Big Trout Lake Loop Fall 2010 - Part 1

Sunday Sept 26 – Day 1

It was a cool morning, overcast, just a little drizzle… As we were putting the guys bags in the car I was happy I had tossed the extra fleece in the backseat. We were on our way out of Montreal by 5:45. The drizzle continued the entire drive to the park where we arrived around noon. Passing into Algonquin PP territory was a bit of a special moment for me. Being a place I had read about, googled and planned for the last month or so, I was happy to finally be here.

We made our way down Hwy 60 from East to West, admiring the colors, finally arriving at the Portage Stores parking lot. Pulling into the lot, we were a little surprised by the chaos… Sunday, September 26th, It felt as though every “Leafer” in Ontario had made their way to the park. There were people in jeans and leather coats flipping over in canoes, tens of thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment hanging from peoples necks, lines stretching out of the gift shop and canteen, it was a sight to be seen. In all fairness to them, in my 28 years of living in rural Quebec I had never seen colors quite like that in my life.

We picked up our 3 man canoe and park permits. This was right about the time the drizzle turned to rain, rain and more rain. I made an executive decision at that point. To the restaurant! We scarfed down a couple burgers and waited out the weather. At around 2 PM, the rained stopped or well slowed up, and we were on our way.

Canoe Lake was nice and quiet given the chaos surrounding the Portage Store. We paddled along at a good pace, the weather getting a little better as we progressed. Arriving at the 295M portage we ran into a couple groups of people who were making their way back from the interior and weekend trips. We took a break across way and waited for the crowds to clear. After doubling the first portage, we collectively vowed not to do that again.

I had been out with one of these guys before, Luke. I had known Jon for a while although this was our first trip out together… We were still getting used to each other’s styles and working out the kinks and preferences of having 3 in a canoe as we made our way up to Joe Lakes East Arm.

After browsing the empty sites, we settled on one around 4:30 and setup shop. We setup our tents, no tarp tonight the skies were clear. As we were gathering some firewood, I saw a pair of grey jays nearby. Having read stories of hikers on the Appalachian Trail in the past, I decided it was time to have a little fun with my buddies. I announced out loud that I was the bird master and raised my hands. As my buddies looked at me like a total idiot, a grey jay swooped down out of the tree and just about landed on my finger. You should have seen the look on the guys faces.

We enjoyed the view…

It had gotten nice enough that some of us took a quick swim. We collected fired wood and sat down to an easy dinner by Mountain House while sitting on the rocks. We didn’t get to sleep too early that night as we were all pretty amped up for the days to come.

Monday Sept 27 – Day 2

We were up at a decent hour on Day 2, clear skies had kept things nice cool and dry overnight. Everyone had slept well. We had a quick breakfast of granola bars, raisin bread and tea, then got to breaking camp.

As we were packing up, I noticed my buddies bag was fidgeting. Upon realizing this wasn’t normal, I poked at the bag to see a chipmunk shoot out of his bag and run into the bushes a couple yards away. Aggressive little buggers aren’t they! Luckily no real damage done. Lesson learned. We cleaned up, picked up some garbage and we were out of there by around 10.

That morning we passed the Little Joe, a couple small portages and Baby Joe before we made it out into Burnt Island Lake. These portages and little streams were fun, I enjoy paddling that type of stuff. We still had a few issues with portaging…

As we were getting ready to set off into Burnt Island Lake, there was a couple with a dog just landing who had stayed at Sunbeam Lake the night before. We spoke a little bit, and they mentioned they had just seen a moose, and two wolves on the last portage into Burnt Island. We weren’t headed that way, but it was nice to talk to some people and hear their experience. On Burnt Island Lake, the weather stayed beautiful, I mean really… How can one ask for more?

We stopped and had lunch of beef jerky, sandwiches and assorted snacks at Caroline Island around 1:30. We then explored the island a little before taking off. The clouds were now starting to roll in as the day grew on.

We made quick work of the 800m portage and made our way into Little Otterslide Lake followed by Big Otterslide Lake where we made camp on the big island around 4:30.

I’m using new maps for the journal here which have since turned the camp site we had into a site which is no longer in use.

We stayed there on the second night as the weather rolled in. After setting up camp (this time we had the tarp up) we had time to explore the area a little, it was cool to say the least. Steep hills along the back of the campsite, trees seemingly all perfectly spaced apart, all similar in size an age, small nooks and crannies between the hills which in some areas resemble trenches.

We didn’t get much of a fire going that night, the weather was miserable, we were all a little tired and generally weren’t all that interested in putting in the effort to get a fire going. We cooked up dinner (Mountain House once again) and setup shop under the tarp. We sat out of the rain for the remainder of the night and playing cards.

Tuesday Sept 28 – Day 3

It rained pretty decently all night… Its true what people say… The sounds that go bump in the night disappear when it rains. It wasn’t overly hard, just that long rain that you knew wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. I hadn’t been out in the rain with this tent too much, and to be honest I was a little concerned with how the water proofing would hold up. Every time I tossed or turned I’d be checking my surroundings to see if I had a leak or anything of the sort… Never happened, I stayed dry and pretty darn happy with my tent.

Sometime early in the morning the sound of raindrops were out done by that of small pine cones falling down on my tent. Not by the dozen or so, but just individual pine cones, one after the other… I was a little too lazy to poke my head out to see what was going on – assumed it was the wind, or that was until the chipmunk or red squirrel or whatever it was ran into the side of my tent, flipped out a little between the tent and the fly and ran back out as quickly as it had appeared. As I put my heart back into my chest, and checked my sleeping back to see if I had relieved myself, I decided it was time to get up… I tell ya, that was one helluva’n alarm clock!

It hadn’t quite stopped raining… But had now turned into a nice sleety mist that isn’t quite rain, but doesn’t quite let you dry either. It was going to be a wet one.

We had to shake and ring tents out as best as possible, but it was pretty useless… They were still dripping wet when we packed them up. Sleeping bags were all dry which was a big plus, as were clothes and all essentials so we considered this ‘pretty alright’ and we’d worry about the tents and stuff when we camped tonight… Heck we might even find time around lunch or this afternoon to dry out a bit if we got lucky.

We left the camp around 11 – and by the time we got to the second or third portage down Otterslide Creek, despite our half decent rain gear, we were ringing it out we were so wet.

Otterslide Creek is beautiful, was beautiful when we were there…

As we stood under our tarp, which we McGuyver’d over the portage trail so that we could have a relatively dry standing lunch of sandwiches… We called it a lot of other things that day with the way the weather was and how painfully slow going it was!

We finally made it over the last portage into Big Trout Lake around 3:00. The wind was low, the swell was low, though we had fog, the rain had mostly disappeared. It was a decent paddle across Big Trout.

After passing the narrows we began looking for a camp out of the wind, we all wanted to warm up, have a hot meal and get some dry (relative at the time) clothes on.

Pushing on past the High Cliffs, we found a site just into White Trout at 5:00. We were all pretty wet, and all pretty chilly which dictated the next few moves after landing. Before setting up tents or any of or following any of our normal routine, Luke went straight to setting up our tarp, stashing the gear. Jon took off looking for wood to get the fire started. I got the stove out and made up some hot cider for all of us. It didn’t take long to get a decent wet pile of wet wood stacked next to the fire pit , finding birch bark from dead trees on the ground took a little longer.

According the The Weather Network, Algonquin Park had something close to 25mm of rain on the 27 – 28th of September, and by the time we were settling into camp it was a toasty 8-10 degrees… As we stood around the campfire nursing it alive I don’t know about the rest, but I was darn COLD! Just the nasty combination of being wet and cold, its chilling you down to your core. A little while later the fire was roaring, things were drying and moods were rising as we sipped hot apple cider.

We setup our still dripping from the night before tents and hung the wet gear on the line. Gathering under the tarp, tossed on some extra layers, and cooked up some Mountain House Spaghetti and Meat Sauce. It hit the spot and then some. The remainder of the night was spent the shelter of the tarp, and as close to the fire as possible.

Went to bed around 9-10, I wiped down the inside of my tent with a rag before putting my foam pad, tossed on a nice dry layer and hunkered down for the night.