10 painful lessons I learned on my first B.C. steelhead trip

#5 Bring Top-quality Rain Gear

We’ve all heard the jokes about the weather on the West Coast. (My long-time favourite: What is B.C.’s provincial flower? Mildew!) But it really did rain off and on the whole time I was there. And when you’re floating a river, there’s nowhere to hide—you just have to take it. Thankfully, I’d packed good rainwear, layers of fleece tops and pants, fingerless wool gloves—the works. So the rain was only a minor irritation, though by the about the ninth hour of it, the chill did creep into my bones. That said, I saw it as an essential part of my Vancouver Island adventure.