We kicked off July with a camping trip to Kokanee Creek Provincial Park, north of Nelson on Kootenay Lake. As our whole June of rain and crappy weather, so was Canada Day weekend. Water levels are high all over the province causing some minor flooding in places. Kootenay Lake is at a 30 year high or so, so we knew it wouldn't be much of a beach holiday, but whatever, builds character right. We squashed all our stuff into the RA, and had just enough room except for the little run bikes which had to go on a bike rack.
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| Flood gates open at the Brilliant Dam |
We had to stop and check out the water at the one of the dams on the way. At this time the dam was letting out 113, 000 cfs, and Kootenay lake was still rising. When we got to the campsite and checked out the site we had reserved close to the park and beach, we realized how high the water was. The site was surrounded by water a foot deep and no access to trees to put up a tarp. Bit of a hazard with two 4 year olds. We were lucky and switched to another site. While Trev set up camp the boys and I went to check out the park. Disappointing that the lake has encroached right up to the park, but what can you do. The boys had different reactions to this problem.
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| Grayson....Oooh, the park is flooded |
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| Cole....Yeah giant puddle! |
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| Wet |
The lake should be way back behind the boys through the gap and behind that little tree with a beautiful wide sandy beach and long spit that goes out into the lake. While we were there the water continued to rise and the boys just got wetter.
Every once and a while the sun came out, just in time for Grayson to have a dry timeout by the tree for biting his brother.
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| Time out by the tree, sockless |
We also had time for a short walk on the Darkwoods Trail.
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| Raging Kokanee Creek |
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| Twin trees |
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| The lake has risen so far it has flooded out some of the trails too, a good opportunity to shoot dad with water |
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| Noodle soup lunch |
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| Stickers |
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| A glimpse of blue sky |
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| Best part of the weekend shooting water, out of the lake or puddles or anywhere they could find water |
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| The boys loved hanging out in the tent |
On Canada Day we hit up Ainsworth hotsprings for a soak. It was crazy busy of course, and was accurately described as swimming in Alberta soup. Nice to soak out the wet cold weather though. Monday we packed up and headed to Nelson for a trolley ride, but that was flooded too. The boys were pretty disappointed. We went for a walk along the tracks to find out where it was flooded, and discovered the soccer fields and more were underwater. I love it when people kayak around where it once was land.
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| Flooded path at the soccer field in Nelson, note the kayakers in the background |
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| So, Nelson |
Eventually we headed home to our busy lives at home, unpacked and Trev started packing again for his trip for 2 weeks with the boys on Wednesday.
