Extreme Kernel Adventure

{ a photo of us and kernel was supposed to go here. Please see "don't get me started" to learn why it's NOT here}

Saturday was hot. There's a whole new post altogether, but I can't get sidetracked again.

I think it was 37 degrees. So we wanted to go to some water and get in it. We decided that we'd take Kernel to Pitt Lake and row up Widgeon Creek (see the squiggle river in the google earth image below). Up the creek is a walking trail that leads to a waterfall (our destination)! It's such a pretty area! We'd never been in Kernel together, so this was our chance!



We left the boat launch about 5 minutes before a group of canoes, and headed across the lake to the creek entrance. After another 5 of Colin rowing as fast as he could against the current, the canoes caught up to us, chuckled, and passed. This was a familiar situation during the day. I tried to row once in the creek, but the boat's back end was so low in the water that it was nearly impossible. "She's not built for speed..." says Colin, "...just fishing"! So poor Colin had to row almost the whole time.

It got quite shallow pretty quick, so we got out of the boat an towed it by hand. Would you believe that it went FASTER when we towed it?

To Tow or Row...that was the question.

Since it was so hot, we spent as much time towing it as possible, because at least we could be wet! We joked on the way up because EVERYONE was passing us, because we were going so darn slow! Colin said "It's the JOURNEY, not the DESTINATION!" We got to the beach after 2 hours, and 4.5 kilometers of rowing. Wait a second...that's 2.25 kilometers an HOUR!!! Anyways, we parked the boat and headed for the trail. By this time it was about 4000 degrees, we were hot from walking and rowing, and hadn't had lunch yet. We wanted to have lunch at the waterfall. So we started to walk.
We got about 15 minutes up a trail, and it didn't look like the right trail. We hadn't seen anyone on it, even though there were about 30 canoes on the beach nearby. So we turned around and came back. I think I might have been whining a bit. We saw ANOTHER trail so we headed up that one. It was totally overgrown, there were black flies everywhere, and it looked like no one had used it for a long time.

After bushwacking for 15 minutes, we came across a footbridge that crossed a swamp. The bridge was rotten. It was disintigrated on one end, so we had to jump to get to it. The metal wiring that originally was placed on there for grip, was now sticking up haphazardly in every direction. As we stood on this bridge wondering how much further this ancient trail went, we heard voices. Two guys walked past us, and looked surprised to see anyone else on that trail. We asked how much further the trail was. They looked at us with furrowed eyebrows and said "Well, how long have you been walking?". We knew the answer they were about to give us was going to be one we didn't want to hear. They had been swimming at the waterfall, and their hair was now DRY. The trail's AN HOUR AND A HALF they said, and continued on their way.

Exhausted, starving, and on the verge of heatstroke, we stood on that sketchy bridge over the skunk cabbage filled marsh, surrounded by hungry black flies, and scarfed down our lunch (and maybe a few flies with it). With renewed energy we got out of there as fast as our legs could carry us, went back to the beach and jumped in the water. Ahhh, now THAT is the meaning of "refreshing"!

The row back was much the same as the row up. Except Colin snorkelled the deep part as I rowed. Without Colin in the boat, it rowed much easier and faster!

It's a good thing it's about the Journey and not the destination, because our destination eluded us, but our journey definately didn't.

Maybe sometime we'll go back in a canoe so we have more energy for the hike.