It was a beautiful, warm day with bright blue skies, when we unloaded our raft at the Ghost Lake Dam. The descent to the river was quite steep and Dee decided to roll down, burdened with a considerable amount of gear. A discussion ensued whether this descent should be rated as an Off-Trail OT3 or an OT4. Soon we had our raft inflated and ready to go. Since this rafting trip was a first for the Ramblers as far as we could trace back, Cornelis gave a short safety-instruction, although it appeared most of the participants had prior rafting experience. We decided that for today, we would be the “Rocky Mountain Rafters”! We pushed off at 12:15; the water level and flow were high for the time of the year due to our wet summer


Rocky Mountain Rafters Dee, Kim, Cornelis, Alex, Ursula and Karen prior to pushing off just below the Ghost Lake Dam

. We enjoyed a sunny lunch break on the river bank between 12:30 and 13:00. Soon we were drifting down the river again at a leisurely pace. This did not continue for long; at the rapids, the raft accelerated to 14km/h and Kim, our honorary figure-head on the bow, shipped some refreshingly cool water!


Alex, Dee, Kim, Karen and Ursula relaxing on the raft

Our Bow-Figure Kim shipping water in the rapids

Soon we were back in tranquil waters. A bald Eagle soared high above the river. As we got closer to Cochrane, Cumulus clouds started to pile up in the sky to our West and we encountered a stiff head-wind, slowing us down a bit.


The Bow River flowing East under blue skies

Cumulus Clouds building up in the sky above the Bow River, looking West

. We arrived at Cochrane’s Bow River Bridge at 15:45. We had been rafting for exactly 3 hours excluding the lunch break, covering 18.8km and dropping 40m in elevation (average speed of 6.3km/h, max. speed 14km/h). Thank you all for sharing this wonderful day!

Participants: Ursula, Dee & son Alex, Karen, Kim, Cornelis (Coordinator, Scribe, photos & GPS).