Day4: Lake Laveille to Opeongo Partially Cloudy. Strong West wind.
7:00 - Woke up and started the fire for coffee. The tent was packed up, and the gear was loaded and we were on the water by 8am.
8:00 - Fight our way across the waves in the channel, but then settle into pretty smooth paddling. The waves were white-caps on Hardy bay, but we were only going to be exposed to it for a few minutes. We sprinted up the lee of the right side of the entrance into the waves, and cut a sharp corner and surfed them into the 90m portage.
This portage has docks, and a nice friendly surface. We scoff at the wussy portage! hah! It does portage around some beautiful rapids though, and we took a break to take a few pictures, and just enjoy it. It had a dock! We got out of the canoe without even getting our feet wet! This is luxury!
Wussy portage. 90m, and has a dock on both sides. Luxury!
This little portage was one of the prettier spots that we'd seen on our travels. The rapids that it bypassed were something to see, by themselves..
Pretty Rapids...
Canoehead... GF decided we needed at least one pic of me
as the defender of right,
protector of the innocent, and all around good guy... *horns sound*.. It's CANOEHEAD!!!
Lollygagging down the portage. Note the friendliness of it..
The
portages that suck have no pictures. Mainly because you're in
no mood for picture taking.... This is still the friendly portage..
We paddled through Dixon pretty quickly and hit the infamous Bonfield-Dixon Portage. According to the map, it's 5305m long. It has the dubious distinction of being the longest portage in algonquin park. At the portage store, I'm told that they sell T-shirts emblazoned with "I survived the Bonfield-Dixon Portage!".. Even with all these warnings we scoff at it. All the literature that I'd read, said that this portage should take a couple hours. With our double-carry technique we were planning on three hours or so to get across it.
11:30 - We unpack at the portage. We stretch ourselves and avail ourselves of some water, and a potty break. We refill the canteens from our boiled water jug, and water some of the local flora with the rest. We kinda wonder at the jar of instant coffee and scarf lying beside the campfire ring at the start of the portage. We're pretty sure that nobody's coming back for them...
After tightening down the packs, and changing into running shoes, we're off. Looking down the trail, it looks pretty flat and wide, pretty much exatly as we'd heard it described in other trip logs.
12:00-5:00 - We were wrong. There is a reason that they sell a T-shirt saying you've survived this portage. It was hell. All in all, by the time we were done, we'd covered over 16Km in portage, with over ten kilometers of that loaded with gear. It's not long before we're cursing the guy who referred to it as wide and level. Comments bounce back and forth in regards to what kinda substance the guy must have been on..
It was hot and humid. We were sweating, and occasional rumbles of thunder could be heard. In the first part, the long-flat section, we actually observed a grey owl just looking at us. Lacking a camera with zoom, we didn't even try to capture his mug shot. If there had been someone selling cold beer for $20 a can, I would have been in line, and exceptionally poor.. (Note to self.. Pack in a couple cases of beer into middle of evil portage... Retire..)
Somewhere past halfway (there are no markers.. It just goes, and goes, and goes....), it decided to thunder again, and the sky opened up and dumped it's contents on us. Fortunately, we had the gear pack with us. We fumbled for our ponchos, shielding the pack's contents with my body. But it was too late. We were soaked. And the portage was flooded. The worn-in track became a collection of small ponds, each obscuring a different walking hazard.
It never seemed to stop. Our pushes (distance between walk-back breaks) got longer and longer, as we became convinced, as the topography changed, that the end was "just around the corner". But it never was. After the thunderstorm, the mosquitoes were out in full force. I was lucky enough to come across the only black-fly seen on the trip, and accumulated a nice hand-owee for my troubles. But the mosquitoes were intense. The rain had washed away our bug spray, and it was only by the foresight to stash the repellent in a couple different packs, we would have been eaten alive. And I guess, in a relative sense, GF was..
We plodded on, moving much more slowly down the sodden trail, ever wary of the ankle-twisting rocks that undoubtably lived in those little lakes, under the consealing flotsam.
After a final half-hour push, we were determined not to stop until we saw the lake. I can vouch for the fact that there is, indeed, an end to this portage. But while in the middle, it doesn't seem that way. We found it.
Unfortunately, the canoe and the last packs were still back that half-hour.
On our return, the mosquitoes had gathered re-inforcements, and were waiting for us. We dove into the canoe without even taking a break, and struck out at top speed over the water. The mosquitoes were hiding in the boat, and were swarming around the head of poor GF.. They started to abort, as we got farther from shore, but a tenacious few still hung on. With this motivation, and after the long portage, we blew across the 250m portages like nothing, and the little lakes were our rest time.
Breaking through the last portage, all weary, and battle-scarred, we emerged into.... Civilization?
Families with coolers, and food tents, and portable stoves were milling about. With power-boats, and children, and beach toys.. We almost couldn't believe it. It was such a contrast to the complete absence of people that we'd seen in the past days. We did manage to secure a weather report, and what we heard didn't sound that encouraging.
6:00pm - We learn that since it's a long weekend, most of the campsites are taken. We look out over the water, and see that it's really calm. We decide to see if we can make it into the main arm of Opeongo, so the next day we have only a short paddle back to base.
Wrong again. We get out into the middle of the east arm, and the wind picks up. The waves begin to grow, rapidly approaching the dangerous level. My mother's voice echoes through my head "stay out of the middle of those big lakes.. People drown up there every year".. The growing swells quickly turn to whitecaps. Turning around is not an option. We fight with all that we have, keeping the canoe at a thirty degree angle to the waves. We make no forward headway, but are slowly moving sideways to the waves. Our little canoe is tossed around like a toy. GF gets scared, but realizes, and fights through it. We fight with all that we have left, until our arms can barely move, and then we push some more. Our sideways momentum carries us into the lee of a small island where we can relax and regroup, out of the main force of the now-angry lake.
Knowing that we weren't going any farther that day, we grabbed probably the only open campsite on the exposed side of another island in the middle. After a short sprint across the white caps (more with the wind this time), we land at the island, among the crashing surf. The landing itself is semi-sheltered from the wrath of the waves coming in from the lake, but it was still anything but calm. We dove out of the canoe, and after tossing the packs onto the above shore, I dragged the canoe out of the water, and up onto the main level of the island.
The fire didn't want to start. It took a healthy helping
of zippo fluid to spark it into it's
flamey goodness. The wind actually acted as a bellows, giving us our fastest
and
hottest fire yet..
Fighting the wind, we erect camp, and change from our wet chothes, and hang everything we can up to dry. A quick scout for firewood procured us a small dead tree (past the giant raspberry patch). Fire building was tricky, but once going, the wind provided a natural bellows, and it burned with a fury, and our water boiled quickly.
As you can see from the deformation of the tent, and the
jacketed huddling of GF,
this campsite was more than a wee bit unsheltered from the wind..
If you notice the rock wall at the back, that's where we spent most of our
time when on this site. It happened to be the only place out of the wind near
the tent..
Supper was the Kraft-Dinner that we'd brought with us, and Salsbury steak from our emergency rations. Both were cooked in the same pot, at the same time, and I don't think I can recall a meal ever tasting better. We ate hunkered up against a rock face, sheltering ourselves from the incessant wind. The one side effect is the sunset was beautiful...
The last picture on the roll. The ones after this were on the lost camera. Ah well... Such is life..
That night's cup(s) of wine had never been so welcome.