Day2: Big Crow to Laveille. Cloudy.
6:00 - Woke up. The sound of the bullfrogs had kept GF in fitful sleep for the night, but I was pretty awake and ready to move. I started the fire, and we broke out our shiny new $3 frying pan from Loblaws. Greasy Bacon and Eggs followed.. And if that wasn't the tastiest.. We fried up the whole pound of bacon, and all six of our eggs.. But for the day we had planned, we'd need the energy.
We weren't the fastest getting ready this morning.. Our stuff was still kinda randomly scattered from rooting through the bags to hunt down what I was sure that I'd packed, but wasn't entirely sure of where I put it. Our preparations involved bringing everything.. In our haste, organization was forgotten...
10:00 - We hit the water. After that first portage (being listed as friendly and all), we weren't a hundred percent sure that we should carry on the route that we had planned out. We seriously contemplated just bumming around the lake for a while, then just heading back. But after a wee bit of sould searching, and calling ourselves wussies, we decided to go for it. As GF put it in the triplog for that day "then hell"...
And away we go! We have no clue what's coming. *grin*
It's not that it's a bad paddle. The first three portages were friendly ones. One was 240m, another was 156m, and the other was 1226m.. The unpleasant part of the river in this section is that it's pretty rocky. If you look at the rocks that you miss, there are some nice canoe paint scratches left on the top of them. Going is slow, and a couple times, I had to get out and push us off or over rocks.. It would appear that without me in the canoe, it floats much higher.. Blah.. But it was still mostly paddling, just not real fast moving.
On the 1226m portage, we were passed by a group of young people, who were actually accomplishing their one-trip portage. They ran the first set of rapids, and skipped that portage. Liking the dryness of our stuff, and GF having taken her first paddle stroke the afternoon prior, we figured that we should just portage where they told us to. GF was definately fond of that idea. :)
It was after the 1.2km portage that things began to get annoying. The crow river is amazingly windey. It made the windy one of the previous day seem like a freeway. It was literally one long series of left turn-right turn. There were no straight sections. There are some small paths through the underbrush that the frustrated have taken, but we never really felt that brave.
It is possible, with enough looking ahead, for the person in the back of the canoe to power through the corners, and maintain a certain degree of speed, but with this approach, you have to expect to pull a couple emergency stops when the corner is just too tight... We did, however, overtake the group that passed us on the portage on this section, mainly due to the psycho form of steering.
You'll notice that there's no time logs here. We had no clue. We were just going. Time means nothing. It was still light. It was warm. And we weren't there yet. What else is important?
The next four portages are uncomfortable. They have no place to land your canoe, nor to put it back in the water. The portage is rimmed with vertical rocks, and it's a chore to unload and load the canoe at times. The portage surface is rocks. Not rocky. Rocks. If you take this route, be sure to wear something with ankle support. It's prime ankle twisting area, especially when you are loaded down. You will be hopping from rock to rock with a canoe on your head on these portages. The mosquitoes are thicker the farther you go along the Crow River. And there are about three paddle strokes between some of the portages. Prepare to hone your canoe loading and unloading skills... I think GF summed it up best with her take on them. Evil!!!! I need a cross between hiking boots and surf-socks before I attempt this section of river again... One interesting side note.. At one of the last portages, there was a moose just happily eating away..
Moose moon!
She was facing the other way originally.. When paddling, we got close enough that had I the urge, I probably could have climbed on her back..
Moose moon 2! This moose is an equal opportunity mooner...
We paddled out onto Crow Bay, which was windy and there were some decent sized swells.. We fought our way across it (for the remainder of the trip, unless stated otherwise, assume the wind was strong, and in our faces..) up the channel, and into Lake Laveille.
By this point, we were pretty exhausted after the portages and fighting our way across Crow Bay, and just wanted to find a camp for the night. Canoeing and map-reading isn't my strongest point. We were heading in the right direction, but the campsite was always "around this point".. We decided that the small island just around the point (the big one) would probably be a nice place to stay.
6:30 - We reach our chosen island, and unload the canoe for the last time that day. The sun is just peeking out from behind the clouds as we begin to set up camp.
View back into the campsite, looking over the firepit...
This campsite is the nicest one that we stayed on. The canoe landing was rocky, but a nice shallow rock ledge with sloping rocks leading up to the island. It had none of the wood-bench amenities that our previous campsite had, but what it lacked in man-made frills, it made up for in natural ones. It was all big rocks. It had the nicest grill that we'd seen. The grill that we brought with us was still shiny. While GF started setting up the tent, I went wood hunting. If you go behind the outhouse (yup. outhouse. not a little box) and up the hill, there are a zillion fallen trees. Brought one back and put the handy Whatta-Saw to work.
Then we broke out the wine. Those few glasses of wine that night were a gift from the heavens.. I didn't think that anything could taste better. :) It numbed our aches, and fit perfectly with the call of the loons..
Since we'd learned where we'd put everything that morning, camp was all set up, with water boiling in less than a half hour. It was decided that we'd make the Chicken Soupworks, accentuating it with half of the noodles from a Kraft Dinner, and the rest of the weiners from the night before. It was a strange taste, but satisfied our cravings for protein and carbohydrates.
Made a half-ass attempt at hanging the food back. There's no good place to hang it, but the best we found was again, right near the water. It was high enough it would make a good bear tetherball, but we're pretty sure there's no bears on an island of this size...
10:00 - A few more plastic cups of wine to the light of the lantern, and a quick wipe of the dishes, and we were off to sleep.
Y'know, the sleep of exhaustion is a great thing. We didn't move till the next morning...