Trip log - Grand Lake: May 20 to 22, 2016 - Day 1

It's here, it's here! Our first backcountry camping trip of 2016!

I posted about planning for the trip: here

I woke up ahead of my alarm set for 6 a.m., getting 45 extra minutes, which allowed me to bathe, wash my hair, and make 2 cups of tea for myself in travel mugs. I was at LT's by 6:55 a.m. We loaded up the car (I had put my bag into the car the night before). We set off at 7:20. With a quick drive-though at McDonald's, we were soon on the highway.

It really saves time not having to stop and go through paperwork to rent a canoe. That probably shaves 30 minutes off the time at either end of the trip. While LT was getting the permits at the Sand Lake gate, I was chatting up the ranger, who was opening up the firewood cage. I asked how the bears were and he said there had been some seen on the road. I mentioned we were thinking of doing the hike from Grand Lake into Green Leaf Lake and he said that they had just cleared that trail the day before. Bonus!

We unloaded the canoe and gear at the launch point, LT parked the car, the canoe got packed up and off we went on a lake that was like glass. It was shortly after 10.

Paddling was so pleasant in these conditions. This trip was much different than the one we had taken two years ago to this same destination. Read about that trip here. Whereas last time we had a stiff wind against us, choppy, freezing cold water to start, this trip the wind was non-existant and the water remained flat up until we had to go under the man-made train bridge across the water.

This train bridge is mostly a land mass, artificially created to support the tracks, which have been removed. It creates a small space for the lake to squeeze through. 2 years ago this water was rushing through what appears to be a 12 foot wide gap (but it's probably slightly bigger). There are rocks and a slight drop, 1-2 feet, with a very narrow place we have to push the canoe up. The last time it took more than a few tries. This time we did it on the first try. This has nothing to do with any improved skills and a lot more to do with there being less water. 

I had been a bit anxious about having to squeeze through that opening, but we aced it. Once through the water was being slighly rippled by a breeze, but not much of one. It was enough to keep any bugs off.

We made it to the coveted campsite and got out of the canoe to check it out. Hmmmm, it didn't seem so great close up. LT was interested because it faced south and he felt it would be great for a lazy morning, lying in the sun, easing into the day. The site was very shallow in depth, it didn't go back very far. The shorline wasn't the easiest to land at, rocky, but not high. There seemed to be a lot of deadfall in the forest right behind the site. We had been at a different campsite 2 years ago and decided to head for that one after all. It would be closer to the hike we wanted to take the following day.

We got back into the canoe and headed up to the last campsite on the left of the lake. It's a really good site, which we now realize as we've done a lot more camping in the last 2 years to compare it with. Our biggest issue previously was the wind coming at the site. We had been chilled the first time using the site. This trip, the wind was pretty darn good to us.

We landed and set up camp, bug tent first as the bugs were out and annoying. The first crop of the year mostly fly around you, driving you nuts. They bite, but not as furiously as the next crop in June.

Cheating here - this is from 2014, same site though

I brought both of my Canon cameras. My small one died when I was standing at the launch site at Achray attempting to take pictures before we left. And I bought a new polarizing filter for my DSLR camera, which I foolishly did not try out first, so I had no idea how to use it. This trip will be very thin on pictures, my apologies.

We sat in the bug tent to devour a fresh lunch LT prepared. Various cold meats and cheeses, with a baggie of grapes, cut apple and cut pear. We've found that a fresh lunch without bread is easier to digest. Sometimes with exertion, like canoeing, you're hungry, but not that hungry that you want a full, full belly.

This would be my first trip using my Hennessey Hammock. It took a couple of tries for me to get it up where I was comfortable in it. LT helped a lot. I had put a lot of thought into my sleeping arrangement for this trip. I anticipated that it would get cold at night. (Bonus note: at 10 degrees Celsius, the blackflies disappear!)  

I had the hammock, my Eureka! air mattress, a dollar store shiny windshield shade (to reflect my heat back to me), my sleeping bag and my purple throw that I sewed up on a couple of sides to use as a sleeping bag liner. I was absolutely toasty the whole weekend! The $2.50 I spent on the windshield shade was a good idea. It didn't crinkle as much as one of those emergency blankets would. The bit of foam backing it had gripped the air mattress so it didn't bunch under the sleeping bag. It weighs almost nothing and folds very easily. I may go and buy a few more to have on hand in case the item isn't long lasting.

I didn't fully inflate my air mattress. I left it on the ground to inflate naturally, then capped it at that. I didn't adjust the pressure all weekend. It seemed to be a good setting.

LT had bought firewood at the permit office. He started a fire and he used the coals to cook dinner, which he brought. Two steaks, each wrapped in two layers of tin foil. And pre-cooked potatoes and baby carrots, pre-cooked, loaded in butter, and also wrapped in two layers of foil. We ate a bit later, around 7:30. Lunch had been around 2:30. While balancing my plate on my lap, I dropped my steak that I'd hardly touched. That's okay, the 2 second rule works here too. Actually, picking off a few pine needles is much easier that finding all the cat hair that would be on it if I dropped it on my floor at home. Nothing was wasted.

Dessert tonight was a new recipe I'm adding to our selection. Apple pie. It's dehydrated apples (no skin), with sugar and cinnamon, rehydrated in the thermos. When we were ready to eat it, we added dried pita bread. It gives the consistency of piecrust. It was good, I will add a bit more spice next time, especially nutmeg.

This site has a table and huge spikes nailed into several trees. There's lots of place to hang stuff and keep things off the ground. I brought my Cabela's table, which worked great. But I didn't have to carry it anywhere. We were not doing any portaging this trip, so weight was not an issue. It's a pretty heavy item. However, it was nice having it inside the bug shelter to keep some things off the ground. I avoided placing any containers with liquids on it, like cups of tea and such. I'm such a klutz, I'd knock it over.

Our after dinner treat was half of a dark chocolate Burnt Almond bar. We went together to hang the food/dishes/toiletries before it got too dark. We listened to birds calling, trying to identify a few more than we have in the past. The campfire had flickered out and it was time for bed. I was excited to be sleeping in my hammock for the first time. 

It took me probably 45+ minutes to fall asleep, but once I did, I slept very well.

Planning the trip                 Day 2                  Day 3                  2014 trip

Planning the first trip for 2016

The reservations have been made, we're heading out on our first trip for 2016. It will be to Grand Lake, a bit of a repetition of our first trip in 2014 (see here). Only we're staying on Grand Lake for two nights.

We're going to take the Friday off and hopefully get a jump on getting the best campsite. We won't be portaging at all. We may try to do the same hike up the hydro line and make it all the way in to Green Leaf Lake (I wimped out last time). We won't be going to Clemow. There are only 2 sites on that lake, they allow both to be reserved and one site is pretty crappy. We never got to see the other site.

I am expecting that we'll have bear company. We didn't see any last time, but we saw a lot of bear scat, most of it fresh. And both thunderboxes were flipped over by them looking for food. They're out of hibernation, there's not much to eat, and there are a lot of them in that particular area of the park. Forewarned is forearmed. LT's can of bear spray did a disappearing act, but he's already replaced it.

We're going in at Access point 22 at Achray. We'll paddle up the lake and hopefully snag the marked campsite. We tried to get that one 2 years ago, but were just a bit too late. It's about 10-11 km of paddling. On Saturday we're going to do the hike. First we'll walk along the abandoned rail tracks to get to the section of the trail that starts up the side of the mountain under the hydro lines. Then we'll head in to Green Leaf Lake, maybe have lunch, then turn around and come back. The trail is marked in red on the map, I've indicated which trail by drawing a blue line nearby.

The portage distance is marked at 5.5 km one way. Actually, now that I see how far that is, I think I'll agree with LT. He wanted to take the canoe to the portage point instead of walking the tracks. There's probably another 1.5 km of tracks to walk, which would make the whole distance 14 km both ways. Considering that we're going from 221 metres above sea level up to 401 at the peak of the trail, and down again to 257 at Green Leaf, then back up and over again, it's not an easy 11 km (official portage length). The track, if we use that instead of paddling, will be flat and about another 3 km total. 

NOTE: Algonquin Park never recommends that we use the abandoned rail beds as a means of portaging or hiking. The area has been identified as contaminated by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Anyone that uses them does so at their own risk.

I'll have lots of food already dehydrated to choose from, I'm not sure what our menu is going to be. LT will be doing the same steak dinner for the first night. We enjoyed it so much on our Kiosk trip, we're going to be doing that more often. We're not carrying our food anywhere and it's only for 2 nights. There may be a bit more fresh food for this trip. With cool nights food is less likely to go bad.

We're going to have to ensure we keep warm at night. We've beefed up our sleeping bags, I found some windshield reflectors at the dollar store to add a layer of insulation on top of our mattresses or foam. We're debating taking the tent to help with warmth. Although I am looking forward to trying out my new hammock that I got for Christmas. 

I can't wait!

100th Post!

This is my 100th blog post, yipee! When I started this, I didn't really envision that I'd be writing this much material from the amount of backcountry camping trips I go on. 

With any endeavour, success comes from very good planning and preparation, and we do a lot of that for our trips. So let's talk a bit about planning a backcountry canoe trip.

First you need to assess what you want to do and what you can do. 

• Do you want to portage or just hang around at the access lake? 
• How many days/nights do you want to go for?
• How far are you willing to drive to get to an access point?
• How many people are going on this trip?
• Are you going to travel in a loop, or an in-and-out route?
• Do you want to have rest days?
• Do you need to rent equipment, such as canoe(s)?

Planning can be almost as fun as going on the trip. We spend hours looking over the maps and discussing different route options. With two years of traveling under our belt, we're pretty sure about what we can handle and what it is we want to do. We often go back and forth on whether to have rest days. I prefer to move each day, LT likes to rest a day here and there. But he also likes to cover a lot of miles on the non-rest days when he does incorporate rest days into the trip.

Our Carl Wilson Trip - in and out

On the map above there are several ways into Carl Wilson. The closest option entails a lot of portaging and if you were to look at the map in a legible version, you could see the heights of the trail you'd be walking along, high in this case. Lots of climbing. The second closest option involves low maintenance portages. There's no guarantee how good these portages are going to be. We've been up to our waist in growth before on this type of portage. We chose the longer paddle, shorter portage route, shown with the black line. We could have done a loop, but chose to do the distance rather than attempt 6 portages totalling 5+ kilometers (the closest one). Our route was 3 portages totalling 1.545 kms.

Jeff's maps can be very helpful. He's estimated how much travel time it should take you between points. He explains the way he estimates time so you can adjust it to the level of expertise you think you have.

Jeff's classification system on his map

For example, in the map at left, the travel distance between the two yellow dots is 2.6 km. 1070m of that is a portage (which takes more time than paddling). Jeff estimates that it will take 50 minutes to cover that distance if you are classified as a "Veteran". If you are going to double carry the portage, add 40 minutes. Using his calculations and factoring in more time (or less), you can come up with your own idea of how long it's going to take you to get somewhere.

Check out his map, and classification system, at Jeff's Map Algonquin.

Once you've chosen a date, selected an access point, decided on a route, you need to make the camping site reservations. For Algonquin Park, you simple select the lake you are going to be on each night. They do not allow you to pre-select your site. Other parks may allow this as the sites are numbered. Their reservation policy is to leave a site or two on the lake unreserved to allow for any slippage in some people's travel plans. It can and does happen.

Here's the link to make your online reservations: Algonquin Park

There is the option of using a jumping off campsite at some access points. You need to reserve these sites and pay for them just as you would any other campsite. Having one of these sites allows you to leave work on Friday at 4:30, go home, pack the car, drive to your access point (stopping, of course, for poutine at the chip truck), arrive at the lake and just pitch your tent for the night. You can get up as early as you wish and push off on your trip. We've never made use of this option, but there are times when I'd like to!

Getting our permits at the Sand Lake Gate

If you need to rent a canoe, now would be a good time to call and reserve it. We've dealt a lot with the Algonquin Portage store on Achray Road on the way into the Sand Lake gate. Here's their website: http://www.algonquinportage.com/

They are good to deal with and if you're going to be late returning your canoe, they have a place you can leave it securely.  Also, they provide a service where they will pick up your car and move it for you. This is a nice feature if you're planning on doing a route from point A to point B. However if you are a larger group with more than one car, you can manage this yourself.

This store is also a GREAT last stop before going into the park. We have bought items there that we realized we forgot at home, oops. One trip we left both of our 1 litre Nalgene bottles with cold water in the fridge. It's also a great stop on the way out for a cold Coke, an ice cream or even a sandwich or muffin. They carry souvenirs, maps and a wide variety of camping items.

What to pack? Well there are a number of websites that will provide you with a checklist of what you will need. It is a very good idea to have a checklist, print it out and check off the items on it as you're packing your bag, then the car. I think creating that checklist is a post on its own! 

There are basic items that you need for food preparation, food storage, water filtration (we - and by "we" I mean LT - carried 8 litres of water for our first overnight trip and we used every drop), shelter (tent or hammocks), and bug spray. Then there are the luxuries: a camp shower, a sink to wash dishes, an "oven" to cook pizza and cinnamon buns in. Gathering these items will have to be done well in advance of your trip. Unless, of course, you want to stop at the portage store and buy everything on your way into the park (I would highly recommend that you don't do this).

Launching on a new adventure

You could put yourself completely in the hands of an outfitter and have them put together everything you'll need for your trip (bring your own underwear though). Algonquin Outfitters can do that for you. 

Most of the fun for these trips is managing on your own, everything from planning beforehand to each meal you savour in your outdoor paradise.

Thanks for reading along! Feel free to comment and tell me about what you think is essential when you're planning a trip.

Trip Log - Prologue: Wendigo to Cedar Lake, Canada Day 2014

Prologue       go to Day 1      go to Day 2     go to Day 3    go to Day 4

We’d had our first trip of the season on Grand Lake then we’d done an easy one night at Sec Lake – not a single portage there.  It was time to spread our wings and try a bigger trip.  Three nights!  We had pored over Jeff’s maps after LT had ordered a full set online.  With each full set map order you select a free map you can give to someone else.  LT picked the Central map which covers the area we were going to explore for the very first time.  (And this is a good thing, as you’ll soon see.)

We would put in on Wendigo Lake, portage into Allen Lake then take a hard right onto our first attempt at black (unmaintained) portages.  We would wind up North River into North River Lake and camp there.  The next day would be challenging, making our way to Cedar Lake – again all black portages, longer ones than we had ever done before.  The 3^rd day would find us going down the Petawawa River to Radiant Lake.  The final day we would do 8 portages back up to Wendigo Lake, returning to our car.  That was “THE PLAN”.

In order to help with the extensive portaging of this trip, I reserved a canoe from Trailhead in Ottawa, a really nice canoe that weighed 35 pounds.  We picked it up on Friday night, it was a thing of great beauty.  Red, so thin you could practically see through it, it fit on the roof of the car differently than the other rentals.  There was no tying the furthest ends of the canoe to under the bumpers, it was held on with straps that wrapped around its middle and went through both doors, clamped on one side.  The gentleman helping us tie the canoe on, said “and a twist for good luck”, where he had twisted the straps of the canoe before tying them.  We didn’t really pay attention to the remark, it was a spacey remark and he was behaving in a particularly spacey way. 

The canoe looked like it had hardly been used.  Maybe someone had rented it for a couple of hours of paddling at Britannia Bay or some other non-rocky, non-loggy, non-muddy shoreline.  Pristine, with no scratches.  I made a joke with the clerk when filling in the paperwork about maybe not bringing it back.  She joked back about the value.  So I asked.  It was worth about $4,000.  Oh dear!  Here I was in possession of an expensive canoe that was pretty and unused looking.  Oh dear!

I had brought along a couple of my bike cable locks and I made LT lock it to the wooden fence in his backyard overnight.  I wasn’t leaving it on my car in full view in the parking lot of his condo.  I think we gave it the first scratch laying it down on the cement patio stones in the back yard.  

The pretty red canoe

Here's a link to the food plan for the trip.

Jeff's Maps

I love Jeff's Maps so much I was his first client to purchase the mega-large version of his Algonquin Park map.  It's MASSIVE, at 6 feet by 10 feet, it covers a full wall in LT's basement.  It was his Christmas present this year.  We still need to get some sort of markers to show all the campsites we've stayed at.

Jeff's maps are printed out on a plastic paper that floats and can handle getting wet.  I've spent hours looking at various maps, mostly his Eastern and Central maps for Algonquin.  They are extremely helpful when planning your trips.  

The notations he has are very helpful in preparing you for what you may be facing.  You can tell how long the portages are, the high spot on the portage, and he'll warn you if there's something special about the portage you should know.  Forewarned is forearmed, right?

When we were planning our first foray into the Northern area of the park, we were tackling some black portage routes, also a first.  One of the notations haunted me for days beforehand.  "Swamp with No Bridge" it said.  I had nightmares.  When we finally came face-to-face with it we were past tired and not our best.  It was late in a very, very long day.  I had my trekking poles to stick in the mud to figure out where the rocks might be as we clamoured over loose, slippery logs laying on the surface - not secured.  I teetered left, I teetered right.  I can regain my balance easily when not carrying a 50+ pound pack on my back.  I did not regain my balance and I fell on my left side into the black muck.  I just started howling and LT came back to me and hauled me out.  Twice.  I fell again onto the right this time to ensure I completely dirtied whatever portion of my clothes that were still clean.  My greatest fear was ultimately conquered!

Jeff has added estimated travel times to his maps.  This helps you to figure out how long it will take you to travel the portion you are looking at.  He explains how to add or subtract time to that calculation depending on your experience/skill level.  

He has added all kinds of interesting tidbits to his map, the origin of names, the location of relics, etc.  They make for great reading!  Now if I could just read in the car.

If you are travelling with any sort of GPS tracking device and you see something that is not on his map (or he has it in the wrong place), note it and send him an email.  He is always updating his maps and is glad to have feedback.

I have downloaded his Algonquin map to my Android phone.  I love being able to pick up my phone and look at his map when having a discussion about a route or lake in the park.  So handy!

And most importantly - BRING TWO COPIES of the map you are using with you when going out on a trip.  I picked up an Ospry map holder for LT.  He straps it around the canoe yoke so that it sits on top of my pack and he can refer to it handily.  I keep my copy tucked into the top portion of my backpack.  How to pack your pack - that should be a post on its own!

Here's the link to Jeff's website:  http://www.algonquinmap.com/

Here is a screenshot from his map that shows where we travelled on our trip to Little Carcajou Lake from the campground at Achray, Grand Lake: