paddeling murtle lake. 7 days of adventure. days 1-3. aka the north arm.

So after last year's sweet bowron lakes adventure success, christine and i decided to do it again. this time at Murtle Lake, in wells gray park.

We spent a few hurried days dehydrating food and packing. actually, most of the packing was done on the morning we left.

Saturday, after packing, we hopped in the car and headed north on the yellowhead to blue river. We had a sweet little (really little, but cool) cabin reserved for saturday night so we could get a fresh early start on sunday morning.

our little cabin for saturday night.  tons of blue berries

Sunday, day 1

We had a canoe rented from the park guys, so we only had to take our gear on the 2.5 km portage to the lake.

bridge on the portage trail

leaving the launch

One we got to the lake and into the canoe, i cast out a red weddingband and had a kokanee on 1st cast.  it was pretty small and it was pretty early in the day, but it was a good sign.

Not long after we got onto the lake proper, the rain started.  luckily, we had a sweet tailwind and we surfed some good 2 foot waves.

rain, on

We paddled along towards the north arm, and stopped on a sweet beach for lunch.  The weather was off and on rain, but mostly dry during lunch.

lunch beached

Our map had campsite 20 in a pretty sweet spot to stop for the day.  we passed campsite 19 and expected 20 to be right around the corner.  We finally decided, after 45 minutes of paddling, that there was no 20.  on to 18 i guess.  it looked pretty far on the map, but the with the tailwind, it was only another hour or so.

landed for camp

we set up camp asap to get out of the rain, which was now on again.  we whipped up some dinner, met our neighbours quickly and crashed pretty hard after paddling 20+ km.

campsite 18.  good digs

rain, between off and on

The crashing would have gone much better if my sleeping pad didn't choose this time to explode the valve.  i blew it up as good as i could, jammed a stick in the hole, and slept alright.

Day 2

i woke up, walked down the beach, and started to pee.  i was going to write my name in the sand, but i looked down and saw this cat print that was not there last night.  it was later confirmed to be a lynx by some people who spotted it, but until then we just called it "that cat that visited us"

meow

As we were packing up, a guy rolled up an a 1970 gto.  the weird thing was, it was going to rain and he had the top down.  a good way to ruin a nice interior.

the gto.  the big cat visitor has a nice ride.

After packing up and eating some breakfast, we decided to aim the canoe towards the top of the north arm for lunch.  then, we'd head back up the lake on the other side.

The north arm is pretty rugged.  big mountain began to appear as we rounded a slight bend.  word on the lake was the west arm was not to elevationy.  we'd find out for sure on our own.

heading up the north arm

camp is over there somewhere

northern mountains coming into view.

When we got to the beach camp on the north arm for lunch, it was raining a bit.  we cooked under a shittily set up tarp and waited for the rain to pass.  finally the sun came out, for 10 minutes.  hot on the trail of the sun was a vicious lightening storm.  heading back up the lake was going to have to wait until tomorrow.  for now, we were setting up the tent and getting set up before the storm broke over us.

our campsite in the sun, a rare sight this day.

there were driftwood wind breaks set up around the camp.  it was pretty clear that we were on the end of a very windy lake.  we took advantage of these for our tent cover.

No pictures of the storm, sorry.

Then, for the evening, the sun came out.  fully and more permanently for the evening.  we thoroughly enjoyed the sun and had high hopes for the weather tomorrow.

sunny northern peak

We spent the evening lounging around, reading and talking to the group of 8 neighbours we had.  one of them gave us a fish, so i cooked it for part of our dinner.  yum yum rainbow trout.

fish for dinner

canoe parking only

evening calm at last

A good day of paddling and stuff.  looking forward to tomorrow.  hope the stick in the mattress holds tonight.

calm evening indeed

Day 3

The next day we woke up to waves that were obviously building to whitecaps.  We packed up pretty quick in the wind, and headed south along west shore.  It was cool to be on the other shore because it gives you a pretty cool new perspective.

morning view from the north arm beach

a bit of a lull in the wind, finally

The paddling was into the wind the whole time.  the WHOLE time.  there were a few little bays for a wind hiatus, and since we were along the shore for a lot of it, we got to see some cool stuff close up.

some falls we paused by

We pulled into a cool lagoon that's cut off from the main lake in low water.  seemed like a good spot for lunch and to let our arms chill for a bit.

the gto passed us when we were having lunch

Part of the peninsula that cut off the lake was full of blueberries and pretty cool to climb around on.  we got skunked by a geocache here, but better to admit defeat than dig up an island full of berries looking for it.

the mini-murtle from blue fruit island

looking back at the canoe

christine, the blue explorer on blue fruit island

lunch spot

lunch with bluefruits.  like i said, the island was covered in them.

step 1

step 2

step 3

After lunch, we DID finally make it up the west side of the north arm.  We were headed to site 14, and got there around 4ish.  still time for dinner, setting up, and chilling out.

Across the lake is the wavy mountain ridge, hence the name

Camp got set up pretty quick.  we met some really cool people at this site. Gord and Carol are from calgary and we're happy the shared their beach with us.  Little did we know our paths would cross again.

night 3

After dinner, the water was calm and it was reasonably warm.  Time to relax.  we couldn't have a fire
 due to the extremely dry conditions, but we made the most of it anyway.

extremely dry applied the kamloops fire district, which murtle lake is in, but not specifically to the lake.  in case you hadn't noticed, it was pretty wet some days.

finishing the 1st book i brought on the beach.

The most amazing part of this day, besides the great company we met, was the moon,  the evening was calm and clear, and we watched to moon rise for an hour or so.

pretty amazing

moon, lake, beach, canoe.  it's all good.

The next day we headed out of the north arm and into the west arm.  that's another post.