Day 5 (Crooked Lake)
Up at first light and broke camp. Windy again, still out of south (which would prove to be a bane all day). Paddled through Fish Stake Narrows to Irving Island and turned into the wind. Oh man! Now we were looking at 2.5 to 3 ft rollers in our face. Time to see what Penelope (and we) were made of. We had to go south so we turned the nose of the canoe into the wind and went to work. It was a tough go. I had never been in a canoe in those kinds of waves and I was a wee bit nervous. We took on a bit of water, but never really felt in danger of capsizing. And after a while I was kinda having fun in the front with the plowing through the waves. Got pretty wet, though. Luckily it was fairly warm. After a couple miles of tough paddling towards Tiger Bay we veered east and got some protection from some islands. Stopped and took a coffee break on one of the them. We had a great view of Warrior Hill so I took some pictures...
Don't know if this improves the scenery, but here's your crew.
Steve's butt and Penelope ( I know which one I think is prettier...):
We made our way to the Bottle Portage (80 rods). Hadn't done much for portaging yet on the trip, in fact this was the first day Steve broke his boots out (forget to unpack them on the 2nd day). The portage was on the Canada sign and would be a harbinger of our Canadian portages... MUDDY! This may have been the muddiest (though not the wettest) portage of the trip. I carried the canoe and the medium pack and was not a happy camper when I finished. For some reason carrying a canoe saps the life right out of me. We may have to explore other options here... Steve found an American flag at the end of the portage. We decided it would make a great canoe accessory for the 4th of July in a week or so, so we lashed it into the canoe with the spare paddle (this lashing brought to you by BDB...)
We paddled through Bottle Lake and into Iron Lake where we encountered another STIFF wind out of the south. We were on the north end of the lake and had to go east, so we paddled over to the Rebecca Falls portage. We left the canoe and hiked to the end of the falls. We saw some very large moose tracks on the portage. Couldn't see much of the falls from the end of the portage/land, just the ending where the water rushed into the lake. Stopped and had some lunch here. We fought more wind in Iron Lake and made our way to the Curtain Falls portage (140 rods). I talked to Steve and we decided to make a change on the portages - I would carry the two largest packs and he would carry the canoe the light pack. MUCH better. I felt good and the end and Steve was happy with the switch, too. This would be our system for the end of the trip. I should elaborate - when I say double pack I mean this: I would put the heavy pack on, cinch all the straps down and get it adjusted, then hoist/flip the 2nd pack on the top of the first pack, so it's sitting on the pack behind my head. If balanced well, you don't even need to hang onto the top pack, leaving your hands/arms free. Much more comfortable and safer than pack in front (speaking from experience). The only downer was at the end of long days the weight from the top pack would make my back cramp up between my shoulder blades. Still, it beats double-shotting (which we managed to avoid the entire trip).
Curtain Falls was very pretty. I stopped and did the camera thing for a while...
top of falls:
me at falls:
top of falls (color)
top of falls (IR)
more top of falls (IR)
Even more top of falls (IR):
Me again:
After Curtain Falls portage we entered Crooked Lake. I would not leave this trip with fond memories of Crooked Lake. For one, we were on the north end of Crooked. We needed to go East/SE. The (strong) wind was out of the south. There are large fingers of water on Crooked that go north/south. This is not conducive to happy travelling. We hugged the shore out of the portage and rounded the point into Sunday Bay. There was no way we could go broadside (east) in those waters so decided to zig zag until we could get shelter from the island (marked with a 9 on the Fisher map) in Sunday Bay. As I look at it now on the map while I write this, doesn't look like much but I can remember the paddling. Oy! We hugged the north side of the island and made our way east. One we cleared the island we were exposed again and made our way SE to the next big island. Now we had Saturday Bay to contend with. This time it wasn't bad and we were able to cut straight east to above the land to the north of Saturday Bay. Feeling good at this point, the wind had died down a bit and were able to make the run across the Bay. We made our way to Friday Bay, hoping to do the same. No luck there. Got out exposed again and were looking at 2.5 foot rollers out of the south again. Grrrr. We tried to fight our way into the wind with the hope of turning and surfing the waves back to the NE, but after 20 minutes of tough paddling going nowhere we had to abort and ride the waves into Canada and island hop. By now we were tired and could tell some weather was going to be approaching in the future so we started looking for a campsite. We checked out one on the east end of a duckhead shaped island between Friday and Saturday Bays. Wasn't much of a campsite so we went to the next one, on a lobster claw shaped point. It was good enough at this point so we made camp. We set up a rain tarp to sit under (weather was now approaching and got the tent set up). We're tired (22 miles travelled at this point) and decided to forgo a wood fire and use the cookstove and make up some Mountain House freeze dried meals for supper. After camp was more or less ready, Steve and I hopped in Penelope to go get some water to boil for the meals. We had gotten our water and were paddling back when the storm hit. We were in a sheltered bay, so there was no waves where we were, but we heard the wind pick up, pick up a lot, actually. Pretty soon we start hearing pops and cracks. We realized that was the sound of trees breaking and snapping off. Great! 5 days in and we have our second storm that's knocking trees down. We quickly paddled back to shore (though it was still calm in our bay) and secured the canoe. While getting camp secured I looked up and saw a tree fall down on the top side of our campsite, maybe 80 yards from us. We ended up walking out onto a rocky point at the tip of the campsite. From here we were in no danger of trees falling on us and we waited out the storm. I watched another tree fall into the water on the facing point, maybe 70 yards from us. I was oddly calm the whole time, maybe from the exhaustion of all the paddling into the wind. I knew we were not in any danger, and were quite sheltered from the wind, actually, so it was pretty surreal to see all this. There was a leaning tree that looked like it might fall on Penelope - I was more worried about her than us. It was a nasty storm: high winds, lightning strikes, heavy rain. In the end, the storm blew through withough any major damage. It felt much less hazardous and windy than the storm on the first night; maybe because we had gone through one already and/or were sheltered more, but really I don't think this storm was in the same league as the first night. As the winds settled down we sat under our rain tarp and made supper. It looked like the weather might stay socked in, but we ended up seeing some blue sky in the evening as the winds shifted out of the north. It stayed humid, though, and I feared we might get more weather yet. It was a buggy site and we were tired (toughest day of the trip so far and didn't eat enough for the work we were doing) so it was early to the tent for the night. It wouldn't be the last adventure of that campsite on Crooked Lake, but that story belongs to tomorrow's recap...
Final tally:
22 miles
2 portages (80, 140)
Wildlife:
14 loons
7 eagles
Weather:
80s, sunny. Stormy in evening then cloudy and humid.
Strong winds out of south, then calm in evening
Ely: high 84, low 64. strongest wind gust (40 mph)
Don't know if this improves the scenery, but here's your crew.
Steve's butt and Penelope ( I know which one I think is prettier...):
We made our way to the Bottle Portage (80 rods). Hadn't done much for portaging yet on the trip, in fact this was the first day Steve broke his boots out (forget to unpack them on the 2nd day). The portage was on the Canada sign and would be a harbinger of our Canadian portages... MUDDY! This may have been the muddiest (though not the wettest) portage of the trip. I carried the canoe and the medium pack and was not a happy camper when I finished. For some reason carrying a canoe saps the life right out of me. We may have to explore other options here... Steve found an American flag at the end of the portage. We decided it would make a great canoe accessory for the 4th of July in a week or so, so we lashed it into the canoe with the spare paddle (this lashing brought to you by BDB...)
We paddled through Bottle Lake and into Iron Lake where we encountered another STIFF wind out of the south. We were on the north end of the lake and had to go east, so we paddled over to the Rebecca Falls portage. We left the canoe and hiked to the end of the falls. We saw some very large moose tracks on the portage. Couldn't see much of the falls from the end of the portage/land, just the ending where the water rushed into the lake. Stopped and had some lunch here. We fought more wind in Iron Lake and made our way to the Curtain Falls portage (140 rods). I talked to Steve and we decided to make a change on the portages - I would carry the two largest packs and he would carry the canoe the light pack. MUCH better. I felt good and the end and Steve was happy with the switch, too. This would be our system for the end of the trip. I should elaborate - when I say double pack I mean this: I would put the heavy pack on, cinch all the straps down and get it adjusted, then hoist/flip the 2nd pack on the top of the first pack, so it's sitting on the pack behind my head. If balanced well, you don't even need to hang onto the top pack, leaving your hands/arms free. Much more comfortable and safer than pack in front (speaking from experience). The only downer was at the end of long days the weight from the top pack would make my back cramp up between my shoulder blades. Still, it beats double-shotting (which we managed to avoid the entire trip).
Curtain Falls was very pretty. I stopped and did the camera thing for a while...
top of falls:
me at falls:
top of falls (color)
top of falls (IR)
more top of falls (IR)
Even more top of falls (IR):
Me again:
After Curtain Falls portage we entered Crooked Lake. I would not leave this trip with fond memories of Crooked Lake. For one, we were on the north end of Crooked. We needed to go East/SE. The (strong) wind was out of the south. There are large fingers of water on Crooked that go north/south. This is not conducive to happy travelling. We hugged the shore out of the portage and rounded the point into Sunday Bay. There was no way we could go broadside (east) in those waters so decided to zig zag until we could get shelter from the island (marked with a 9 on the Fisher map) in Sunday Bay. As I look at it now on the map while I write this, doesn't look like much but I can remember the paddling. Oy! We hugged the north side of the island and made our way east. One we cleared the island we were exposed again and made our way SE to the next big island. Now we had Saturday Bay to contend with. This time it wasn't bad and we were able to cut straight east to above the land to the north of Saturday Bay. Feeling good at this point, the wind had died down a bit and were able to make the run across the Bay. We made our way to Friday Bay, hoping to do the same. No luck there. Got out exposed again and were looking at 2.5 foot rollers out of the south again. Grrrr. We tried to fight our way into the wind with the hope of turning and surfing the waves back to the NE, but after 20 minutes of tough paddling going nowhere we had to abort and ride the waves into Canada and island hop. By now we were tired and could tell some weather was going to be approaching in the future so we started looking for a campsite. We checked out one on the east end of a duckhead shaped island between Friday and Saturday Bays. Wasn't much of a campsite so we went to the next one, on a lobster claw shaped point. It was good enough at this point so we made camp. We set up a rain tarp to sit under (weather was now approaching and got the tent set up). We're tired (22 miles travelled at this point) and decided to forgo a wood fire and use the cookstove and make up some Mountain House freeze dried meals for supper. After camp was more or less ready, Steve and I hopped in Penelope to go get some water to boil for the meals. We had gotten our water and were paddling back when the storm hit. We were in a sheltered bay, so there was no waves where we were, but we heard the wind pick up, pick up a lot, actually. Pretty soon we start hearing pops and cracks. We realized that was the sound of trees breaking and snapping off. Great! 5 days in and we have our second storm that's knocking trees down. We quickly paddled back to shore (though it was still calm in our bay) and secured the canoe. While getting camp secured I looked up and saw a tree fall down on the top side of our campsite, maybe 80 yards from us. We ended up walking out onto a rocky point at the tip of the campsite. From here we were in no danger of trees falling on us and we waited out the storm. I watched another tree fall into the water on the facing point, maybe 70 yards from us. I was oddly calm the whole time, maybe from the exhaustion of all the paddling into the wind. I knew we were not in any danger, and were quite sheltered from the wind, actually, so it was pretty surreal to see all this. There was a leaning tree that looked like it might fall on Penelope - I was more worried about her than us. It was a nasty storm: high winds, lightning strikes, heavy rain. In the end, the storm blew through withough any major damage. It felt much less hazardous and windy than the storm on the first night; maybe because we had gone through one already and/or were sheltered more, but really I don't think this storm was in the same league as the first night. As the winds settled down we sat under our rain tarp and made supper. It looked like the weather might stay socked in, but we ended up seeing some blue sky in the evening as the winds shifted out of the north. It stayed humid, though, and I feared we might get more weather yet. It was a buggy site and we were tired (toughest day of the trip so far and didn't eat enough for the work we were doing) so it was early to the tent for the night. It wouldn't be the last adventure of that campsite on Crooked Lake, but that story belongs to tomorrow's recap...
Final tally:
22 miles
2 portages (80, 140)
Wildlife:
14 loons
7 eagles
Weather:
80s, sunny. Stormy in evening then cloudy and humid.
Strong winds out of south, then calm in evening
Ely: high 84, low 64. strongest wind gust (40 mph)
posted by the.mrrr at 10:16 AM
2 Comments:
Matt, thanks for the daily updates. This is great! The only thing missing is the sounds and smells (and you don't need to send me any of your smelly clothes!) This is the next best thing to being there myself. I hope to make this trip for my 50th birthday.
I look forward to the next update.
Baptiste
Glad you're liking it, Baptiste. I think I can in shape for this trip again!
Gaspard (which happens to be the French work for Jasper)
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