of the trip, I was just hauling it over every bump, root, and rock. It held up for the entire trip with no issue and very limited tipping. We did bring a spare wheel with us in case we blew out a tire (since they’re plastic), but we didn’t end up needing it.

Eventually we arrived at Isaac Lake, the biggest lake on the circuit. I think it’s time to share a map of the circuit to give you an idea of the unique topography of this area. The circuit is very rectangular, with Isaac Lake having a notable corner in it. The west arm is ~7km long, while the main arm is ~31km long. We paddled Isaac Lake for 2 full days and it is definitely one of the more memorable lakes (both good and bad).

The water was really calm when we arrived and we could see a lot of the other groups still packing up along the shore from Campsites #11 and #12. I always live in fear of the afternoon headwind (which seems to be a thing everywhere we paddle), so our goal was to have early mornings and do as much paddling as possible before lunch. Since the water was so calm, we ended up paddling the entire 7km of the west arm in one go, over about an hour and a half. Overall, we paddled pretty fast on this trip, usually averaging around 4km an hour.

I should also mention that there are two kinds of campsites on the circuit: individual sites and group sites. If you have more than 7 people in your party, you have to make a group reservation. The benefit of the group reservation is that you have guaranteed campsites. Only 1 group leaves per day and only that group can stay at the group campsites. The downside is that you have to follow a fixed itinerary (I think it’s 8 days). There was no group on the circuit when we did it, so we were able to use group sites if desired. We made a stop at the group campsite (#14) at the end of the arm for a snack, and then continued our paddle down the main arm.

Isaac Lake is quite beautiful. It’s so long that you cannot see the entirety of the lake at any point and it is completely surrounded by mountains. The mountains were a bit coy when we paddled the lake because of the weather. It didn’t rain very much on Day 2, but it was overcast and the clouds hid a lot of the mountains. It did start to get a bit windy as we paddled down the main arm, so we stopped at Campsite #18 for lunch.

Campsite #18 is another campsite with a shelter. The wind really picked up while we were having lunch, so we strongly debated just having a short day and spending the night to take advantage of the shelter. But I knew there was another shelter 8km away at Campsite #20, so I was really on the fence. Our goal was to get to the end of Isaac Lake by the end of Day 3, and that would be a lot easier from Campsite #20. But the wind seemed to drop down after a while and we decided to make a go for it. We did have to fight with a headwind for a few kilometres, but the wind dropped off entirely before we got to Campsite #20 and it was almost flat water when we arrived. Thanks to the extra distance, it was one of our bigger days on the circuit and we travelled a total of 23km.

We had to name the other groups we were sharing the circuit with to differentiate them from one another. There was a group of 5 kayakers that we creatively named 5 Guys (but apt because they were young burgers-and-beer kind of guys), and they were already settled in when we arrived at the campsite. They were very friendly and there was one tent pad left, so we took it and got to know their group a bit better around the campfire. We didn’t get any more rain for the rest of the night, so we ended up not needing the shelter. 5 Guys had a pretty raging campfire, so that kept us warm for the evening, and we had a good laugh as they regaled us with stories of accidentally capsizing in Kibbee Lake, 20 minutes into their trip!

On Day 3, we really got a bit of everything. We were up early and on the water by 8am again. When we paddle at home, the ocean is usually dead calm at 8am, and will often stay that way until at least 11am. I was surprised by some of the conditions on the Bowron circuit. I wouldn’t say it was windy in the mornings, but it was rarely flat water, even at 6am. The wind was never concerning in the mornings, but always a bit more breezy than I was anticipating.

We got in a few hours of easy paddling along the shoreline, but we had 21.5km to go to get to the end of Isaac Lake. Isaac Lake has a lot of little headlands along it, where the mountain meets the water and creates a small point. Around 11am, it started getting really windy. Usually it’s windier when you go around a headland, but once you make it to the other side, the wind dies down because you’re somewhat protected by the next headland. At 11am, we went around one headland where it felt like we were getting completely assaulted by the full strength of the wind across the lake. We could see really far down the lake and it felt like the wind was tunneling the whole way up it to hit us broadside. The way the wind was blowing, there was no shelter from the next headland and we had a very slow paddle through some nasty waves.

Eventually we reached the next headland and got a small break directly behind it. We were afraid to go around because we knew we’d be getting hit directly again on the other side, so we decided to wait it out for a little while. Like I said, the weather was all over the place on this trip and it was fairly normal for the rain and wind to storm up and down the lake, so conditions changed quickly and frequently. We figured if we waited even for 15 minutes, the wind could change, so we pulled our boats onto the very limited amount of available shoreline and settled in to wait.

Unfortunately, the wind only seemed to get worse and we could see whitecaps forming in the lake. After about a half hour, 5 Guys caught up with us and also opted to pull into the lakeside to wait. Shortly after they arrived, me and Seth decided to make an attempt at the headland, but the second we became exposed, we were getting hit by whitecaps, so we quickly did a 180 and returned to shelter. We ate our lunch while studying the waves for another 45 minutes or so. Eventually it looked like the wind was coming down a little bit, and we decided to go for it as a group. It was still pretty nasty, but definitely better than our first attempt and this time we made it through to the next section.

I think we were probably just at the windiest part of the lake and it did seem like the only way out was through. Once we made it through the next section, the wind definitely died down a lot and we all felt comfortable to keep going. Me and Seth took a short break at a real campsite, but then the rain showed up and we decided it was more comfortable to weather the rain in the boats.

One upside of the rain is that it does generally calm the wind and it can sometimes be windier on sunny days. The wind continued dropping and by the time we paddled through the rain, we seemed to have passed through one storm into another. The wind actually switched direction and we ended up getting a nice little tailwind for the rest of the day. The group of canoers that we nicknamed Canoe Bros, caught up with us later in the day and said that they had experienced the same thing. They described it as two storm fronts and they ended up catching a break for a while when they got caught in the calm between the two, and were able to ride it out for a few hours.

Fortunately that was the end of our wind woes for the day. 5 Guys branched off to do some fishing and Seth and I enjoyed the gentle tailwind propelling us the rest of the way to the campsite. Our goal for the day was Campsite #28, which is the last campsite on Isaac Lake. It’s a large site and I think it’s a popular spot for people to stop. It’s combined with a group site, but since there were no groups, we put it to good use between us, 5 Guys, and the Canoe Bros. It has a large shared shelter with a set of picnic tables and a woodstove, although the woodstove isn’t super useful because it’s an open-air shelter.

But the weather really cleared up in the afternoon and we actually got a couple of hours of sun! So we all lay out on the banks of the lake to soak in as much warmth as possible. The reason this site is so popular though, is because of it’s proximity to the most notorious water feature on the circuit, the Chute. It’s an optional paddling feature for those brave enough to try it, so people like to stop at the campsite for the night to assess the objective and hope to see someone else attempt it first!

It’s basically a line of standing waves, with an eddy on either side. What makes it tricky is that there’s a sharp turn at the end of the chute and if you exit to early, you can get caught in the eddy and then the waves will hit you broadside and quickly capsize your boat. No one attempted the chute in the evening, but we all spent hours discussing and sizing it up. Trying to figure out who was going to run it and whether we could wait around long enough to watch them attempt it first!

Seth was all for running the chute (mostly because he didn’t want to portage any extra distance). We assumed 5 Guys would all be down for the challenge, but they were having serious doubts after their capsize in Kibbee Lake. We caught an absolutely gorgeous sunset over the lake while debating it and Seth and I decided that since we had wetsuits, we would give it a try in the morning, but were really hoping to see someone else attempt it first.

Tune in next week to find out if we were successful in running the notorious Chute!