The Mighty Milk

This weekend was the second annual canoe trip, down the Milk River. Day 1 started off well, the sun came out and spirits were high. We did our 30 km without much effort. The wind picked up in the evening, but we still enjoyed a beautiful evening on the banks of the river.

Day 2 started alright, but the river was a little tougher than the first part, plenty of gravel bars and ripples to keep us on our toes. Ali and Andrew got dumped in the river early on but luckily they were unhurt. We all had our little incidents with gravel bars through out the day, but no one else had to take a swim.

It was a pretty long day, including a portage around a set of rapids. We all felt a little tired by the time we'd hit our day's destination. Luckily we made camp just as the rain and wind started and a quick meal improved everyone's spirits. Our canoe wind block worked surprisingly well, but soon after dinner had finished, the rain started up harder and we barely had time to shove a brownie (or three) in before sprinting for our tents.

It started out rainy on Day 3, and carried on for the next 5 hours while we paddled the last stretch of the river. Jon let me steer, which resulted in a lot of extra work for both of us, as he is a much stronger paddler and I spent the whole time compensating for it, while he had to do all the paddling. We arrived in Milk River just before we all lost feeling in our hands and feet, and thankfully our cars were waiting and we piled in and turned on the heat. Our journey was over! Jon and I celebrated with a double double (or it seemed to be a triple triple from the amount of cream in it) once we hit Lethbridge.

Overall we had a fantastic time, next year we'll just have to plan on having better weather! More photos available HERE.