The South Thompson River is a well-used and busy river from June through mid-September, but there is very little activity on the river after October 1st.   The river is lower and has a number of shallow areas, troublesome for power boats, but these pose no problem for canoes and kayaks.  We launched our kayaks at the Lafarge Bridge (NE side of the river) and paddled down to the Valleyview Boat Launch.

This section of the river is 14km long which takes about 2.5 hours of paddling.   There are a number of homes on both sides of the river along the way, but it is a quiet area on a weekday morning, late in October.  Fall colors lined the banks and there were lots of geese, ducks, eagles, and a variety of smaller birds in the riparian zone.

Even though the air and the water are cooler in the spring and the fall, those months invite us for a day of quiet paddling downstream.