A few days before the end of my summer classes, my friend Mark contacted me wondering if I'd be interested in joining him on a 3 day packrafting trip to Widgeon Lake over the first weekend of August. Widgeon Lake is a large picturesque subalpine lake about 20km northeast of where I live in Coquitlam that is a popular hiking and camping destination. It is typically accessed by paddling 5km up Widgeon Creek and hiking 10km up a steep trail to a campsite at the south end of the lake, but the lake itself is rarely explored due to the rugged terrain that makes it impossible to hike around the lake, and the issues with getting a boat up the steep trail to the lake to paddle the lake. However, the recent innovation of ultralight packrafts that can be fit into hiking backpacks has made it more feasible to paddle in places like this. Packrafts are still quite rare, and Mark is the only other person I know who has one.
It was going to be difficult to say no to this offer. I had a couple of school projects to finish off, but I had been wanting to take my packraft up to Widgeon Lake for quite some time, so I told him I was in - even if it meant a bit of suffering to get my projects done early to make it happen. The plan was to leave early in the morning on Saturday August 1st and spend 3 days hiking and paddling around Widgeon Lake. I would need to get all of my school assignments finished off on the Friday so we could do a bit of planning and set out on Saturday morning.
My last week of school ended up being busier than expected, and I had to stay up all of Thursday night to finish off one of my projects on time. I handed my project in at 6pm on Friday, and I was completely exhausted yet also a bit relieved to be done the semester. I still had to meet with Mark, buy a bivy sac, and get all of my stuff together so we could set out early the following morning. I ate a quick dinner before making a trip to Atmosphere to grab an Outdoor Research Helium bivy, which is an ultra-light, ultra-compact shelter. I had been wanting to buy a bivy sack shelter for quite some time since the weight and space savings of this type of ultralight shelter makes ultralight trips and trips with limited pack space more feasible. The Helium bivy is only 1lb and about the size of a toilet paper roll when folded up, and would take up a small fraction of the space my tent would in my pack. It would be very useful on this trip where I'd need to carry a packraft, paddles, and all of my overnight gear.
I had a brief meeting with Mark where we went over a rough plan for the trip. We decided that it would be worthwhile to start early on Saturday to give ourselves ample time to get up to the lake, and allow us more time at the lake to explore and take in the scenery. We would be returning on Monday, so we'd have lots of time up at the lake. We would begin our trip at Grant Narrows in Pitt Meadows, paddle 5km up Widgeon Creek to the Widgeon Lake trail, pack up our rafts, and hike 10km up to Widgeon Lake. We'd then pull out our rafts again and paddle across Widgeon Lake to a beach we had spotted on the map on the west side of the lake, and spend a couple of nights in that area before retracing our route back. The photo below summarizes our trip plan for the area, with the red tracks showing hiking and the purple tracks showing paddling.
Our planned paddling (purple) and hiking (red) for the trip.
I hurriedly got all of my gear together on the living room floor, and started to figure out how to fit everything into my 75L hiking backpack. My fatigue began to override my stress, so I took a short nap to regain my senses before packing up my backpack. I squeezed my shelter, stove, packraft, 4-piece paddles, inflatable life vest, 3 days of food, several layers of clothing, and a few other bits of gear into my pack and eventually decided I was ready to go at about 2am. I passed out on the couch and set my alarm for 6am.
When my alarm went off I woke up with a mix of excitement and lingering fatigue. I gobbled down a bunch of granola, and Mark's wife kindly picked me up and drove me and Mark over to grant narrows where we would begin our paddle. We quickly inflated our rafts beside the Pitt River with clear skies above us and crisp mountain peaks surrounding us above the tranquil waters of the Pitt River.
Our rafts are inflated and we're almost ready to go.
We got all of our gear into our rafts, dropped them into the water, and hopped in. It was a peaceful way to begin a trip, and it was a relief to have everything together and be setting off. The water and air were calm, and the views were phenomenal. We crossed the Pitt River, and drifted up Widgeon Creek, through a protected marshy wetland surrounded by mountain peaks. There were several small fish hopping out of the water around us, and there was a diverse bird population in the trees around the creek. It's cool to have such a pristine area so close to home.
Looking up at surrounding mountains from Widgeon Creek.
There were a few other people paddling kayaks and canoes along the creek. After about an hour of meandering up the creek, we arrived at Widgeon Campsite. My arms were getting a bit sore so it was a relief to be switching to hiking. We packed our rafts into our backpacks and began hiking up the Widgeon Lake trail. We chatted most of the way up, which made time go by pretty quick. I enjoyed a subway sandwich for lunch halfway up. The final climb up to the lake is quite steep, but it went by fast as we were both well rested and eager to get up to the lake. When were greeted by a few campers, and fantastic views of the lake and its surrounding peaks.
Me and my huge pack beside Widgeon Lake.
We found a nice flat piece of shore beside the lake and pulled out our rafts. After about 15 minutes we had them inflated and we were ready to set out onto the lake.
My pack laden raft on the shore, ready to go.
Drifting out from the shore towards the centre of this unique mountain bowl felt really neat. Not too many people get to paddle on this lakes like this. The water was fairly calm, and the views around us expanded as we moved away from the shore.
Looking east towards Mark and distant ridges.
Looking towards Mark and the north end of the lake.
Looking ahead up the lake.
A cool granite face on the north part of the lake.
Arriving at a beach at the west side of the lake.
At the west end of the lake we found the large beach we had spotted on the map, and it was larger than expected. It was long and flat, and had a smooth sandy shore that resembled a Caribbean beach. It felt good on the feet. We were both in awe at how such a spectacular spot could exist so close to home and be completely deserted. It's crazy to think that such a quiet, pristine, peaceful, beautiful spot can exist so close to a dense metropolitan. It was dead quiet.
This beach is inaccessible by foot due to the rough terrain surrounding it, and very few hikers have boats to get across to this spot, so this beach doesn't see people too often. It became evident that most visitors to this beach were brought in by aircraft. I explored the shoreline a little bit and set up my tent and sleeping gear. A few float planes and helicopters touched down around the beach, which was pretty noisy - but they seemed to be respectful of us and didn't stick around too long.
The sandy beach and surrounding mountains.
Our rafts on the beach.
Looking across the beach towards the mountain bowl to the north.
I took a dip in the lake and stayed in the water for a while. Another plus for this beach was that the water was pretty warm. The lake was fairly shallow over here, and the water must have seen a good amount of sunlight during the day to get it up to a decent temperature. While I was drying off I explored the beach a little bit more and realized how tired my brain was. I got into my bivy and decided to have a nap. I slept pretty well, and woke up a few hours later as the sun was beginning to go down and with a layer of dew covering all of my gear. I was hungry and wanted to get in a good dinner before it got dark, so I quickly cooked up one of my pad thai freeze dried meals and some mashed potatoes. As my food was cooking I went out and took some more photos of the lake. The placid water combined with the shadowy mountainous backdrop made for some great photos.
My raft on the now shaded beach.
Looking out at the calm lake water.
The rugged mountains above the beach.
A creek tributary in the middle of the beach.
Looking across a grassy point along our beach.
One last photo before dinner.
The bugs came out in full force after the sun had disappeared, so I ate my dinner under my bug net, which was a little awkward but worked fine. After finishing my meal I packed up my cookware, and took our food bags into the dark forest where I managed to hang them off of a high branch to keep them away from wildlife. I slid into my bivy away from the bugs and tried to get some sleep.
I don't think I got a lot of sleep that night, but that tends to be the norm when I'm camping for some reason. In the morning our beach was in the shadow of the surrounding mountains and there were lots of bugs around. However, the bugs seemed to stay away from the lake, so me and Mark enjoyed a morning paddle in our rafts on the calm water away from the bugs. It was so cool to be able to just hop into the raft and paddle out onto the expansive lake in complete freedom. The water surface was glass-like and there was a mysterious mist over it. I did a bit of exploring and photo-taking around the shoreline as I munched on some breakfast. What a cool way to begin a day!
The misty lake before sunrise.
Looking towards the east side of the lake.
The sun was somewhere behind that ridgeline across the lake.
There's plenty of space in the boat when there's no pack or bike in it.
Aside from our paddle ripples, the water was dead.
The calm lake made for a pleasant breakfast setting.
The sun started to hit the ridge above the lake.
The sun-lit mountains directly above our beach.
One last photo before packing up.
By the time I was finishing my paddle, the mist had cleared from the lake and the sun was beginning to make a presence at our side of the lake. I headed back to our camping spot, and we decided to pack up our camping gear since we weren't sure where we would sleep the next night. We were thinking of trying to get into the alpine above the lake, and weren't sure how long it would take, so we wanted to leave open the option of camping somewhere up higher.
We stashed our rafts under a large boulder, and started heading up a boulder field above our beach. Our plan was to try and skirt across an array of boulder fields above the lake towards a chute on the side of the ridgeline could take us into the alpine. There were a few ways to get to this chute, but we decided to try the boulder field as we thought it might be more efficient than rummaging through the thick bushy forest below the boulder fields. We got up to the chain of boulder fields we were hoping to follow and tried to follow the boulders for a while, but kept running into thick bushy sections in the middle of the boulder fields that were difficult to get through. It's very challenging trying to squeeze through thick bush and not being able to see where you are stepping when there's an unpredictable boulder field surface below. It soon became evident that the boulder field route was not going to work, as there were too many bush sections ahead of us, and the boulders in this boulder field were very large which made travel awkward and dangerous with our heavy packs. Boulder fields are efficient to travel when the boulders are small and when there is no bush, but this was far from the case along this route. We decided to drop back down to the lake and re-evaluate our plan to get into the alpine.
A view of the lake from the boulder field.
Me struggling along a typical boulder field bush section.
Me scrambling up some boulders with my heavy pack.
We dropped down some rough bushy slopes towards the lake, and eventually got down to a beach that was slightly north of the beach we had camped at, and separated by some rough shoreline. It wasn't quite as luxurious - it was smaller and more rocky. Mark swam across to the beach we had camped at to grab both of our rafts while I scouted routes through the trees that would help us get towards the alpine access chute. Once Mark got back with the boats, we headed into the trees towards our target point. Initially the trees were very thin and Mark did a good job navigating us efficiently through the trees. However, the bush gradually got thicker and thicker, and eventually we were swimming through some of the thickest bush I had ever experienced. We were still motivated to get into the alpine though, so we persisted. The slope we were climbing flattened out for a short bit and we found a neat little lake.
A small lake with the rugged alpine ridgeline above.
Four bear cub prints - the cub must have stood in this spot for a while.
We took a short break to rest and refill our bottles, and headed back into the trees above the lake. We eventually popped out of the trees at a boulder field below the ridge gully we were planning to climb up.
Me looking up the boulder chute we were about to climb, surrounded by flowers.
We made our way carefully up the steep chute. Initially we were mostly climbing steep mid-sized boulders that were non technical. However we soon started to encounter some tricky terrain that involved steep slabs and large boulders. We had to make some sketchy moves and although they were manageable when the rocks were dry, the moves would have been very dangerous if the rocks were wet . We were close to the top of the gully to the alpine ridge, but kept encountering tricky spots and were nearing the time we'd need to turn around if we were going to get back down to the lake to camp. The weather for that night had a chance of rain, and we realized that if the steep slabs we were climbing got wet we may not be able to get down the tricky rock sections safely in the morning if we camped in the alpine, so we decided to turn back. We got a pretty cool view of Widgeon Lake and surrounding peaks to the south from this point. If anything, this climb was a great reconnaissance for future trips in this area.
Mark picking his way through the flowery boulder field.
The surrounding mountains from the boulder field.
Working our way up the chute.
Widgeon Lake and the small lake we passed coming up can be seen below.
Getting higher up the chute - Coquitlam MTN and Gabbro MTN in the distance.
We carefully retraced our route back down the boulder chute and through the thick bush. At the small lake we saw some bear tracks and scat that had not been there on our way up, so we were definitely not alone out here despite how quiet it was.
Fresh bear prints beside the small lake.
We descended from the small lake on a slightly different route than on the way up, but were not able to escape the bush. We saw several large old growth trees on the way down, which made things interesting.
Mark picking his way through a bushy bouldery section.
Mark enjoying a rare non-bushy section.
Mark beside a large red cedar.
Passing by a sizeable Douglas Fir tree.
Another large cedar.
Me beside an old growth cedar tree.
We cooked up dinner, and for the second night in a row I enjoyed pad thai and mashed potatoes. Some clouds had rolled over the lake this evening, so it seemed to get dark a bit earlier. The bugs were out again so I stayed under my bug net.
Some cool blue-purple clouds above the lake around sundown.
This sunset had a different mood to it.
I struggled to find a good tree to hang our food from, but managed to get the rope over top of a solid mid-height branch at nightfall. I quickly pulled the food up the tree, and slid into my bivy away from the bugs. It was a bit cooler this night, and I had trouble sleeping despite being very tired. In the early morning I dozed off, and as the sun came up and my bivy warmed up, I became more comfortable and slept pretty late into the morning. Mark did some paddling while I was asleep, and didn't wake me up until about 10am. We had the full day to get out of here so we weren't in a huge hurry.
My phone died overnight, so I wouldn't be taking any more photos - I had probably taken enough anyways. The sky clouded over and the air cooled as I ate breakfast. We packed our stuff up under a cool breeze and got back into our boats to make the paddle back to the trail. The paddle was pleasant, and we did a bit of exploring at the north end of the lake en route to the trail at the south end. We had a pretty solid crosswind so getting back to the trail across the lake was a bit of a grind, but we eventually made it. We packed our boats up once again and headed down the steep trail, which actually wasn't as challenging as I thought it would be with the heavy pack. We chatted the whole way which made time go by quick.
Eventually we found ourselves back at Widgeon Creek Campsite, and inflated our boats one last time. There were lots of people around, and quite a few were curious about our ultralight boats. We slid into the water, and it felt good that my tired legs were done working - one last paddle and we'd be done. We made the 5km paddle back to grant narrows, and at the Pitt River the water and wind were pretty calm so we decided to just paddle down the Pitt River towards Port Coquitlam and get a pick up somewhere there instead of making someone take the longer drive to Grant Narrows in Pitt Meadows.
Although the wind and river current were on our side, the tidal force ended up being more decisive. Pitt River runs between the Pitt Lake and the tidal Fraser River. Since the Pitt River is flat, it is also tidal. Pitt Lake, which is at the top of the Pitt River, is one of the largest tidal lakes in the world.
We figured the tide might be on its way in due to the low water level on the river, but we didn't realize how strong the upstream tidal force would be on a river when paddling downstream. For the first 5km along the river, the paddling was smooth and we were cruising at about 4km/h. However, our speed gradually slowed despite increased effort. The tide was now coming in, and we began to understand the strength of its forces. The tidal current was overriding the river current, and it got to a point where if we stopped paddling, we drifted upstream.
We got to a point where we were paddling as hard as we could and were going nowhere at all. We decided to get off of the river and evaluate our choices over land. We saw a road beside on the west river bank and inched our way over to it to check it out. This was a private road for a gravel quarry. We hopped out of the river and looked around, and didn't see anyone. It was about 7pm so the gravel pits weren't operating. The sun was getting low in the sky, so we decided to just walk along the gravel pit private road from the river to a public road where we could get picked up. We cautiously lugged our boats along the private road and after squeezing through a couple of gates, arrived at the public road. We felt relieved and fortunate, since it would have been tricky getting off of the river if we hadn't found this deserted road. Mark's wife picked us up, and dropped me off at home. I was pretty exhausted and happy to be sleeping in a bed for the first time in a while.
I have to thank Mark for the great trip idea, and his wife for driving us. This was fun trip that highlights the unique possibilities a packraft opens up. Although there was no particular destination on this trip, the journey was pretty cool.
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