Algonquin Trip 3 - May 20-23 1999

What follows are some random notes that I've made about the trip (and you can infer the route from the lakes using the map ). It's not a complete list of my memories and is really intended to remind us of the trip.

We took 25 pictures during the trip and they are all available with a little commentary here. The section of the park that we travelled through is here. I plan to annotate the map with our route and sites.

The three things that stick out the most from this trip are the flies, the fact that we didn't see a single moose and the really nice rapids on Amable du Fond river. Actually, I guess four things stick out. Women in the park at this time of year seem more likely to be carrying a canoe.

For this trip, we actually brought 3 packs. The food pack was about normal weight (we had far too much left over food) and the 2 clothing packs were relatively light. We had too much "warm stuff" for 1 pack but not enough to fill 2. In restrospect, I think we could have done the trip with just 2 packs, spreading the food around during the day and using one of the packs to tree the food at night. Oh well, still learning how to travel light.

Food

Breakfasts were mostly bagel and PB or cheese whiz. Jodi had a bulgar wheat (?) and fruit thing one morning. Lunches were pita and cheese with gorp (almost entirely the "salty" gorp: bbq peanuts, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, tiny bit of granola and unsalted peanuts; also had a chocolate gorp: chocolate chips and granola which is really good when melted but otherwise not very exciting). Ate 2 chocolate bars and a bunch of dried banana chips.

Had the filling from a Chocolate Silk Pie (cheese cake) with a shot of Bailey's for desert one night. Very tasty.

Drank tea most nights and I had hot chocolate on the first night (I had to drown my sorrows).

I would guess less than 10 pounds worth of food was eaten. About 20-25 pounds was lugged around the park. Damn this paranoia.

Enter Kiosk
Night 1 Maple Lake
Dinner Cheesy Couscous
Paddling 10 km Portaging 6 @ 2.6 km

• Or is that Kioskawekawake lake.
• Long drive from Barrie, we didn't hit the water until about 1:00 pm.
• Oh, those wimpy guys from Sweden who couldn't take a few black flies.
• The black flies were unbelievable. We were swarmed before we started the trip and they didn't let up. You couldn't actually look up while paddling without being pelted by black flies.
• Dinner was fun, we had to pick out black flies before we could take a bite.
• In the tent right after dinner, well before dark.
• Thank god for the black fly circus to keep us occupied.
• Tonight's plan: one more night and we are running away from the damn flies!
• Did I mention the flies enough? Probably not.

Night 2 Three Mile Lake
Dinner Pesto Potatoes
Paddling 8 km Portaging 4 @ 2 km

• Pretty uneventful day. Quit relatively early because we hit Three Mile lake and were too tired to handle the 2.5 km of portaging that were needed to get us to another good lake.
• Met the world's most relaxed conservation dude and his son/nephew.
• Actually saw other people camping on our lake; they appeared to be fisherman and provided poor entertainment.
• Still suffering from the black fly blahs, but a good smokey fire provided a little relief.

Night 3 North Tea Lake
Dinner Black Bean Soup
Paddling 15 km Portaging 7 @ 3.35 km Actual Portaging 9 @ 4.8 km

• Hellolong day thanks to a little detour. Mental note: check the map before doing an unmaintained 750m portage into the wrong lake.
• And, Jodi gets to do all the fun portages. But, what a smooth launch.
• Starting to pick up our stride again. Really need to remember that the first trip of the year is hard.
• Cayak dude which just proves that you really want to do this sort of thing in a canoe (how the hell can you stand those portages??).
• Weird man with his dog that was paddling around and just stopped while we were around.
• World's most obnoxious people paddled past us. Can't forget their poor friends that were, apparently, trying to run away and hide. I can't blame them.
• Magic tree on Biggar/North Tea.
• "There's a RIDE stop just around the corner"
• Great site! A giant rock cliff on the front, an unused fire pit and 3 nice areas for tents.
• First bear tree branch didn't work, and we were quickly running out of light when I made the bear tree throw that deserves to go down in history.

Last Day Paddling 25 km Portaging 4 @ 2 km (+ 1 @ 485 - low water option that can be avoided)

• This was definitely the day of cool rapids.
• Cool butterflies
• Freaks exist that use our portages for nature trails. "How are you?" / "Great [ie, I'm wearing a sweat shirt, carrying a 73 lbs canoe and dieing, I hope you rot in hell]"
• Completely immune to the bugs by now. Lunch involved sitting near icky water (in the mud) and this was no longer a problem...
• Remains of a small forest fire. Very interesting and very confusing.
• Weird posts and rock piles in the arm of Kiosk. Logging? Resort on Manitou? Other?
• Kioskawakewika (Kiosk) lake was really rough. Had waves that were over a foot for awhile and it took us over 1 1/2 hours to paddle out.