With strong inflow winds (=un-flyable for paragliders) in the Fraser Valley I thought it would be great to get in our kayaks again. And why not, after a hiatus of >8 months, start properly with a 7h/40km tour.
I’d been looking at the sloughs around Nicomen Island and was wondering if the waterways could be connected for a circumnavigation.
We put our kayaks in the water at the foot of Harrison Knoll. It took two short portages to get on the Fraser River. Water was high and we floated downriver with up to 15km/h speed (not really a beginner paddle with the quick current, water in the trees and few safe places to go to shore). The mighty Fraser with its spring runoff carried us quickly past Chilliwack and Sumas Mountain. There we turned into Nicomen Slough where the inflow winds helped with the ‘upstream’ leg which wasn’t really upstream since the slough is dammed at its top end and Norrish Creek didn’t add much current (we paddled up Norrish to some nice bathing spots).
Everything worked according to plan until we encountered some prime kayak bushwhacking east of the Deroche Bridge. Always something new like portaging a sea kayak over fallen trees and beaver dams and pulling ourselves forward through tall grass. In the end we went up the wrong creek in one of the tall grass meadows and took out 700 meters from where we launched.
Fraser at Mission 8400-8500 m3/s = 4.4 m (on our Hope to Home paddle August 2014 about 1000 m3/s).
