Three and a half days by kayak into the warmest salt water north of Mexico, with bears for company and not a whale in sight.
The tally, when we pulled the boats out for the last time: a hundred and four miles, three and a half days, two ferries, two black bears, one grizzly and no whales. The whales will have to wait for next time.
Desolation Sound sits at the top of the Strait of Georgia, where the coast breaks into islands and long fingers of water run back into the mountains. Captain Vancouver named it on a grey week in 1792 and did not care for it. He was wrong. In summer the sheltered water here warms up more than anywhere on the Pacific coast north of the Mexican border, clear enough to watch the bottom slide by under the hull.
Up the inlet
We paddled north out of the Sound and turned up Toba Inlet, which narrows as it goes until the walls come straight down to the water and the snowmelt with them. One waterfall drops almost directly from the ridgeline into the sea; you can paddle underneath it if you do not mind a cold shower at the end of a warm day.
Up the inlet the beaches turn to sand and sedge, and the sedge is where the bears graze. We spent the better part of an evening glassing the far shore for grizzlies and were rewarded with one, far enough off to be thrilling and no closer.
What we would tell a friend
Go in July or August, when the water is at its warmest. Plan your crossings for the morning, before the afternoon wind picks up in the main channels. Pack food and gear in bags that can take a soaking, and keep the things you care about where you can reach them.
Words and photographs by Vendovi.
