Stehekin, Wash.

Bridge Creek to the Stehekin River is a remote, multi-day, self-supported whitewater run that takes kayakers through Washington State’s stunning North Cascades and down to Lake Chelan.

Typically, there is a narrow window in which the water level and snowpack conditions allow for this section of water to be paddled. So, when a friend called on a Monday in Mid-July to let me know that it would be in by the weekend, I packed enough gear for three to four days into my kayak and headed west.

We had planned on starting the 4-mile hike in midafternoon, but were delayed due to traffic. We started the trek just after sunset with headlamps on, carrying gear and kayaks.

The next morning, we woke up to discover that the small tributary creek we had planned on using as the put-in location was too low; so we packed up and hiked another mile or so to find enough water.

Bridge Creek starts off as a shallow and slow Class II with lots of wood and rock pin hazards in the current. As we got farther downstream, the water provided by the tributaries and additional gradient helped us warm up for the canyon below with some fun Class III-IV drops.

We had a few hours of paddling, taking in the views, and enjoying the sight of large snow deposits along the side of the river.

Hearing the sound of the approaching falls known as Sieve Falls, we knew that things were about to pick up. The portage around Sieve Falls takes some teamwork to get all gear up the steep canyon wall to a narrow and exposed trail that leads to the seal launch just below the falls.

Once back on the water, it was time to have some fun. We prepared for some adventurous Class IV-V whitewater. It was the perfect warm, blue-sky July day for eddy hopping down the steep boulder gardens and taking in the epic views.

After a long day, we reached the confluence of the Stehekin River and set camp to rest.

The next morning, the Stehekin River provided some bigger style rapids. It slowly builds from Class III, then provides some super fun Class IV rapids, and finishes with Tumwater Canyon.

We opted to camp near the confluence of Agnes Creek in hopes that it too would be at a good flow and that we could spend an extra day to hike up the creek and run the falls in the upper canyon.

Unfortunately, after hiking a short distance up Agnes, it was apparent that the water level was too high, and we decided to save that one for another day.

Our third day on the water was a mellow paddle down to the town of Stehekin at the north end of Lake Chelan. Of course, we had to pull over on the riverbank, hike up to the small bakery, and get a warm breakfast before finishing the paddle to the Lady of the Lake Ferry. 

We relaxed on the ferry ride back to Chelan, Washington, where we had left our vehicles and enjoyed a warm meal that didn’t start out dehydrated in a bag.

Originally published as “Trip Report: Kayaking Bridge Creek to Stehekin” in the January-February 2022 issue.

Visit the OTO archives to find more stories about Lake Chelan, North Cascades, Stehekin, or kayaking.

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The park is diverse in terrain and extends from the lush Bella Coola Valley up to the drier Chilcotin Plateau, resting at 3,600 feet above sea level. The seven subalpine lakes of the Turner Lake chain include Hunlen Falls, the third highest waterfall in Canada. Getting there is difficult to say the least; access is either by a rugged 16-mile hike or by floatplane.

Park rangers told us they didn’t see it opening anytime soon. We stayed down in the valley for two days, watching grizzly bears feed on salmon (see sidebar below), and I kept checking the BC Parks webpage, holding on to hope. By a stroke of luck, on our third morning the park reopened. We got groceries, fuel, and caught a flight into Kidney Lake three hours later, just in time for sunset. Upon our arrival the pilot said, “I think you’re in for some weather the next few days.” And with that he took off into a storm cloud, leaving us three days to cross seven lakes and reach our pickup spot at the north end of Turner Lake.

Since the park had just opened up that morning, there were no humans in the area at all. Everyone else had cancelled their reservations and made other plans, leaving us in total solitude. After a morning hike in the area, we had a breezy paddle to the sandy shores of Widgeon Lake. However, our pilot was right about the weather, and my idea of a sunny, mellow paddling trip was soon replaced with survival-mode thoughts about wind management and keeping dry. How ironic, since we had spent the whole summer praying for rain. 

On our second morning, after a fairly sleepless night due to howling winds that seemed to only get worse as the night went on, we woke up to pouring rain. With pooling water encroaching on our tent, we hastily got our rain gear on at 6 a.m., packed up the tent, scarfed down a CLIF Bar, and got on the lake. The wind helped us cross Junker Lake, but the rain was persistent, and the overgrown bushy portages added to our soggy state. We continued on like that, hopping across tiny Vista and Cutthroat Lakes. That day we paddled/portaged for seven straight hours, completely saturated from the unrelenting rain.

Just as our hope of finding some dry shelter was diminishing, I saw some blue in the sky as we neared our next campsite on the southern shores of Turner Lake. As soon as we hit land, we stripped naked to put on dry clothes and let the sun’s rays warm our souls. We had overcome adversity, and now had another day and a half of sunny paddling to finish off our trip.

After a beautiful sunset and starlit night, we awoke to low fog on a glassy Turner Lake. With less than 4 miles to paddle, we got to work shortly after breakfast. The home stretch was a victory lap—a sunny, straight shot down the long, narrow lake, with small detours to check out tiny islands around the shorelines. Once we reached our campground at the north end of the lake, our paddling part of the trip was over, but we still had one last objective.  A short hike from our final campsite brought us to Hunlen Falls. At what seemed like the edge of the earth, water from the lake chain dropped a continuous 853 feet into the Bella Coola Valley below, and eventually joined the Atnarko River.

After a sunset viewing at the falls, we returned to our campsite to enjoy our remaining chocolate and whiskey. As the temperatures dropped and the stars came out, I noticed some aurora on the northern horizon, and we couldn’t resist getting out for one last paddle under the stars. The next morning, our pilot came in to retrieve us, and we would soon be reunited with civilization. On our drive home, the smoke had cleared out around Williams Lake, where just a week earlier it had covered the region in a thick haze. Rain had saved the day— and quenched our thirst for adventure. 

Exploring around Bella Coola

There is no shortage of things to do in this vast, wild area of British Columbia. Here are a few must-see-and-do highlights.

• Paddle M Gurr Lake. Glacier Creek Outfitting rents paddleboards for this excursion and also offers guided paddleboard trips to the inlet and estuary. If you have a four-wheel drive car, Blue Jay Lake is another great option for a day trip.
• View grizzly bears. In September, Bella Coola is an internationally-renowned destination for viewing grizzly bears feeding on salmon. The Belarko Wildlife Viewing Area has a free viewing platform with staff and an electric fence. Or for a more intimate view, visit the Tweedsmuir Park Lodge and go on a drift boat tour!
• Hike to Odegaard Falls. Down in the Bella Coola valley, a rugged drive can get you to a fairly short hike to the lookout of the impressive Odegaard Falls. Note: four wheel drive is required!
• Hike in the Rainbow Range. Another beautiful section of Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park, the Rainbow Range offers a variety of hiking options, from mild day hikes to moderate overnight trips.
• Visit the community of Bella Coola itself. On the coast in the Bella Coola Valley, this town is definitely worth a visit! It offers lush scenery, great views, and lots of small day hikes. 

Related: How to Pack for your First Overnight Paddleboard Trip

Written by Eric Poulin

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To measure the impacts of a changing climate in the high country, the park and other public land managers enlist volunteers to monitor animals that may be at risk of diminishing populations or even extinction due to increased temperature, loss of glaciers, change in habitat, and the demise of forage.

The Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center, based in West Glacier, Montana, recognizes that mountain goat and pika populations have declined outside Glacier, yet the park’s research staff needs baseline data to examine changes in these two high-elevation mammals. In 2008, the group established the High Country Citizen Science Project. Since then, a few hundred volunteers have collected data on species of concern—pika and mountain goats—that rely on cool temperatures of the high country for foraging and escape from predators.

For the past five summers, my family and I have volunteered to backpack into Glacier’s mountains and valleys to document pika and mountain goats and their habitat. We pack binoculars, a GPS with study sites preloaded, telescope, tripod, goat and pika survey forms, and little envelopes to collect pika scat. Oh, and each of us pack a canister of pepper spray in case of a chance encounter with Glacier’s apex predator: the grizzly bear.

As we look for pika poop, my husband, Lynn, and son, Bridger, scramble over a boulder field between Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park, where we started our backpack trip, and Bowman Lake, where we finished our five days in the high country. 

“Shhhh,” I whisper. “I think I hear pika.”

Lynn can’t hear it. Bridger is skeptical. “It’s a marmot,” he says, and darn if the 23-year-old isn’t correct. The good news is that marmot and pika often share the same scree fields. The bad news is that we don’t find pika at this site.

“I found a haypile,” says Lynn, shining a super bright flashlight between meter-high rocks. “It’s really old though. And the scat is all white.”

We search for an hour for evidence: fresh scat, pika calls, and haypiles—piles of drying grasses, sedges, and wildflowers that can reach as large a meter in diameter and one meter high. During the Crown of the Continent field training session five years ago, we hiked to a pika site near Two Medicine Lake. As we examined a haypile, a pika squeaked “eep!” and dashed under a boulder, carrying a mouthful of purple flowers. 

The endearing American pika is an herbivore that looks mouse-like but is instead related to the rabbit and hare family. At 120-175 grams, the cinnamon brown or gray fur balls shelter among boulders. As subnivian creatures, pika don’t hibernate; instead, they tunnel under the snow that can be several meters deep in Glacier each winter. They hide from predators, coyotes, weasels, ermines, eagles, and other birds of prey—and now climate change. 

Summer temperatures linger deeper into fall and spring, warming and melting glaciers at a faster pace than ever documented before. Species that must have cool weather to survive might not be able to relocate to higher, cooler elevations. Pika’s body temperature at 104.2 degrees can quickly increase to a deadly 109.6 degrees even when the outside temperature is below 80 degrees. They don’t sweat or pant so they need habitat—cool places—to prevent their body temperatures from rising dangerously high.

According to the National Park Service, “Climate models predict that the average temperature in North America will rise by 2-10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. Northwest Montana’s average temperature has already risen 2.34 degrees (1.8 times the global average) in the last century, with high elevation areas warming at an even faster rate.” This contributes to shrinking habitat as conifers encroach the alpine meadows, reduce forage, and impede the pika’s ability to detect predators.

That’s where the glaciologists from Glacier National Park sound an alarm. They estimate the glaciers at 7,000 years old from the Little Ice Age. Prior to that, during the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended about 12,000 years ago, ice covered the Northern Hemisphere, lowering sea levels some 300 feet. Near Glacier National Park, ice was a mile deep. 

These massive receding glaciers shaped the famous hanging valleys of Glacier. Glaciers sculpted the park’s iconic arêtes, horns, cirques, tarns, and chains of lakes called paternoster lakes. Based on current research models, all the glaciers will disappear by 2030. 

None of the study sites we examined in 2016 and 2017 revealed current pika residents. Did they perish or move? Relocating seems unlikely given that, in many cases, the next closest scree and boulder fields are half a kilometer or more away. Moving to higher elevation would make sense except Glacier has only six mountains over 3,000 meters, which is the far end of the range for pika.

There is some good news among the dire.  A new U.S Geological Survey (USGS) study released in July 2017 indicates that some critters are displaying “behavioral flexibility—the ability to rapidly change behavior in response to short—or long-term environmental changes such as climate variability,” notes the study’s lead researcher, Erik Beever. 

“Given that species must cope with variability in environmental conditions over multiple time scales, behavioral flexibility can allow some animals a means by which to rapidly and effectively cope with such variability, yet without committing to more-permanent characteristics that won’t always be beneficial,” says Beever.

The researchers gleaned data from 186 studies worldwide that looked at animals’ flexibility in dealing with climate changes.

And for my favorite little mammal? The study reveals that, occasionally, pika exhibit flexible behaviors to avoid and accommodate climatic stress by changing “foraging strategy, habitat use and heat-regulating postures.” 

The seemingly unsuitable habitat may be the pika’s new home, although more research is needed to determine if pika in the Northern Rockies will be able to find cool, snowy, and rocky territory.

Skiers should care about the little fur balls since its decline is a harbinger of the decline of moisture in the mountains, stored as snowpack atop glaciers. That snowpack in the high country fills our streams and rivers. Glacier’s Triple Divide Peak is a hydrological apex with waterways flow into three major river systems to different oceans: the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic Ocean and Hudson Bay/Arctic Ocean. 

As summers become hotter and drier across the West, Glacier and Waterton suffer more months of wildfires. Although open now, at this writing, part of Glacier’s Going-to-the-Sun Road was closed to fires. What harms pika, harms people. It’s easy to feel a bit helpless. After all, what can a few lovers of winter and mountain spaces do to alter what appears to be the course of climate change? One option is supporting The Crown of the Continent or one of the other 19 research and learning centers that combine science and education to help preserve and protect important places for generations to come. 

Written by Jean Arthur

Related: Backcountry Hikes in Glacier National Park

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In February we published an editorial about Michael Campbell–a past contributor to OTM–and his impending trip to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. Mission accomplished. He’s now back in the USA and you can read this great blog account of the entire adventure here. Here’s my favorite line: “Had to trade Mike’s pants for a goat at a nearby Masai village so we could have something to eat tonight.”

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Sunday was the day before we flew back home. We spent the day driving to Damavand Mountain, the 18,000 foot peak a couple hours northeast of Tehran. The day was very cloudy, so we weren’t able to catch a good view of the peak, but we still had fun traveling and picking volcanic mint in the fog. In the evening there was an emotional farewell party with good food, friends and much exchanging of gifts.

We are back home now, but I am still a long ways away from fully processing this trip. I am thinking long and hard about the relationship between our two countries. I am overwhelmed by the friendship and hospitality we received in Iran. Even though there is bad blood between our governments the Iranians we encountered look upon Americans in a positive and hopeful way. Shahrokh thinks that despite everything that America still represents freedom to most Iranians.

I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone in Spokane and Iran who donated time or money to help make this trip possible. Without that effort it would have been difficult to bring the boys, which made all the difference for the trip. Their worldview has changed. So has ours. Look for an article in the June issue of OTM and for presentations and a short documentary hopefully later in the year.

Nasim and Jafar.

Abandoned building near Damavand.

The going away party.

Sunrise over Tehran 5:30AM on the ride to the Tehran airport Monday morning. The triangle profile on the left is Damavand Mountain–which was obscured by clouds the day before.

The post Last Dispatch from Iran appeared first on Out There Venture.

On Saturday we had two Peace Tree planting ceremonies. The first was at a kindergarten in North Tehran. I would tell more about what happened there but I was distracted by the overwhelming cuteness of the children. In the afternoon we did a second tree planting at Artist Park. This is a park with sculptures and galleries that was the site of Nasim and Jafar’s first tree that they planted over two years ago at the beginning of their worldwide cycling trip. Friends and family show, a couple reporters show up, a contingent of Tehran cyclists arrive. The atmosphere is festive. Pam puts a the small packet of Susie Stephen’s ashes in hole prepared for the tree. Nasim, Shahrokh and I all say a few words. Things get emotional real quick. I hand out Susie bookmarks. Everyone signs paper messages to hang on the tree. We all take turns tossing in dirt. I have a nice conversation with a guy at an Iranian news service who looks like Cyrus the great. (Read the news service account here.) We pose for a thousand pictures. Some people passing by join in. Some seem perplexed–especially the guy in army fatigues as I hand in a Susie bookmark.

The tree is an evergreen planted near the entrance of the park. It will be here for a long time. Our mission is completed. The trip is drawing to a close.

Susie Stephens ashes.

Taking pictures and meeting folks.

My new friend who looks like Cyrus.

Dig the homemade costumes and the sign at the left.

This kid was very excited about the Bumble Bar we gave him.

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Friday.

A great day with Nasim and Jafar in the mountains north of Tehran. We saw some amazing rock climbers, including some young women bouldering. You try doing that in a scarf! We also saw a Iranian pro climber attack a route like I’ve never seen in person before. Wish we could get him a Visa to visit Yosemite. We even tried some rock climber ourselves. I would be lying to you if I said that Zach, Jackson, Tom and I impressed anyone with our skills–but it was fun. Pam wins the commando award for hiking 2 miles and and 1800 feet in elevation up the mountain on a bum ankle. Short post today because I am totally beat and I have to get up at 6AM again. I’ll let the pics do the talking.

The mountains north of Tehran.

A street memorial.

A late night dinner.

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Thursday

We arrive at our hotel a 3AM. I go to sleep with the help of Tylenol PM. I think that’s why it’s so hard for Shahrokh to wake me up in the middle of the night. Why is he getting me up? Jackson has thrown up in the middle of the night. He projectile vomited all the way on to Shahrokh’s bed. Trying to get Jackson–who never really wakes up–into the shower is not my favorite moment of the trip. The shower curtain falls, the toilet paper holder comes off. I can’t get the water to go to the shower head and I have to bathe him sitting down. I slip trying to swat a misquito. The next morning I break the hotel while trying to open it and air out the room. I cut myself cleaning it up and bleed on the bed. In the afternoon we try to go bowling but the bowling alley is closed for repairs.

But then things start looking up. We finally get to see Nasim and Jafar for the first time. Nasim takes Pam shopping while all the men go swimming at Jackson’s request. The swim complex is half pool half bathhouse and provides us with one of the most memorable images of the trip: middle aged men in Speedos having sausage sandwiches and drinking non-alcoholic beer in the pool cafeteria. Pool cafeteria? Seems ridiculous until you’ve spent two hours in the pool, steam room, sauna, and hot and cold jacuzzi? Who knew you could get so hungry.

Jackson and and Zach at first don’t know what to make of the sauna and steam room but after a few minutes they are old pros. Everyone gets very relaxed. It’s just what we all need. I almost have to drag Jackson out of the sauna when it is time to go. Or rather time to go to the pool cafeteria and eats snacks in swim trunks. This is some I wish I could bring back to the states.

The Freedom Arch near the airport.

Dinner with Nasim in North Tehran at a fast food place called Sinbad.

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Tuesday May 13

In a book you can’t tell how big it is. It’s like 20 ancient archeological sites in one. Tombs, palaces, collumns, and some really cool rock animals. Persopolis is the third ancient site we’ve seen today. We also saw the tomb of Cyrus the Great, and hillside tombs of Darius and Xerxes. But todays best experience was people, not places.

We are invited to the home of a cousin of Shahrokhs friend. (If we had the time we could be invited to a meal morning, noon, and night.) They live in a poor agricultural neighborhood on the far outskirts of Shiraz. At first getting there feels like a wild goose chase similar to Abeynah. Once we reached the neighborhood the streets are so bad the van bottoms out three times. And seeing big hunks of raw meet hanging on a hook outside someone’s garage feels a bit weird no matter how normal it is here.

But when we get to the house we are met by a graciosu family of eight. Once inside the concrete walls of the family sanctuary all the concerns of the evening melt away. Jackson helps the two young girls in the family figure out the glow sticks we’ve given them. We all marvel at the classic Persian decor of the home–including the framed flowers wrapped in plastic. The meal, eaten on the Persian carpet in their living room, is terrific–the best chicken I’ve had yet. The conversation is rough, since they know little English, but we manage with our translators as the boys once again use soccer to connect with their eldest sons. They insist we stay the night. We politely decline–15 people in a three bedroom house seems a bit much–but the offer is sincere and Shahrohs says he remember such family slumber parties being fun when he was a kid. At the end we exchange gifts, including giving the daughter some money for her upcoming wedding. She refuses to take it until I put it in her hand and gently close it with mine. No packaged tour would have allowed us to meet people like this.

The family we ate dinner with.

Some shots for the Sponsors at Persopolis: Thanks Bumble Bar and Spokane Indians!

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