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From “City of Rivers” Newspaper April 30th, 2008
http://www.movetokamloops.com

April 30th, 2008

“Gavin Lawerence has worked professionally as a motorsports photographer for 16 years, but gave up the international flights (78 last year) and the hectic schedule to settle in Kamloops and start a family. His shots appear on the cover and at the top of this page. View more at http://www.gavinlawrencephoto.com
”

This image was altered on the cover of the newspaper having the horizon flipped but it’s still an awesome shot, tad bit of lens flare. Even though the paper bills it as Kamloops the image info on Gavin’s site lists it as being from Rock Island Lake BC near Little Fort, BC probably about an 1 to 1.5 hour drive from Kamloops City Centre.

My good friends Clyde & Christine, Elmer and I planned a late trip into Murtle Lake in September. It was quite a trip and we had planned to go for about 7 days but cut it short by about 2 days because it was quite cool, windy and rainy weather. We had fun but boy was it work hauling our camping equipment and canoes to the lake. Once we got into the canoes the real work began, paddling across the largest canoe only lake in North America!

A long way to paddle to the first campsite. It’s around the dark green point on the left of this picture.

Day 2 Elmer and I backtracked to another beach we passed yesterday. This beach campsite was closed because of bears in the area feasting on the Kokanee in the creek. Did I mention that this lake is frickin huge yet? Well it IS! This view is looking up the West Arm (the popular area in the summer)

The next day we decided to paddle to the West Arm and find a good campsite it was a lot of work paddling against the wind to get there. We left earlier in the day to avoid heavy winds but we still got caught in them for a bit.

We found a nice campsite that was like a Tropical beach! There was a small break in the storms passing us providing sunlight for about 30mins… It was amazing!

One of the most beautiful rainbows we’ve ever seen!

Fishing was quite good, we waded out in the water and caught fish for dinner. Can you believe how far out we could wade?

Who’s cooking?

We camped within the trees near shore but it was all sandy and the sand went everywhere. One night it was so windy we thought trees would fall down on our tents. We had a tarp up that we thought for sure was being ripped out and blown across the lake. It didn’t.

This weekend I took my Dad, Michelle, and my sister up to Garibaldi with hopes of getting to the Panorama ridge. Even though I had hiked it the weekend before with 50lbs it was quite a long hike for everyone and the weather and daylight defeated us.

We had fun and got some good pics but next time I think we’ll need to leave earlier or camp overnight.

Ryan & Rebecca, Dave and I hiked up to Garibaldi via Helm creek and camped overnight. We got quite a late start to the hike and it was much slower going that we thought with our heavy packs.

It rained on us while hiking and by the time we setup camp and reached Cinder Flats it was poring rain and very windy. The weather defeated us.

Dave and I hiked into the Lynn Valley and went up to Nor Van Falls. It wasn’t an huge hike but it was a fairly long day.

Hiked up to the Diez Vistas and around Buntzen Lake today, did a bit of geo-caching along the vistas and found several of them.

Fishing was so-so today at Duffy Lake, man it was scorching hot weather!

Hiked the Chief today to the 3rd peak… Was a bit cloudy but still worked up quite a sweat.

We ventured into Garibaldi Park for the first time on the Labor Day long weekend, it was quite a trip. First we were told that the lake campground was full and we should turn back. We didn’t and pressed onward to the Taylor Meadows campsite. By the time we reached the campsite we were toast. We camped and early the next morning we ventured to the top of the tusk. What a view!