Out for a while

I'm heading to Fiji, Australia and New Zealand for a while. Check out my site with Ben who is coming with me for a chunk of it. benandrobdownunder.com

"TO THE LIMIT" - with the OPC Trippers

Alright, at the end of every summer of paddling the OPC trippers go on a trip with just themselves. Typically this is a trip which is used to relax and chill after a summer of hard paddling. This year however we had a different mission; to push our bodies and most importantly our minds to the breaking point and to show Algonquin park and the mighty Nipissing River who was boss.

I'm going to break it down for you day by day as deemed by those participants during the trip itself:

Day 1: Vacation
Entering the North West corner of the park we past through North Tea Lake (the scene of a storm that almost killed me last year) and Biggar Lake. While doing so we showed our paddling proficiency by passing lots of people all the while sporting a Jolly Roger out the back of my canoe.

Many pirate friends were made yet none would hand over any gorp despite repeated demands from our armada.

The victims (minus the two on the right, they left the next morning and paddled out to meet their mommy. but seriously they paddled out to go on a trip with their parents)

Day 2: Physical Annihilation

This all seems surreal now that I'm home, but this day started out beautifully as I was up for the sunrise. Check out the pictures.... it gave no hint at what the day would contain.

This was the last my fishing rod was seen intact as it conveniently broke in two on the next (first) real portage.

**Stop reading now if you don't like portaging insanely far, paddling insanely far, going crazy or crappy maps. **

After a breakfast of bacon and eggs (a tripping rarity) we (the four remaining) set off on our adventure. 10 minutes in we saw a dead beaver belly up down a tiny creek leading up to a 2.0 km portage. This would be our first of eight portages that day totaling over 8km. To add onto that was the over 25 we actually paddled. (I use the term paddled loosely as we had to drag our canoes up a couple creeks where the water was really low) What made this possible was the fact that we did all the portages in one trip, two people had barrels and canoes, one person a barrel and the wannigan (red box with pots and pans) and one person, deemed "paddles" had a barrel, the paddles, the day pack and other miscellaneous stuff. At some point along the portage you just tell your body that pain is only in your mind and remind your body that you are in charge here and it will stop when you tell it to, not the other way around.

This was one of the creeks we wandered up for a couple hours as it got smaller and smaller. If you and the people in the other canoe stood up you could just see their heads. Here is a picture of Jeremiah on the left and Kelsey on the right.

This was an intense 12 hour day and we FINALLY found a campsite at 8:30pm. A postage stamp sized thing that hadn't been used for a really long time, but I've never been so happy to find such a crappy site.

Day 3: Mental Decimation

Ever looked at a map and said "that doesn't look too far"? Ya, that's what we did. We forgot to factor in that for every curve on the map the river probably did 20. We passed through an old POW camp early on in the day which was cool as it had some log cabins still visible and fences and roads and stuff albeit all grown over.


After that the river looked the same for the next 8 hours and by the same I mean exactly the same. To compound this was the weather that day. It was overcast and the lighting never changed. It looked the same at 8am as it did at 5pm. It was like we were stuck in a time warp or on some sort of conveyor belt of water and bushes with a beaver dam here and there.

This is me looking over the shore only to see that it looked the same both ways and the end was nowhere to be seen.

I caught a Garder Snake.

Oh ya, we had lunch at a falls that was along a portage. I had to take this picture on black and white b/c otherwise you'd see the colour of the water, a scrumptious tea brown, yum.

We had a pretty good campsite that night but it was overrun with mice. We actually locked one in our barrel all night and it managed to take a taste of everything. Luckily we only had to eat oatmeal and then we were outta there. There is another story of a mouse but it's gross so I won't post it. It was at this campsite that the number of trout was crazy. Cleaning our dishes in the river obviously gets some food in the water and these brown trout were more than happy to eat it. They were everywhere. Unfortunately my rod was snapped and we had left the reel at a portage so I had to catch one in a bowl. My first trout.

Day 4 - Out of the Woods

If you survived Day 1-3 you were lucky enough to leave on day 4. We got picked up on Cedar Lake. Thanks Darryl for driving, it was quite the hike.

Kelsey and Charity paddling out.

Our family portrait.

This is back at camp with our driver. Darryl is the man, he drives for Pioneer all summer (usually a bus full of yelling kids) going all over the place. Without people like him we'd be going to Devine (the next lake over from Pioneer) alot.

Temagami River

I know I haven't updated this in a while... here it is

During 4th session I co-lead a trip down the Temagami River with Jeremiah. It was awesome! The first day we paddled over 27km in 6 hour, a stellar performance by the best camper paddlers of the summer. Oh, we scored some huge tail wind and sailed for 4km of that 27 (it only took about 20 min).

Here is Jeremiah and Nick while we were sailing. Jerry is steering while Nick holds the canoe paddle with a rope tied to the top holding the sail up.

The sail in all it's glory with Mitchell, Isaac, Jacob and Andrew (from left to right).



Here is Tim and Andrew hitting some rapids on day one.


Tim and I coming down the river.

We saw this pinned Camp Kandalore boat and tried to get it out for an hour but no dice. I really wanted a free boat but the water filling it was way too heavy.

Some nice clouds on day two. Finding a campsite after this was brutal. We actually had to camp on the same site as the girls. So humiliating. But to make up for it we woke up early and left before eating to get a jump on them. This scored us an awesome campsite early the next day. It was in the middle of the river on one of two islands with some small class one rapids going around the islands. The kids practiced whitewater on the three courses all day. So relaxing.... (see them practicing below)

Early morning on Thistle Lake.

A couple family portraits.

On the third day the girls passed us as we sat on our island campsite. After looking at the map we decided that there weren't many campsites left and that the next day we'd be fighting for the same one. So, a plan was hatched which we then saw to fruition the next morning. We rose at 5:30 and passed the girls on the opposite side of the river than they were camped while they were still sleeping. We scored the awesome campsite at the waterfall that we wanted and seeing the look on their faces when they came around the corner and saw us all set up was priceless.

The waterfall site.

Morning mist

Back to Obabika

Last week I helped to lead an LIT (Leaders In Training) trip to Temagami. It was pretty slack and was definitely the slowest moving trip I have ever been on. Halfway through the second day we passed by the place where I stay the first night when I go with kids. The LIT's though took turns leading the trip and so the pace they set was the pace we went. Since the trip straddled the long weekend campsites were at a premium.

This is a nice sunset on Lake Temagami.

There were alot of nice smallmouth bass at our first campsite. They were jumping everywhere. I got this one after it jumped over an LIT's lure. He put in all the work and I capitalized.

The next day on Lake Obabika I was way behind the pack after gathering firewood and saw this huge crowd of seagulls part way down the lake. I took a detour to go through them and noticed as I came closer that not only were there a ton of seagulls but that they infact were following a flock of at least 100 loons ( I am not exaggerating) that were diving together moving down the lake. We soon found ourselves in the middle of the chaos and there were loons everywhere. It was a really cool experience.


Just north of Obabika Lake lies the Wakimika river. It was here when I was 15 that I almost caught the biggest pike ever. So since we were only a bout 4 k south of that I got a couple of the LIT's who liked fishing together for an expedition the next morning. A 5:33 departure scored us a couple hours of paddling and for me two of the smallest pike I had ever seen. The other two guys got skunked. A bit of a let down but if I hadn't gone I would've been kicking myself all year.

Here is a sunrise picture on the Wakimika River.

Here is the group having a devotional on our island campsite.

This is my tiny tent that I used for the first time on the trip. Having it on bare rock was fine for sleeping but what I didn't factor in was the wind that would blow it away in the middle of the night.

Here are some of the kids working on making a fire which was followed by an awesome meal of pasta.

Family portrait!

Temagami sunsets

This guy fished way more than I did but didn't catch anything until we were taking out at the ramp where he hooked this nice smallmouth. I'm glad he finally got something.

Revisiting Heaven

Ok, I just got back yesterday from a 4 day trip up near sudbury and it was AWESOME. Check out some of the pics. They say it all.

Caught a nice 3 lbs smallmouth at the end of the portage after throwing in a frog and seeing it get eaten within seconds. Score!

This isn't me in the boat but I thought it looked really cool. This picture defines Muskoka.

My tent at sunrise. Too hot to put the fly on and to not have the windows open.

Sunset panoramic

Damselfly?

Roughing it as I lifeguard from my hammock.

Sunrise on McConnel Bay.

Woke up and listened to some tunes before the chaos of the day began.

I was trying to capture how blue the water was, I think this and the next few pictures show it off pretty well. It was like paddling in kool-aid.

This is me underwater, the camera was above the water but since there were no ripples it looks awesome!

This is the shadow of my canoe on the bottom of the lake and me looking overboard.

We saw a bald eagle (my second of the summer) and I managed to get a picture of it after scrambling for my camera in the canoe for a minute. Hence the grainy picture... oh well, I was just happy I have proof.

We got this entire beach to ourselves after like 8 hours of paddling. So worth it though!

The classic family portrait.

Paradise Lagoon

Silvester Lake, the contrasting colours here are phenomenal.

Birch forest on the way up to wolf lake lookout.

Wolf lake lookout early one morning before I woke the kids up. ahhhh.....

Wolf lake sunset. click on this one. the size here doesn't do it justice.