The Bad Road
A little while ago, I took a day trip up on the bad road again. Yes I am talking about the Bowman Lake road, which most certainly has got to be the worst road around. My jaw still rattles for a week afterwards.
It was a rainy overcast day and there were five waterfalls there I was hoping to get to. The main reason I wanted to get to all five of them is because I never want to have to drive up here ever again. I hate this road! Well I only made it to three of them so that means I’m gonna have to go back there again someday. Doh!
It was almost a perfect day for going up to Bowman Lake. I arrived at Faucherie Lake first at sunrise, and I could sense the rain was about to begin. It was not “supposed” to start raining until 10am so I thought I’d have a lot more time. I donned my water shoes and crossed over the lake outlet stream and kept the shoes on for the short hike over to the waterfall at the inlet stream to Faucherie Lake. It was interesting because I could literally hear the waterfall from the parking area. The sound was bouncing off the rock wall at the far end of the lake and then across the lake again to me. It was weird because it made me think there was another waterfall on the far end of the lake. The inlet waterfall is not a big one, only 20 ft high, and the flow was ok, but not strong. It was difficult to find a good vantage point and I was not comfortable climbing around the rocks with only my water shoes on; I settled for a mediocre shot though I don’t really think I could have found a better vantage point anyway.
The photo you see here, however, is the second waterfall I went to, Jackson Creek Falls, also about 20 ft high (27 to be precise). This is more of a roadside waterfall, though it requires scrambling down a bit of a steep bank to get creek side. This one is definitely a very pretty waterfall. By the time I got here the rain had started off and on, soon to be just on, but at least the weather kept the mosquitoes away.
After this I went to Bowman Lake Falls which I have been to before but did not have any good photos of it. This requires crossing Jackson Creek which was difficult to just rock hop across. I did not want to get my feet wet so I tossed some big boulders into the stream so I could step across on them. This worked but ended up being pointless because by the time I reached the waterfall I was soaking wet anyway due to the rain, which by now was coming down in earnest. It is not easy taking photos in pouring rain but I tried. I climbed up through the wet bushes to the top of the falls as well to shoot that section and measure it (120 total height if you are interested). By the time I got back to Jackson Creek I had already decided my day of hiking was over so I just splashed through the creek and got back to the car. It was raining and I was already soaking wet and the other two waterfalls would both take a lot of effort to reach in the rain so I decided I would just leave them for another day. Such was my morning at Bowman Lake.