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Saturday, June 16: (3 hours driving, 20 km paddling, 3.5 km portaging) We actually got up at a reasonable hour. Coffee was made, and Gillian cooked bacon for all. Our intended departure time was 8am, and we were off by 8:15. Pretty good for us! With 6 of us in a 5 seater Chevy Blazer, I got the deluxe accomodations, on top of the dry bags. Not great, but could be much worse. We gassed up in PA. We gassed up again in AirRonge. We also purchased munchies and pop (the plastic pop bottles were needed to transfer booze into!). Howard bought some frozen chicken to cook instead of our pork kabobs. We arrived at McKay Lake at 11. Brent and Howard took off immediately to do the shuttle. The rest of us packed up the canoes and looked around at the wind and the low clouds... Brent and Howard were back by noon and we started paddling. Paddling across McKay Lake was easy and interesting, with its many small bays and zigzags. I was constantly amazed/depressed by the erroneous directions that people with maps and compasses wanted to head in...
Warren: It's easy to be perky at the start of the first portage! The first portage was quick and easy. 440 meters. It took the expected 30 minutes. Our rate of travel is surprisingly consistent: 10 minutes per kilometer paddling, and 1 hour per kilometer portaging. We had barely gotten into paddling on Barlett when the rabble started feeling hungry. They were flogged until we made it to a pleasant island at the 10 km mark. Lunch was hotdogs, grilled over a fire. Once she smelled them, Gillian decided that maybe hotdogs weren't so bad after all, and dug right in. She then donated some marshmallows for grilling, and we all had our rationed chocolate bar for energy. Gillian pulled out her borrowed water filter. She didn't want to risk drinking lake water (we just drink water straight out of the lakes). First she pumped water into my canoe, then into a bottle. This was the last time she used it. LESSONS LEARNED #1: Check your pita bread when you buy it. Nothing gets moldy as fast as pita bread. This was the second time that I have had pita bread go moldy early on in the canoe trip. We picked the mold off, and wrapped the hotdogs in it anyways. Back to paddling, and the TWO km portage, only an hour away. We do this portage in short little hops, moving gear along the trail in chunks of 500 meters or so. You don't tend to see much of anyone, except when they pass by going the other direction. Gillian decided that she should try portaging the canoe. I was thrilled to have someone take the canoe any portion of the distance. However, this may not have been a good place for her to start, because the portage starts with a slow, steady climb up a hill. By the time she got to the top, she couldn't take another step and was desperate to put the canoe down. But she couldn't figure out how. So, she stood there until I came by and helped her put it down. After a few trips with packs, she tried it again, moved it 100 feet, and decided that portaging canoes was not for her!
Gillian: At the end of the 2 km portage. After the predicted 2 hours, we were done (so was Gillian!). I had selected a nice campsite just 6 kilometers ahead. At this point, it was realized that the next 6 kilometers include 3 portages. This was NOT well received, even though the portages were small, short ones. Just 535 meters, 95 meters and 290 meters. After the long portage, we already ached. Much whining and complaining. We made it by 8 pm and set up camp in the hoped for location.
Beaver dams protected portages 3 and 4. Which turned out to be not quite as nice as I had expected. My expectations were base on a previous trip, when we had had lunch at this spot. Site was great, but all the tent sites sloped in one direction or another. The hat rush was on for the best site. When you first arrive at a site, someone jumps out of your canoe, and races off to claim the best tent site by putting their hat in the desired location. While your hat is there, you run around and try and find a better one. Gillian and I got the best site this time. It was a tight fit for my tent, but it didn't slope like all the other potential tent sites did. The others settled for slightly tilted sites and and made the best of it. A fire was built, and Jason started cooking the kabobs while the tents were raised. Brent and Warren went for a quick dip, followed by Howard. Much shrieking and squeeking in the cold water. Brent fell over and took two swimming strokes.
Brent delivers a sermon to an attentive Gillian. Mike and Jason taped a large sheet of plastic over their tent door. This is about the 3rd trip that this tent has been on with a broken zipper. Not my problem, but I think I would have gotten around to fixing it a long time ago: mosquitoes and I do not get along well. Speaking of which, the cool temperatures and winds have almost eliminated the bugs. I love it.
Howard: Relaxing before dinner It was getting dark by the time we finally ate. The kabobs were still quite frozen. After 30 minutes of cooking, they were charred on the outside and still frozen on the inside. Everyone admired/drooled over Howard's chicken which looked and smelled great. And Howard had managed to find a spot on the fire that didn't blacken things. But eventually the kabobs were done inside as well as out, and we started eating. They were delicious. The mixture of 3 different flavoured rices was also great. What flavours they were, no-one remembers. At the beginning of the meal, everyone had decided that they could eat TWO kabobs. But, as the meal ended, no-one was capable of eating their second kabob. Chocolate chip cookies rounded out the meal. The extra kabobs were put into the cooler (just a soft-sided one, we would dream of lugging one of those hard plastic things around!) for the next day. Paddling summary: medium headwinds all day. Typical. Looking at the bright side, at least we didn't have to paddle into whitecaps. |
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