Trip log - Cedar to Radiant: Canada Day - Day 3

Today dawned totally gorgeous. It's always nice out when you're going home. We would spend the day travelling, so I was fine with having good weather. We had discussed our strategy the night before and set 8 a.m. as the wake-up call. I didn't have to convince L.T. to get up, he was up before me. I waited until the last minute before 8 to get up as well.

Someone's cottage or camper in the distance

Mouth of the Petawawa River where we were heading (mid photo)

Breakfast was blueberry pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. I think I've finally figured out a system to mix the batter, blueberries and warm water. I use one of my Food Saver bags and vacuum seal it, leaving a large space to fold the bag over multiple times at the top, clamp it with my windshield bulldog clamps. We squeeze the ready pancake mixture out of a small opening in the pointed end I've created with the vacuum sealer. Now that I have that long silicone spoon, no more messy hands!

We had skipped lunch yesterday, so we decided to make it this morning and put it in our Thermoses to eat on the route. I had also brought bacon and pepperoni to go into the Kraft Dinner. We were able to get most of the pot into the two Thermoses, but had to throw a bit out.

It takes a while to set up camp and a while to tear it down. The hammocks need to come down. The bug shelter is last. I had decided that my fanny pack was NOT going to be used today, I was going to stuff every last item I could into my backpack including the empty fanny pack. The only things that would be attached to my backpack on portaging was my life jacket and camera bag. I stuffed my snack bag and my one liter bottle into the side pockets of my backpack. I only filled one of my bottles, the other one would be empty. One kilogram less of weight!

Just when I thought my backpack was stuffed to the max, I realized I had to still fold up my chair and put that in my bag. Dang! My backpack has a really cool feature. It has a front zipper in a U-shape. If I lie it on its back, I can open up the front like a suitcase and jam more stuff in that way. I got the chair in. I was carrying the garbage (which I normally don't do), but I balked at the little backpack it was in. L.T. had some black plastic construction-weight garbage bags in there and they were heavy!

It was 11:35 by the time we launched. Radiant Lake wasn't horribly choppy, but it wasn't flat either. And the wind was blowing directly in our faces. It took about 35 minutes to get to the mouth of the Petawawa River. We were going upstream today and it was moving faster than it looked. The first part of the river is a long paddle and with each twist of the river, the wind would blow at us again. I was anxious about today. I had had such a rough time on Saturday. And today we were going uphill and against the current of the Petawawa. We knocked off the first portage and my confidence built a little bit. We did single carries all day. Some of the wet spots had dried, but not all!

The next portage with the big mud swampy section in the middle, well, I had decided at our first portage that my feet were getting wet, so I had stood in the river holding the canoe at the bottom of the train bridge. They were already wet, so I could walk in the muddy section. I used my trekking poles to ensure there was some rock below the mud and water before stepping and that worked fine. I would not attempt to find a route around this again!

On that second portage we came across a blue canoe bag three-quarters of the way up the trail. I could hear someone in the woods to my left, between me and the river. There had been no indication that someone else was on this portage, no canoe or kayak when we started our walk. When we got to the end, there was no boat either. I guess this person was either trying to do some of these Category IV rapids or was lining their boat, not an easy feat. Actually he probably had started doing the rapids and changed his mind. He would have to haul his craft through a bushwhack up the steep sides of the gorge. Yikes!

We got that portage done, then we came to the final one of the day and the longest. But it's not really the toughest. Although to start you need to walk along the edge of the bank which is high with loose gravel rocks. It would be nothing to slip and you'd fall the whole distance into the rapids. Hardly a tree to impede your plunge into the rapids. Not a pleasant outcome. I was extra careful on all portages today. Slipping could mean hurting myself badly and I have no idea how L.T. would get me out of there. The bugs would be happy though to keep me company.

The trail gets a bit nicer as you get to the end near Cedar Lake. We walked by the first campsite, then came around the corner to the campsite right on the lake. There was a small creature there, he kind of looked like a fuzzy beaver or ground hog with a fuzzy tail. He didn't look like an adult, maybe a young adult? He was dark brown with a bit of black. I surprised him and he started to go around me until L.T. came into view. Then he just froze. We didn't try to approach him, we just stopped and let him run away. 

We dropped our gear and took a break to eat lunch. I walked into the lake and got completely wet. It was mostly to cool down. The wind blowing off Cedar Lake would dry me out before I got back to the access point. The KD in the Thermoses was good. After eating that and drinking, we headed out to conquer the big lake that is Cedar. L.T. plotted a route that would bring us behind one of the big islands to give us a break from the wind and waves. But for the most part we had to battle them. They were enough to pick up the front of the canoe and slam it down into troughs that were probably 1.5 to 2 feet below the crest of the waves. At times I had only air to paddle.

It was a long, tiring trip to paddle across Cedar. No matter how far you thought you'd progressed, when you checked the shoreline, it looked like nothing. But progress we did. Then Cedar had her ultimate revenge on us. We paddled into the small bay at the access point. It was suddenly calm. Yeah, because we're in a bay. NO, the whole damned lake was like glass all of a sudden!

Oh well, we had made it safe and sound. There was a group of people picnicking on the beach. I had full intention of getting out of the canoe and just lying on my back on the beach when we arrived. But I didn't want to embarrass L.T. My lower back was killing me from the paddle across Cedar. Instead I just got the gear ready to pack into the car.

By the time we loaded up the car, got the canoe on, and L.T. changed into clean clothes, it was 6:30. 7 hours from when we had launched from our campsite.

On the way home we needed to get gas and the requisite fries from the chip truck. We had to drive into downtown Deep River as we were too late for Freddies on the highway. I had a small poutine, that I ended up sharing and L.T. had a bacon cheeseburger. We got to his place at 9:45 p.m. By the time I was home 45 minutes later, I just climbed the 3 flights of stairs leaving that huge bag in the car.

Lessons learned this trip:

1. If I don't want something to get wet, it needs to be in a dry bag or at least a Ziploc bag.

2. I need to wear better shoes on the portages and I need to suck it up and spend the day with wet feet. Part of the reason I wear the Keen sandals is that they are light and I can use them in the campsite, ergo no extra pair of flip flops or camp shoes to carry.

3. We need to pad the times given on Jeff's maps to compensate for my slowness on the portages. 

4. I brought my new Esbit stove (see here for my testing of it). It was easy to pull out and heat the pre-cooked bacon on while either the eggs or pancakes were being made. I used my stove diffuser on it at first, but it didn't really blacken much without the diffuser. 

5. I should probably carry a maximum of between 35-40 pounds on my back.

6. I hate fanny packs. I can't get my backpack hip belt to work properly while also wearing a fanny pack.

7. I can't wear my new rain poncho under my backpack (I might be able to wear it over, which would be better as it'd keep my bag dry.

8. L.T. will never play cribbage with me. Although the board worked great as a place to put the mosquito coils (yes, plural).

9. I can climb up much better when fully loaded using my trekking poles than I can going down.

10. July 1st is too buggy.

11. After July 1st it's warm enough to go in the lake (or river).

12. Deer flies can bite through thick wool socks. On my trip back on Monday I put Watkins cream on my bare feet, put on my socks, then sprayed them with Watkins bug spray. That helped a bit.

13. I need to get back to exercising on a more regular basis, including weights.

14. I would only do this route again if I was carrying 25 pounds and had guaranteed nice, sunny weather! (Ain't gonna happen!)

Timetable                                   Day 1                                      Day 2

Trip log - Cedar Lake to Catfish Lake: July 30 to Aug. 3, 2014 - Day 2

Day 1               Day 3               Day 4               Day 5

We were up early, eating breakfast (fresh eggs, reheated bacon) and off on the day's travels. Well, right after I cleaned up from the squirrel hissy fit in the bug tent the night before. 

The morning dawned cloudy. The advantage was that we wouldn’t get overheated on our portaging.  The disadvantage was that it would rain a bit on and off all day. I was glad to have my new shirt and pants from the Columbia outlet in Kingston. The fabric is amazing and dried very quickly.

After breakfast we were on the lake by 10 a.m. It would take us 7 hours to travel to our campsite on Catfish Lake today.

I brought my hiking poles for this trip, they make a big difference for portaging for me. Here were the day's portages:

Portage 1: 715m
Portage 2: 300m
Portage 3: 2345m
Portage 4: 170m
Portage 5: 80m

Today's route

Portage 1: We always start the day in fine form. 715 meters?  Piece of cake! Um, not so much. This portage is up, up, then up a bit more. We climbed from 308m to 336m, huffing and puffing. There is a trail to go off and see the waterfall you are portaging around. We had a big day so we would not be taking any side trails today. However I did notice how the vegetation on the side of the portage trail was trimmed back.  After all the unmaintained portages on our last trip, I could really appreciate this effort!

Muddy put-in into the Petawawa River

The put-in was a bit mucky, but the exciting part is that this was my first time on the Petawawa River.  It was a calm paddle on flat water, there is a distinct current, but it is not hard to work against.  I took a few pictures of the put-in area waiting for LT to return with the canoe, I even found the wooden cross for A. Corbeil and took a picture of that.

Portage 2: This is a short portage, however, it hasn't got a great landing site and you need to carry the canoe up a very, very steep hill to get started on the portage. You are rewarded though with the view of a gorgeous waterfall as you arrive at the beginning of the portage.

I think this might be Stacks Falls

Rocky put-kn above the big falls

Above the falls, we put in and were back in the Petawawa River for another 10-15 minute paddle to the longest portage of the day.


Portage 3: This is the killer portage of the day. We started at 339m, went up to a peak of 408m and back down to 384m. It's a long one: 2345 meters long. There are a few boardwalks on this trail. Our day was giving us a bit of challenge by raining off and on as we traveled. We were rained on during this portage, not heavily, but enough to make it a more painful journey. It made the boardwalks slippery and the slightly muddy spots of the trail even muddier. The bugs were bad, so stopping to rest was needed, but the bugs were awful when we did stop. There is a canoe rest at the peak of the trail, but we took a rest shortly before then and didn't stop when we got there. We would use it on the way back though. Our first trip through took us 55 minutes including the 2 breaks we took.

The end of this portage is at a very pretty spot. Similar to our last trip, I was not walking the portages more than once. I sat at the end of this portage very happily. I had on Columbia long pants that I could unzip the lower legs to convert into shorts. Not because I wanted to tan, but because I wanted to wash the mud off them. I did and they dried on a rock in the sun before LT made it back.

On this trip I was carrying my small Canon PowerShot camera. At this portage end, while I was playing around with washing pant legs, taking pictures, just being fidgety, I took off my hoodie that had the camera in the pocket and I lay it on a sloping rock into the water to dry out. When I picked up the hoodie off the rock a short time later, it was like slow motion. The camera fell out of the pocket and slid down the slanted rock into about a foot of water. "Noooooooooo!" I reached in, grabbed the camera, and immediately removed the SD card and the battery. No more pictures on this trip!

Another new looking bridge

End of portage 3 - and it's not raining!

Above the waterfalls/rapids we were portaging around

See that darned slanted rock???

It only took a few minutes to paddle across the pond to the next portage.

Portage 4: This small portage of 170 meters took us into Narrowbag Lake. While on the lake, it looked like it was going to really storm on us. LT took us to the opposite side of the lake (it's not overly wide) out of the wind and it poured. This was the second time we had been soaked in the canoe today. We also had a storm hit us on the Petawawa River right after the first portage.

Portage 5: This portage was even shorter, 80 meters. It is a short hop around an old log chute and then we were into the upper part of Catfish Lake.

Initially we were in a narrow section with a lot of sharp rocks looming out of the water, many coming close to the surface. Then as we came out of that, around the corner, the lake was opening up to us. The first campsite we passed was occupied. There was a tent and the food bag was hug. We were going to try to go a bit further down anyways. We hit gold! The island campsite was empty. I'm pretty sure someone had just left. I think the fire was still smoldering in the firepit. This is a gorgeous campsite, but you'll have to take my word for it as I have NO pictures! :-(

We didn’t see anyone on our whole trip this day.  Granted it was a Thursday before a long weekend.

It was a gorgeous site, a long island, with a great rocky point, majestic pine trees, a lovely breeze and the sun was out.  We were home!  We set up camp, got some water filtering and I set up the hammock.  We had decided to not have a specific lunch on travel days, but to snack more.  It was 5 p.m. when we arrived, so dinner was the next meal.  We had shepherd’s pie.  I haven’t figured out a suitable dehydrated mashed potato mix.  I make regular mashed potatoes and freeze them in a Ziploc baggie – they thaw out in time for day 2 dinner. We skipped dessert.

We went to bed and even though it was pretty dark, there was still enough light for us to see a mouse scuttle up and over the tent fly. We could make out his silhouette, holy crap! Up and over he went. A couple of times.  Later that night we heard some pretty loud kerplunks in the water – it sounded like someone was dropping a very heavy rock into the lake.   We surmised it must be a loon getting in and out of its nest on the shore by the tent.

Trip log - Cedar Lake to Catfish Lake: July 30 to Aug. 3, 2014 - Day 1

Day 2               Day 3               Day 4               Day 5

As we were progressing through the summer, the trips were becoming longer. This would be our longest trip so far.  Five days and four nights. But instead of making this a tough trip like our last foray into this area (read here), we would start and end the trip easier and take a rest day in the middle.

Here was the route:

Day 1: travel to Cedar Lake, launch and find a camping spot near where the Petawawa River flows into the lake, fairly close to the first portage out of the lake.

Day 2: travel from Cedar Lake all the way to Catfish Lake

Day 3: rest day at Catfish Lake, do some exploring of the lake

Day 4: travel out of Catfish Lake all the way back to Cedar Lake

Day 5: paddle back to the access point and go home.

Campsite marked with purple triangle

We didn't rush, but did leave as early as we could. We got to the access point at Cedar close to 11 a.m. after picking up our rental canoe at Algonquin Portage on the road to Achray near Petawawa. All the canoes at Algonquin Outfitters at the Brent Store were reserved for the upcoming long weekend. It was raining slightly, so we waited it out in the car. We sat and watched another couple with a pickup truck unload and launch in the rain. We waited a bit more. It started to clear a bit so we pulled the car up to the shore and unloaded everything.

Cedar Lake can be tough if the wind and waves start up. Our first trip here on Canada Day gave us a lot of respect for this lake. Our route was planned specifically around the possibility of being wind-bound here. Today's effort was to basically just get ourselves across the lake. Today the lake seemed pretty calm.

We set out and the weather looked like it was going to get worse, but it didn't really. It spit on us a bit, but nothing very serious. There was a bit of a thunder roll, but it didn't develop into anything. We went to the campsite almost directly across from the access point, it was just okay. We had a lot of time, so we went to the next one closer to the portage. It's a nice spot, but a bit tough to unload and load the canoe.

We unloaded and set up camp. We waited a bit before going out to get water in the lake for filtering. This spot has a couple of windbreaks, we put the tent behind one and the bug shelter behind the other one. The view was spectacular, you can look up the lake and you can hear the Petawawa River roaring into the lake if the wind is blowing from that direction.

Hidden tent

Rest of the setup from the other side of the windbreak

LT made a fresh lunch of ciabatta buns with cold meat. I ate most of my sandwich. We broke up some pieces of the leftover bun and were feeding them to the resident chipmunk and squirrel. There are probably more than just those two, but they have a deal where only one begs at a time so we don’t realize we’re feeding half a dozen of them.

After a bit of a rest and waiting until the weather was much nicer, we went out to explore the area near the portage and the river.  The roar of the water is pretty intense and can be a bit frightening, but LT reminds me it is coming into the lake, we're not going to be swept over any ledges here. Just for fun we checked out a couple of campsites to the right of the river, we would be coming back through here in a few more days and staying here again. We found they were very closed off with thick growth along the waterline. The breeze would probably not get through to help keep the bugs off.  

View up the lake

A bit more to the left of the view above as the sun came out

Cedar Lake rainbow, looking around the point down the lake

 Before dinner paddling pictures of the Petawawa River:

For dinner we had pizza, yum, with the banana nut bread pudding for dessert.

We did not have a campfire at all during this trip. One of the disadvantages of travelling popular routes is that the campsites are often picked clean of deadwood. It is usually more comfortable sitting in the bug shelter than sitting around the fire anyways. We can’t put the bug shelter too close to the fire pit either. However, with no campfire, bedtime is earlier.

After dinner sunset pictures:

We went to bed fairly early. We had a big day planned the following day. The food bag was hung. I left the camping pots inside the bug shelter. 

LT is a very soft spoken person. Around 11 he woke me up because he was clearing his throat very loudly. Huh??? This was not like him at all. He was telling me that there was some very noisy crashing through the brush near our camp. It sounded like a VERY large animal was in the vicinity. We talked loudly for about 20 minutes after the initial crashing subsided. LT got up and flashed light around the campsite to ensure there were no visitors and none were seen. He had brought a hatchet with him on this trip. He went and fished that out of his bag and brought it back to spend the night with us in the tent. 

Whatever creature it was, we never knew. But it made us wary for the rest of this trip. Later that night I think some squirrels paid us a visit. The camping pots were tossed around inside the bug tent and something chewed its way through the collapsible silicone measuring cup I use to portion water into the dehydrated food. The loud camp visitor was part of our conversation for the rest of this trip. Skunk? Raccoon? Porcupine? Bear!!!?