Ontario Hang - Fall 2010 - Algonquin Park - Trip Report

Ontario Hang - Fall 2010 - Algonquin Park - Trip Report

Algonquin Hang Trip Report



A brief trip report of a very pleasant weekend "Canoe Hang" on Lake Louisa in Algonquin Park, Ontario on September 24-26, 2010.

For a few days before the trip the weather forecast seemed to get progrssively worse, calling for overcast skys with a good chance of light rain for the entire weekend. There were also threats of high winds gusting to 70km, not much of a deal for hikers, but a real issue for paddles on the water.

The basic plan for the weekend was for two teams, Shawnh and Michael coming in from Ottawa, Vgnbkr and myself coming in from Toronto, to meet up at the Canoe Lake Park office somewhere around 3:30 to 4 pm on Friday the 24th. From there we'd make the short drive to our put-in, and leave all of our gear plus two guys there while the other two drove off to park one of the cars at the take-out point, some 25 km distant at Rock Lake. That would leave us with a 3-day weekend to do 40 km of which 7km would be overland portages between the lakes. A pretty normal weekend trip by all accounts. I had been interested in paddling to Louisa for quite a while and was eager to get on the water. Another Hammock Forums member had mentioned that he was planning to be up in the Park a day early with his son to do some fishing and might meet up with us either on Head Lake or on Louisa. That was the plan...

Funny how things turn out. As luck would have it, most of the challenges on the trip involved simply getting out of Toronto. Renowned for it's traffic at the best of times, the highways that Friday were unusually bad. Suffice to say, between two different incidents, we were set back two and a half hours due to traffic. In the second case, the highway ground to a halt, and it was only by listening to the local traffic reports, that Vgnbkr and I learned that just ahead, a dumptruck had apparently blown a tire, causing it to careen off the road, and roll down a steep embankment where it came to rest hanging precariously at the top of large culvert through which ran a small river. Behind us, traffic was being diverted onto alternate routes, but for a hour and a half we were stuck on that little stretch of highway, not more than a couple of hundred yards from the accident. People getting out of their cars to walk around and watch the helicopters circling the scene. An the air ambulance out of Toronto General Hospital arrived at the scene, and after a little while departed, and that's usually a bad sign. I only learned at home when I got back that the driver miraculously walked away without injury. All things considered, a minor delay of 90 minutes is a small price to pay when compared to safety of the driver. After calling Shawnh and giving him situation report, the police eventually opened a single lane and we were able to resume our race north to the Park. Now we were a full two and a half hours late and instead of arriving at 3:30 as originally planned, it was looking like we'd be rolling in around 5 - 5:30 pm. Along the way we encountered some high winds and dark clouds out of the west, and things were not looking good, but as we got further north, the sky cleared up a bit and the wind died down. Maybe that traffic gave us a little good karma we could cash in for nice weather.



This time of year, the early fall in southern Ontario, it starts getting dark around 7:30pm. Working this through, we'd have a hour and a half of tripping, another hour to drop the second car at the take-out and get back, and finally another half hour to register. That's a good three hours and that meant that we were looking at getting to our campsite an hour after dark, at best! Don't get me wrong, a relaxing paddle on a calm night under a full moon is a pleasure, but portaging a heavy pack and a canoe along a slippery trail in the dark; well that's downright nasty. With the sun hovering above the trees, plan "A" was officially throw out the window.

We had already talked about various routes we could have taken that weekend, so, during another quick call, it was agreed that there was no point in Shawnh and Michael waiting around anymore for us, They could simply register with the Park office, leave a message telling us we would find them and then head off across Cache Lake on their own. Vgnbkr and I would catch up with them when we could.

After a short stop in Huntsville, Vgnbkr and I pulled up to the Park office and quickly registered. Inquiring about our friends, the friendly Park officer pointed to where Shawnh and Michael were planning to camp. After saying thanks, we jumped back in the car and sped down the road to Cache Lake. With the sun no more than a handspan above the horizon, or a little over an hour, we quickly got the canoe in the water and loaded the gear. Vgnbkr settled into the bow seat, and with a push against the edge of the wooden dock we were off.

Now my canoe, a 16' kevlar Prospector, is a temperamental little craft. Quite different from the sleek, stable and fast modern lake tripping canoes, the more traditional design of the Prospectors is equally at home on lake, river or winding stream. But the price of being fast turning and responsive is that it feels, at least at first, to be "tippy". Primary vs. secondary stability and all that. Being an experienced paddler, it didn't take Vgnbkr long before he got used to the canoe and was paddling along like a seasoned vet. One more thing; my canoe has a nice shiny red gelcoat finish. Years ago, when I asked my 5-year old daughter what she wanted to call my then new canoe, she immediately shouted out "Lipstick". The name stuck. Several years and many scratches later, she's still my Lipstick.

Cache Lake is a moderately large lake, as far as Algonquin goes. It boasts a large number of large forested islands separated by a network of narrow channels. On the main Lake, a light breeze was stirring up some small waves. Having been on the lake before, it wasn't until I saw the long narrow passage between Cache Lake and neighbouring Tanamakoon, did I realize we were a little off course. We didn't have time to waste searching for the portage. Turning to head southeast, we confirmed our route with some directions from a passing motorboat and got back underway.

"A little late to be doing that portage" said the elderly skipper with a grin. Yep, he was probably right.

The sun was just starting to set below the pine covered hills around us, and we had about 1.6 km (1 mile) portage to do. We still had about half an hour of light; we figured we'd be fine. I shouldered my pack (a gram-weenie's nightmare), flipped up the canoe. Vgnbkr's pack was annoyingly light, sensible fellow that he is. The carry wasn't too bad, but first portages are always a little chaotic. We finally emerged from the forest to the shore of Head Lake, and almost immediately I heard "Richard?" coming from the campsite across a little bay where some headlamps were flickering. "Yup" I shouted back, at about the same time that Vgnbkr noticed that my spare group tarp that he had wedged under the flap of his pack was missing. With the light fading, we turned back to retrace our steps and, after a long walk, eventually found it. By that time, it was getting pretty dark under the forest canopy and when we arrived back at the canoe, reloaded and pushed off, it was dark. A blinking light and a pair of headlamps moving on the far shore made it easy to set a course, and pulling up to the rocky shore, Shawnh and Michael came down to greet us. It was one of those classic "Dr. Livingstone I presume" moments.

After greeting Shawnh and being introduced to his paddling partner Michael, from Ottawa. Vgnbkr and I set about getting our hammocks rigged. Picking out those "perfect" trees can be tough at the best of times, but this was the first time I have had to set up my hammock after dark, and finding the right trees took a while. After wandering around with a headlamp and checking for widowmakers, we settled on a spot, set up our Hennessies and started seriously thinking about dinner.


From the Top: Vgnbkr, Michael, Shawnh

As Vgnbkr fired up his Trangia to boil up some water for some delicious smelling vegetarian Katmandou stew, I got out my DIY BushBuddy clone and started boiling up water for the lemon-herb couscous I would be having with a small steak. It was my stove's first "in-camp" test, and it worked like a charm. Not bad for some recycled cans, a dremel tool and a few hours of work. I have to say, Shawnh's original Bushbuddy sure did look good. Having gone through the pains of building one myself, I admired the workmanship that went into that Bushbuddy. I'm sure the stainless steel body will be going strong long after mine has rusted out.

The four of us stayed up a while longer chatting and I enjoyed a sip or two of the Laphroig single-malt I had brought in. We'd planned to have a leisurely start on our 3 - 4 hour paddle to Louisa, and although there was no rush getting to bed, we didn’t stay up too late.

Overnight and into first light I could hear a light rain pattering on my DIY Sil-BlackCat, but surrounded by a thick layer of down, I was warm, dry and not inclined to get up. A few yards away, Vgnbkr spent the first night trying out his new Insultech underquilt under his Hennessy and a convertible poncho for a fly. Shawnh’s rig was the same Hennessy/down underquilt/MacCat tarp he used a month earlier in Bon Echo and Michael was set up in his stock Hennessy and underpads. Needless to say, all of us seemed to come through the night high and dry.


Vgnbkr's Rig



Shawnh's Rig


Michael's Rig




My (Chard's) Rig

After a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, I was ready for day two. We'd have a short paddle through Head, Harness, Pardee, Lawrence and Rod & Gun lakes on our way to Louisa. Between the lakes we'd have to face five portages, (1065m, 150m, 10m, 410m and a 500m respectively). The forecast called for a 60% chance of rain, but it only drizzled occasionally. More often we'd just get a light mist. On the way out of our campsite, Vgnbkr and I had the fortune to see a lovely waterfall tumbling into Head lake.



The paddling was nice. Little wind, cool overcast weather and the fall colours that were at their best. Lawrence was a very nice little lake, with it's east end surrounded by tall hills. The portages weren't too bad either, except for the 410 from Lawrence to Rod & Gun lake, the one known as the "Devil's Staircase". There was a 30 metre difference in the elevation of the lakes, but I'd swear that we climbed over 100. The first slope just didn't seem to end, so I just shifted to low gear and slowly trudged up the trail. Along the way I made the mistake of raising the Lipstick's bow in an attempt to see where I was going, but I only saw the trail rise up along a switchback and then disappear around the bend. On redeeming virtue of all of the portages was that their trails were all covered in the reds and yellows of fallen leaves. It was beautiful, or at least I thought it was, in between wiping sweat out of my eyes..



By the time we got to Louisa, we were thinking again about meeting up with a father and son team of Hammockers from Windsor. In the forums, we had talked about camping Saturday on the islands at the western end of Louisa. Since Shawnh and Michael were out on the water first and I was planning on slowing down to do some fishing, they agreed to go on ahead and check out the island campsites looking for the third canoe and then settle on one for the night. Off they went. Meanwhile I rigged up a spinning rod and started to slow troll a 4" black/gold floating Rapala far behind the canoe. Louisa is reputed to have a fairly healthy lake trout population, and it would've been nice to add a little grilled Salvelinus namaycush to the evening's menu.



Vgnbkr and I slowly paddled out of the narrow northwestern bay of Louisa into the main lake. Ahead were what looked like three other canoes, moving slowly and obviously fishing. With no bites and now a little deeper water, I switched to a gold/orange Cleo, cast it behind, and began paddling over to the other canoes. Along the way Shawnh came down to the shore of the Northwestern most island and got our attention. Obviously they had found a site for the night.

As we approached the first of the three canoes, a lone, solo paddler. I asked if he was from Windsor. "Nope, Buffalo, New York" he said. As we passed by we talked briefly. Apparently he came up to the park each year in the spring and the fall to try hi s luck with the trout.

We passed by two other canoes and unfortunately neither held our missing hammockers. Paddling a little further, I got a nice strike, but couldn't set the hook in time. We circled back and slowly made our way back to camp.



We pulled up on a narrow strip of sand and unloaded Lipstick, and hauled our gear up into the main clearing of the island. Behind the firepit and log benches lay a large fallen tree, it barkless and branchless wood worn smooth over the years. It sported a plywood table, and it wasn't long before it was full of our kitchen gear. Back behind the clearing was a small grove of young pines, amongst which many a hammocking spot could be found.



Once again, it wasn't too long before we each had our rigs set up. We'd been getting intermittent mist and drizzle all day so we rigged the spare tarp (3m x 4m or 9' x 12') over the log and table. We moved the log benches under the tarp and relaxed. After a little milling about, some hot drinks and such, the other guys started talking about dinner, but with the rain and wind gone for a moment, I thought it would be a good chance to talk Lipstick out for a solo paddle and try one last time to rustle up some trout for dinner.

I had packed in a Humminbird Pirannah fish finder, and although it is a bit heavy, I really do like knowing what depth I'm trolling through. The number of times I've paddle across a bay convinced that I must be in 100 feet of water, only to find out that it's less than 10 is amazing. A the opposite is also true. There are some sites in the Park where the water drops off to over 60' of water within yards of the shore.

Anyway, while I was out, I got a chance to talk a little more with "Buffalo" and although I marked a large number of fish right on the bottom in over 70' of water, nothing was biting my lure. With a sigh, I paddled slowly back to camp.

This evening's dinner was homemade and dehydrated spaghetti and meat sauce on a bed of egg noodles, all cooked up on my woodstove and then smothered in parmesan cheese. My older daughter had made an awesome sauce a few days earlier for dinner, and it tasted twice as good now as did then. Something about the great outdoors that makes flavour so much more important. As I washed down dinner with some instant hot mulled apple cider and a little more Laphroig, Vgnbkr and Michael set about to getting a nice fire going. The temperature had begun to fall, but before long we had a cozy little fire keeping us warm. Between staring at the fire and taking short breaks to stroll out to the shore to look at the scenery, it was a good night. I even ventured to take a short moonlight swim. Very refreshing! I'd swear that once I got out, dried off and put back on my clothes and a sweater, I was toasty warm. And after a long day of paddling and portaging, it was nice to get in the water and clean off before bed.

All day long we had toyed with the idea of paddling over to Rock lake the next morning and somehow hitching a ride over to Cache Lake to get our cars, but in the end common sense won out. We'd get an early start and retrace our route back to the cars at Cache lake. We knew what was ahead of us and it wouldn't be too bad. After a couple of hours and the last of the wood had been used up, we doused the fire and went to bed.



We woke the next morning and the weather was overcast with intermittent drizzle. We quickly broke camp and had breakfast and managed to get on the water a little before ten. Fortune was with us because it wasn't long before the sky began to clear a bit and the rain stopped. With no wind and only the occasional patch of drizzle, the paddle back to the cars went remarkably well. We stopped for lunch by a lovely little creek at the end of the second to last portage on the lake we had camped on the two nights before, Head. We hadn't seen a soul since leaving Louisa, but as we approached our last portage, some campers who had been staying at the campsite by the waterfall were also on the water on their way out. If this end of the portage was crowded with four canoes, that was nothing with the dozen or so canoes that were tied to the landing at the other end of the trail. Shawnh and Michael were obliged to immediately load and get out on the water to make way for Vgnbkr and myself to put in Lipstick. Only when we were drifting offshore did we get chance to catch our breath.

After consulting the map, we turned and started our paddle for home. Passing through the channels of Cache Lake we finally glided past the last point and saw ahead of us the familiar shapes of cars and the docks. We had made it!

EGL Fall 2014 Canoe Hang:
Autumn in Algonqin: The Year's Last, Loveliest Smile




Paddle's gentle touch,
The year's last, loveliest smile,
Scarlet tears swirl by.


Without a doubt, the EGL Fall 2014 Hang in Algonquin goes down in the books as the benchmark for a great canoe trip.

There was a sense that something was going to be different this trip. Late Thursday afternoon I was on my way to do a little grocery shopping for the trip when my cell-phone chimed. Looking at the name, I just shook my head in amazement. Somehow Ggreaves had managed to get a signal and inform me that the Thursday group had arrived, last fall's island site was occupied and that they had taken the site directly beside the Night Lake Portage on the eastern shore of Pen. Years ago, canoe tripping meant hanging up the sign "gone fishing" and leaving the world behind; family, friends and work were all put on hold until you walked back through the door. That evening, as I was packing my gear, my Fallkniven S1 slipped out of its sheath and landed hilt-side down, thankfully, on the top of my foot. An hour in Emergency and two stitches later I was out of the hospital finishing my packing. Scattered patches of fog hung in the still, low valleys along Highway 11 that runs from Toronto past Algonquin towards North Bay. At one point, just south of Huntsville, the fog was so thick it was barely possible to see beyond the shoulder of the highway. But as quickly as it came we passed out of it like through a curtain and ahead were bright blue skies and the colours of autumn. All things considered, the trip hadn't even started yet and already it had proven interesting.


Jiblets on the drive up

Smoke Lake

After the drive east on Highway 60 and another short stretch on the gravel Rock Lake Road, Gilbert and I pulled in at the Ranger Station. There waiting for us were Kasuko, Dant8ro, Ryvr, Cruiser51, Bubba and Quiet. Chenvre was on his way in from Ottawa and would be arriving shortly. As for the rest of the group, two canoes had already headed in the day before carrying Old Boot and Iguana in one and Ggreaves and Entropy in the other.


Quiet ready to go

Highboy ready to go

To be honest, organizing paddling partners was pretty straightforward. Jiblets, whose canoe was a little too large to easily solo, would stern with Bubba at the bow. Chenvre would be teaming up with Kasuko, a brave undertaking on both their parts as the last time they paddled together they found themselves somewhat damp after a minor maritime mishap. As for the rest of us; Ryvr, Dant8ro, Quiet, Cruiser51 and I would be paddling solo. While any canoe is a lovely thing, and never more so than when it's loaded with all the gear necessary for a jaunt in the Park, Cruiser's handmade cedar strip canoe was a work of art and drew much deserved praise from all around. Based on the Bear Mountain 15' Freedom design, Cruiser had built himself and you couldn't but admire his excellent workmanship and attention to detail. If you ask me, every beautiful canoe makes the world a slightly better place.


Cruiser and Ryvr ready to go

Cruiser's beautiful woodstrip canoe

Ryvr getting the feel of his rental canoe

Once the cars were parked we pushed off the docks as a group and paddled our way along a small section of slow flowing river out to the main body of Rock Lake. We were greeted with hillsides painted with vibrant yellows, oranges, golds, reds and dark greens. I have rarely seen the Park so beautiful. Dominating the landscape is Booth's Rock, a series of high cliffs that rise up on the eastern shore and named after John Rudolophus Booth, one of Canada's most successful self-made lumber and railway barons of the 19th century. Of his many accomplishments was the construction of a railway from the Georgian bay, through the lands that would later become Algonquin, down to Ottawa, where he had the secured the contract for supplying lumber for the construction of the Canadian Parliament buildings. Working all day with the crews only to return to continue working late into the night managing the business of his empire, John Booth was a fascinating character. In fact, many of the Algonquin thoroughfares, be they road or trail, follow the same railway tracks that Booth created over one hundred years earlier. It's a clear reminder of the tenuous relationship between industry and the landscape that has become synonymous with Canada. (for more information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rudolphus_Booth). Actually it was high atop those cliffs, overlooking the beauty of Rock Lake and the surrounding forests that I almost proposed to my wife, but the perfect moment eluded me I descended sheepishly down again.


Pictograph cliffs, Rock Lake

Following the western shore, we rounded the headland and came to the another series of high cliffs, this time rising straight up out of the water and continuing up for another hundred feet. While beautiful in and of themselves, these cliffs are also of particular interest because they are reputed to hold aboriginal pictographs. I say "reputed", because all of my previous searches for them had been in vain. But persistence paid off at last! Close to the southern end of the cliffs, just a few feet above the waterline they had lain hidden all these years, with colours so subdued that it was no surprise I had missed them before. I'll leave the socio-religious interpretation to the archeologists, but to me it looks like a famished beaver.


Pictographs, Rock Lake

Colour enhanced

About a kilometer from the cliffs the main lake turns south and narrows to a channel that extends south for a couple of kilometers to the 375m Rock/Pen portage. Along the channel on the left, more cliffs would appear between the trees while on the right gently rolling hills followed beside us. Up ahead a prominent hill stood out and at its base the channel ended and a lively river splashed noisily into the lake. A low shelf of smooth rock marked the landing for the portage on the right. Because some of us had straggled behind looking for pictographs, most of the group had already gone down the portage. Only Kasuko and Chenvre were there waiting, and with them two others.

These two strangers had been waiting by the shore, anxiously looking back up the channel. They were part of a group of three canoes and apparently one of the canoes was long overdue at the portage, likely they had paddled down the wrong channel and become lost. Worried about not being able to find a campsite for the night, the third canoe had gone on ahead to Pen. They were obviously worried so I asked about the skill level of the errant paddlers. They assured us that they were experienced trippers but the problem was that they had no food. All of it was packed away in the other canoes. They were struggling with the dilemma of whether they stay or they go on ahead? Rock Lake is a big lake and going all the way back up the channel trying to find a lost canoe could take hours. If the lost canoers were novices then going back would be certainly be appropriate, but as they were experienced, my hunch was that they'd find the portage eventually and join their friend when they could. Personally I would have waited around for a while, as they were, but then continue on in to find where the third canoe had set up camp. Only then would I have returned to guide the lost canoe back to camp, especially if it was starting to get dark. The key lesson is for every canoe to have a map, a compass (or GPS) and enough gear and provisions to be self-sufficient, at least for a day. Mishaps do occur and even the best navigators get lost occasionally. What became of them I never did learn, but I like to think that they managed to meet up in the end.

Back at the portage the last of our group had pulled up. Kasuko kindly offered to carry the group food pack across the portage, a good thing too because it was weighted down with all of the ingredients for two group dinners. His help was definitely appreciated. I changed into my running shoes, shouldered my pack and threw my canoe over my head. The portage was only a short 375m one with only one short hill just a little way in and then a short but steep incline as it drops to the lake on the far side. Well-maintained boardwalks spanned the boggiest areas and before long I was descending down the last slope out into the sunlight where a wooden dock stretched into the water and I canoes were scattered everywhere. The rest of the group had taken the opportunity to have a bit of lunch as they waited for us to show up. With a sigh, I dropped my pack, dug out a handful of raisins and a peanut butter wrap and joined them.

Lunch complete, we pushed off to find our friends. Ryvr and I took point and paddled towards the channel that connects the north bay to the main lake. Off to the right lay the "island" campsite that we had stayed on the autumn before. The "island" was actually peninsula connected by an ismuth of scrub covered sand. But it was close enough. Coming out into the main lake we had to navigate through some huge erratics which rose up to just under the surface, like terrors from the depths eager to claim the unwary. Flecks of red, green and white showed how often they had managed to snare passing canoes. It was on one of these that my daughters and I put a major gouge into the bottom of my canoe only a couple of years earlier.


Southern Pen Lake

Up ahead on the left we saw movement on the shore where the Night Lake portage comes down to the lake. I hollered out what should certainly become the official Hammock Forums greeting "WHOOO BUDDY" and immediately get a distant "whooo buddy" in response. Ryvr, who's paddling beside me, decided that this was the time to see how fast his rented Keewatin could go, so with paddles digging deeply, the race was on. It was a good one and pretty close for a while, but in the end Ryvr managed an unexpected burst of speed and glided to shore a few lengths ahead of me. Young whippersnapper.

Down on shore we found a scene straight out of the French Rivera. Iguana was coming out of the water, 76 Highboy was lying stretched out on a towel and Old Boot was relaxing in a camp chair. After a warm welcome, we asked about Ggreaves and they informed us that he was across the lake at the group's second site, a necessity with a group as large as ours. I have to say, it was my first time meeting Old Boot but she certainly had a finely tuned sense of relaxation necessary on these arduous EGL hangs. After the rest of the group pulled up and greetings were exchanged we grabbed our gear and jogged up a short incline to check out the campsite. There was a nice fire pit, a makeshift plywood table nailed between two trees nearby and the usual parallel logs to provided seating. Surrounding that was plenty of space to sprawl, a good thing to with our fourteen people.


Highboy and Ggreaves on Thursday

Old Boot had set up her outfit at the top of the path that led down to the beach, and so that side of the camp officially became designated as the "Ladies Section". To the south or right of the site, set back in the woods a short way, Iguana's and 76Highboy's hammocks already hung. The newcomers fanned out and one by one dropped their gear and got to work turning the span between two trees [in to] home for the weekend. By me were Bubba, Quiet and Jiblets, with Entropy just a little down the slope. Some of the group went over to the second site to balance the numbers. They'd shuttle back and forth between the campsites for most of the weekend.


Ryvr, Cruiser and Quiet relaxing by the fire pit

After setting up camp everyone made their way back to the fire pit to partake in a little well deserved lollygagging. It was good to get a chance to sip some single malt and relax with friends, some of whom, Entropy for example, I hadn't seen in quite a while. He was actually the first Hammock Forums member I had the pleasure of meeting on the drive up to my first Hang where we then met Kasuko and his infamous penny stove. I also met a couple of other chaps, one of which, Shawnh, followed me on our first canoe hang later that fall. It became the first EGL hang.


Chard's and Jiblets' outfits

Early in the afternoon, Iguana announced that he was going to take a stroll down the adjacent Night Lake portage, just to see what was at the other end. It was a while before he returned, no worse for wear. Apparently the trail was a little longer than he had planned but it just meant a nice stroll in the woods was all the nicer.


Chard looking with horror at the amount of crap he brought in

Back on camp however, the afternoon was wearing on and it was time to start thinking about dinner. Now personally, a "traditional" backcountry canoe trip had always meant an "all-for-one and one-for-all" approach to meal planning. Whether it was pancakes for breakfast or spaghetti for dinner, everyone got to enjoy, or at least suffer through, the same meal. Trips were planned at a group level. There'd be one kitchen tarp, one stove, one axe, one saw and one set of pots. Then, not surprisingly, our EGL Hammock Forum Hangs came along and broke that mold. What's different is that we're more a collection of like-minded solo hikers than a boy-scout troop. Picture the film Predators; replace machine guns with Dutch Clips, toothy aliens with toothy black flies and you've got it. Just count the number of solo paddlers in our group; six of the ten canoes were paddled solo, well actually nine canoes and one kayak, but Highboy will be Highboy. Redundancy is the rule and it's not unusual to have as many axes as hammocks, as many saws as trees and as many stoves as there are stars in the sky. Efficient? Absolutely not. But wonderfully individual nonetheless. It's always interesting seeing how different people solve our common challenges in so many creative ways. I suppose that the very fact that we're hammock campers in the first place demonstrates our interest in pushing the boundaries of camping gear and practices, in evolving the craft. I still have friends who shake their heads disapprovingly when I talk about hammock camping! But I digress.


Entropy searing the beef

Needless to say, I'm still a fan of the big group dinners. Nothing beats a pot of hearty soup or stew and a chunk of bread washed down with a glass of wine. On this evening's menu was a classic beef bourguignon, prepared faithfully according to Julia Child's recipe, served with egg noodles and fresh bread. The biggest challenge was that the beef would require at least three hours of cooking to cook thoroughly and become fork tender and that process simply can't be rushed. We had tried a few years earlier with some Hungarian Goulash, and although the stew was delicious, the meat was decidedly chewy. Not so tonight. Although it was only mid-afternoon, everyone pitched in one way or another to either help prepare the food or collect firewood. Supported by an army of sous chefs and wood collectors, Entropy diligently sautéed a rasher of double-smoked bacon and onions. Setting those aside, he went on to brown six pounds of stewing beef. Once everything was ready, it all went into a 10 litre (2.5 gallon) pot together with a litre of nice Italian red wine, a litre of beef broth and some bay leaves. I was using was the new Campbell's prepared beef broth in 500ml (one pint) tetra packs but the little plastic spout was proving annoying to open. Undeterred, I unfolded the spout, casually held it against a log and chopped the whole dang end off with my axe. Let's see Gordon Ramsey beat that. Two more tetra packs followed the same fate and before long the stew was simmering away happily. At this point it was simply a matter of maintaining a low fire and waiting. After a couple of hours, when the beef was almost ready, several small bags of pearl onions were parboiled, peeled and sautéed whole. Finally a couple of pounds of mushrooms were quartered and sautéed thrown into the stew.



Jiblets took the opportunity to throw a grill over the fire irons and grill some tandoori chicken legs. They were looking rather good but as Jiblets was turning them, one of them managed to roll off the grill and land in the fire. He tried to rescue it with his makeshift chopsticks but the heat was too much for his bare hands. Things were looking pretty grim. Luckily I had been tending the stew with a leather glove on my hand and so I quickly reached in and snatched that piece of chicken before the Fire Gods could claim their offering.


Dant8ro and Old Boot waiting patiently for dinner

Jiblets' chicken reminded me of some spicy Hungarian sausage I had picked up for the trip. One of my favorite ways of eating it is to simply roast it slightly over the fire. After heating it up I sliced it up into pieces and went around offering it to the gang. Poor Old Boot. I love spicy food; my mother all but weaned me on hot sauce. Cruiser's the ranking pepper-head in the group, concocting his own peppery potions; even going so far as to dehydrate drops of a particularly deadly sauce on tiny squares of rice paper; add a couple of dots to your dinner and you'd better have some yogurt nearby. Old Boot on the other hand apparently is the product of a loving family unwilling to subject her to unnecessary hardships. She innocently tried a piece of sausage and was reaching for water shortly afterwards. Apparently eyeballs can sweat after all. Sometimes I forget that not everyone shares my love of hot food.


Jiblets and his improvised chopsticks

Meanwhile Ryvr, Dant8ro and Cruiser were busy preparing their own dinners. It wasn't long however, until the stew was almost ready and it was time to finish it up by adding a couple of bags of broad egg noodles. Ten minutes later everyone was helping themselves to big helpings of stew and a big piece of baguette. The silence spoke volumes. People enjoyed seconds, even thirds when I could force them to, but I had slightly misjudged the quantities and unfortunately there was about two servings left over.


Iguana ripping through the firewood

It seems to be a hallmark of the EGL that ordinary tasks sometimes become hilarious. Standard procedures in Algonquin call for food to be hung from a sturdy tree branch some 15 feet in the air and some 5 or so feet from the tree, protecting the contents from not only marauding bears but a myriad of other persistent little critters that invariably turn up when people start dropping food on the ground. Even following procedures, Entropy's food bag had been chewed into my some little critter. Cruiser was in the process of setting an elaborate system that consisted of a multi-wheel pulley being suspended on a main line between two trees while the working line, the one that was attached to the food bags, hung down to the ground. Essentially forming "T" with one pulley at the top intersection and another at the bottom of the "T" by the food, making the hauling up of the heavy food bags a simple matter. Well, at least that was the plan. Enter Jiblets stage left. After several tosses, including one in which Cruiser was actually able to land his throw bag neatly on top of the target branch, he finally managed to get his main line up and over the branch. The weighted throw bag dangled down on the far side and looking around for help, he spied Jiblets casually looking on. Let me paraphrase the conversation...
"Could you hold this for me?" asks Cruiser.
"Sure" says Jiblets.
"I like this guy" says Cruiser to the gathered onlookers, "he really knows how to follow orders."
A general chuckle from the group and Cruiser turns away to retrieve his throw bag.
"Follow orders indeed!" Jiblets thinks to himself. Without a moment's pause a michievous grin crosses his face and he lets go of the rope. It goes racing up into the trees and up and over the branch. Cruiser spins around with an expression of shocked disbelief on his face that was priceless. Morale of the story: Don't make wisecracks about the help, especially when that help is Jiblets.

After dinner, the group made their way down to the lake to enjoy the cloudless night sky. In a little while the Milky Way rose up out of the eastern forest and stretched across the sky. The second to last star of the four stars of the handle on the big dipper (or was that three?) drew a bit of attention as we tried to spot stars. I pulled out my smart phone to start up my astronomy app when I noticed I had a couple bars of signal. On a lark I texted my elder daughter and was very surprised when my phone rang a few minutes later. Even though the volume was on low, the ring was deafening. It was like taking a call in the middle of a cinema, but magnified ten-fold by the silence. Sorry for shattering the moment everyone.

Down by the lake the mood was great. If anyone's ever met Ryvr, they wouldn't soon forget it. A big, fun loving extrovert with a hearty laugh and a flair for haute cuisine, Ryvr's got a ribald sense of humor that leaves everyone in stitches. I wish I could recall the exact conversation but at one point something was said that was usually reserved for those fraternal times when ladies weren't present. Nonplussed, and with much grace, Old Boot said something like "Oh, that's ok, there's not much you could say that would shock me." I gave Ryvr 15 minutes. It took him 20. He must have been distracted by the night sky.

Saturday night was a special in more than one way; Highboy was celebrating a birthday. Although many miles from family, he was, at least, amongst friends. He stayed up late that night, carrying on the celebration, but one by one people excused themselves to retire to their hammocks. For most of the Friday crew it had been a very long day with little or no sleep the night before and the hammocks beckoned.

It was early dawn when I first woke up and the forest had just begun to take on colour. I could hear people quietly snoring nearby and some voices down by the fire pit. I pulled my top quilt up, rolled over and went back to snooze a little longer, a rare luxury when my younger daughter's favorite pastime is waking up her father on weekends. I got up a little while later, pulled on my shorts and my heavy wool bush shirt and wandered down to get breakfast. Most of the crew was up and about. Jiblets and Dant8ro had strapped a 2QZQ Tree table to the tree that anchored one side of our kitchen table and had fired up Dant8ro's MS Core woodstove for its christening burn. I was impressed. It burned hot and made short work of boiling up the morning's water. Breakfast was a simple pack of oatmeal and a tall mug of instant espresso.


Dant8ro's MS Core


MS Core's Dant8ro

Beside the fire pit stood the remains of what must have been once a tall pine. Now all that remained was a slightly rotted stump some two meters high, already much chopped at. Dant8tro took out his saw and lopped off the top section, narrowly missing Cruiser in the process. Jiblets, unimpressed with the less than perfectly horizontal cut too his turn at trimming off the remains of the stump, ultimately producing a disc-like cross-section of the tree. Inspiration expresses itself in many ways. This time Jiblets and Dant8ro were determined to use that disc to make a shelf on that stump and it actually turned out pretty well. At one point midway through the construction, Ggreaves tried to use the stump to set up his stove and prepare some food. I think the sawdust drove him away.


Jiblets and Dant8ro leveling stump as Entropy watches on

Quiet had also set up his Titanium Goat wood stove complete with stove pipe. It was normally part of his winter camping kit, but I think he felt that it needed some long overdue burn-time. Not too heavy to pack in, it collapsed down into a fairly compact package. He was even kind enough to boil up some water for me. Throw a canvas tent over that and you've got yourself an all weather camping outfit.


Old Boot, Jiblets, Highboy and Ggreaves hat

The morning was turning into a beautiful day, sunny skies and little to no wind. Ggreaves and Iguana had already taken a canoe and headed back to do a day trip to the top of Booth's Rock. In this part of Ontario, the trout fishing season ends at the end of September, so this would be my last chance to do some open water fishing until next spring. I had even packed in a portable fish finder but unfortunately forgot to repair a wire that came loose after the last time I used it. Chowder was on the menu tonight and I thought a little fresh fish would make a nice addition. It was about 10am when I pushed off from shore, only to find bubba quietly sitting on the shore having breakfast and enjoying the view. Jiblets and Entropy launched a little afterwards. Our plan was to troll the south along the western shore down as far as the Galipo River. Personally I wasn't expecting much action on the main lake. The waters still held their summer warmth and I knew that the sunny weather and calm water would generally force trout down to more comfortable depths. Without my sonar I couldn't tell the depth so I didn't put on any additional weight on my line. Casting my line out behind me I paddled south until out of the depths I could start to weeds. I quickened my pace to keep my spoon high and avoid snags, but eventually they became so dense that I just gave up and reeled my lure in.

My map was back at camp, so I paddled further along the shore looking for the opening to the Galipo River where I knew brook trout could be found. On the way I managed to take a few pictures of one of the Park's Great Blue Herons. I got within about one hundred feet before it spread its wings and flew beyond the high shrubs along the shore. Jiblets and Entropy paddled up and reported that they had had similar luck. Entropy took out his GPS and took bearing on the mouth of the Galipo, just beneath the prominent hill at the southeast end of the lake.


Great Blue Heron

So late in the season, the water levels were quite low and we scraped several times along the sandy bottom of the river mouth before we entered the winding creek and put a pair of small beaver dams behind us. As we worked our way against the current the forest started to close in on us until at last we reached a small pool below a rock garden over which the Galipo was noisily flowing. On the right, a little back from the portage was a clearing in the brush and Jiblets and Entropy pulled their canoe up onto there. I continued a little way further and landed on the left side by the portage proper. The mouth of the Galipo River has to be one of the most awkward portage landings in the park. The field of rocks left nowhere to land a canoe safely so I just steered Lipstick (my canoe) between a pair of large rocks and pulled her a little out of the water. Eager to do a little fishing, I grabbed my little tackle box and my fishing rod and started down the portage trail.

A few years ago I had passed the same way with some friends from the office and we had discovered a wonderful little fishing hole along the way. Not far up the trail the Galipo tumbled a few meters into a broad, deep pool that emptied into a swift before rounding the bend back towards the portage. Tying on a tiny gold and orange Panther Martin spinner I made a couple of exploratory casts. At first I got a couple of following flashes but it wasn't long before I got a solid hit. Excited I pull out a small bookie, no less beautiful for its small size. I would have thrown it back but it was deeply hooked, so it put it on the shore behind me. After a couple of more fruitless casts over the top of the deep pool I switched my lure to a slightly larger and heavier black spinner, all the better to get down and ply the depths of the pool. As Jiblets and Entropy came up the trail behind me I pulled in another, larger speck. By this time Jiblets had tied on one of his home-salted smelts and landed a nice female bookie, the largest of the day. After losing my spinner to a log deep in the pool, I asked Jiblets if I could try one of his smelts. I tied on a jig, threaded on a smelt and cast out towards the foam where the river plunged into the pool. I moment later I was pulling in my day's best trout, a male bookie just a little smaller than Jiblets but in full fall colour. Absolutely beautiful. The three of us fished that pool and the little swift below it for the better part of two hours until a couple of other anglers came up eager to try their luck. We took some pictures and chatted for a while. We gathered our belongings and our catch, and then walked back down the trail to the canoes.

While we were fishing another group had landed and I guess that my canoe was blocking the portage because I found that it had been placed carefully up out of the way by the edge of the rocks. Beside it were a couple of canoes and some very nice trippers. One old chap, after he had buckled a pack onto his back, boasted that he had just had knee replacement surgery a couple of months earlier and that this was his first trip. Tough old bugger! I waited for them to pass and then threw my gear into the canoe. I carried it out to the rocks, carefully launched and then followed Jiblets and Entropy down the creek. This time we were travelling with the current and it wasn't long before we were back out on the main lake. Back at the pool the two fishermen had mentioned a deep spot back out on the lake near to the river mouth so Jiblets headed off in that direction while I began my long paddle back to camp. I was hungry and thinking about lunch. Once out over deep water I once again threw out my line and slow trolled back to camp. I think I got one hit along the way, but I didn't catch another fish for rest of the day.


Ggreaves and Bubba

Pulling back up on our campsite's beach, I showed the group our catch, hung them on a tree while I had lunch and then took them far down to the beach to be cleaned. I gutted them all but left Jiblets' otherwise untouched. I know he likes his trout steamed, but my mind was set on lightly floured trout fried to perfection in a pan of hot butter and oil. Simple and delicious. Kasuko was interested in watching the filleting process so I did my best to not butcher them too much. On small to medium fish I just make one pass along the spin on each side of the spine, carefully fillet out the rib bones and then take off the skin. No muss, not much fuss. In the end of it we had four lovely fillets ready for the pan. The little one could be fried whole. When Jiblets and Entropy got back Jiblets graciously let his be filleted and fried up as well. We had enough for everyone.

Ggreaves and Iguana paddled in and told us about their rewarding, albeit exhausting hike. Following the route the wrong way, or rather against the flow, in typical EGL style, they managed to make it to the top of the cliffs we had seen the morning before. The only problem was that they had underestimated their water supply and had come back to camp a tad thirsty. Nothing a gallon of filtered water between them couldn't fix. On the whole, it sounded like a fun excursion.


Old Boot's tree shelf and pot combo

Dant8ro, Ryvr and Cruiser also had a little fun. They have a history that goes back long before the EGL, so it's not surprising that there's more than a little good natured ribbing going on between them. On this occasion Ryvr and Cruiser were carrying on with their favorite pass time, trying to elicit a profane response from Dant8ro. But with the stalwart stoicism of a Palace guard, Dant8ro just sat there calmly smiling. I suspect, however, that deep below that steadfast countenance, devious plots of retribution were being hatched. Glad I was being nice to him.


Ryvr going to town on splitting firewood

We relaxed around the fire or down by the beach for the rest of the day. Finally, as the afternoon was wearing on, I thought it might be time to get dinner started. One minute there were fourteen campers in various states comfortable relaxation around the site. I made a comment as to whether anyone wanted to help get some wood for dinner and [everyone up jumped] and started lending a hand. From zero to sixty in two seconds flat. Not more than five minutes later we heard a large crash in the forest behind us and someone was calling for an axe. I grabbed mine and headed into the brush. Ryvr and Quiet had taken the firewood collection to heart and downed a lovely thirty foot dead standing hardwood that had to be 25 cm (ten inches) at the base. There was very little limbing to do and so they cut it into quarters, they placed one on my shoulder and I staggered back to camp. That was one solid piece of wood. Back at camp more wood was being pulled in and within an hour there was half a cord of wood neatly chopped and piled behind the fire pit, more than enough for several days. The campers who followed us would be very grateful.


Highboy and Iguana sweating the onions and bacon for the chowder

Soup was a simple chowder. Bubba took to peeling and dicing the potatoes, a task made easier this year because I remembered to bring the peeler this time. The onions and bacon were sweated down by Iguana who lent a hand as lead chef, and once these were done they were transferred to the big pot together with the clams and two Campbell's cream base and the diced potatoes. Simmering only took an hour and while that was happening, the trout fillets were floured and passed over to Ryvr for a professional frying. So dinner was an appetizer of fresh fried brook trout followed by some delicious New England Clam Chowder. Now for those of you who aren't familiar with the proper pronunciation it's "CHOW-DA!" Say it right! Judging by the empty pot, I'd say it was a hit. Funny thing though. As I was finishing preparing the pot I looked up and around at the group and fully two dozen sets of eyes were focused on the fire. I couldn't but help being reminded of a similar night long, long ago when as a boy scout I shone my flashlight into the trees around our camp and saw nothing but hundreds of tiny little eyes staring back at me. Now raccoons were replaced by quiet hangers, but the hungry look was still there! A little unnerving but definitely funny. The fire was built up and while some people sat around the fire chatting, others would wander down to the lake and enjoy the stars. We talked and shared some of the finer spirits as I enjoying my favorite A'Bunadh single malt. I even went so far as to light some ablaze, the blue flames dancing delicately around the metal rim. It was a nice way to wind up a good trip.

Morning dawned and unfortunately it was time to break camp. Some were up early and had managed to be fully packed before others had even woken up. Ryvr, always the early-bird, paddled over to the other site to make sure that those late sleepers were up and packing. We agreed that we all wanted to leave at roughly the same time and we knew that left to their own devices, it could be well into the afternoon before some of them woke up over there.

Ryvr, Dant8ro and Cruiser, Jiblets and Bubba had all left early. Jiblets would be waiting for me but the others had a long drive ahead of them and wanted to get an early start. The rest of group had our canoes lined up along the shore, but it wasn't until Chenvre and Kasuko started loading their canoe that everyone pushed off shore. Quiet and I stayed back a while, finishing our coffee and chatting until finally, after taking in the scenery once last time we launched our canoes and followed everyone north. At the portage we once again met Kasuko and Chenvre, but this time it was Chenvre who offered to carry the now much lighter food pack. After a short snack at the end of the portage we bent our paddles and continued north into Rock Lake where we turned aside to show them the pictographs. I was impressed with Kasuko. Just a couple of years earlier he ventured out on his first canoe trip ever on our second EGL canoe hang. It was his first experience at canoeing or even camping in Algonquin, the complete novice. Fast forward a couple of years and there he was, paddling strongly in the bow of Chenvre's canoe. Makes an old man proud it does.


Quiet paddling out

We paddled the last leg of the trip to the north end of Rock Lake and entered the narrow channel again. Paddling around a few bends we finally saw the access point, the docks already crowded with other canoes coming and going. We loaded the vehicles, secured the canoes to the roofs and drove away leaving nothing but a dusty trail behind us and many good memories. Another fine trip done.

One of the fine traditions we have is to end our trips with a visit to a local restaurant and have a farewell lunch. One of our favorite haunts is the Portage Store on Canoe Lake. With a bustling outfitter below and a well-stocked gift shop behind, the Portage Store Restaurant overlooks the southern bay of Canoe Lake, by far the busiest access point in the park. On such a busy weekend we were very lucky to get the best table in the house, in the far corner of the restaurant overlooking the docks. Ring-side seats for the best show in town. It's too bad the other guys couldn't join us. Bubba does love this spot but he, Ryvr, Dant8ro and Cruiser were already on the long road home. Beneath us a steady stream of day trippers were out to get a taste of the beauty of Algonquin in the fall. Portage store staff were busy carrying canoes to and from the dock as people awkwardly put on or removed off life jackets. With amusement we watch the antics below; one woman so eager to get off the canoe that she did a long legged yoga stretch onto the dock, reaching out with one foot until she was able to drag the canoe around and hop out. Low points on style but she definitely stuck the dismount. Another couple were sitting face to face in the canoe jerking their way away from the docks. One pretty lady stood with life jacket on and paddle in hand while wearing an ankle length dress. To our horror we watched as one lady came out onto the docks with an infant in a stroller. We let out a collective sigh of relief when she finally turned and walked back to shore. But winner of the prize in the most ludicrous category was a the "package" adjusting, hair tossing fellow in green pants who spent a good twenty minutes strutting back and forth as his adoring girlfriend videoed him. Most impressive was that he actually managed to change his outfit sometime during the shoot. Runner-up went to his stocky brother who was copying his brother stride for stride. If only they had looked up, they would have seen eight pairs of eyes crying with laughter. But in the end, even with the show, it was nice seeing people from every walk of life and corner of the globe taking the time to appreciate something we've enjoyed for years.

Backcountry paddlers stepping carefully around swarms of carefree day trippers. Those heading into the backcountry would scamper excitedly around their canoes with their freshly scrubbed clothes, gear and faces, checking to make sure each pack was carefully in their canoe. Those returning would glide heavily to the wooden docks, their movements a little stiffer, their gear a little rougher. Cups and shoes dangle from straps of their packs and beards have replaced clean-shaven faces. When they pass each other sometimes there's a good natured nod or a few words of encouragement. Sometimes it's just the thousand yard stare. But in the end, we're all in the same great fraternity. From fledgling paddler to grizzled tripper; we're canoers and we're proud of it.


Left front to back: Kasuko, Quiet, Entropy, Ggreaves
Right front to back: Old Boot, Jiblets, Iguana, Chard
Missing: Bubba, Chenvre, Dant8ro, Ryvr, Cruiser, Highboy


Chard and Lipstick

Last edited by Chard; 10-09-2014 at 18:34. Reason: Atrocious spelling and grammer

Algonquin Hang - Fall 2011 - Sunny with a chance of flurries...Part One and Two - Revised - Photos By [o]TTer

Although I'm a little more tired and sore than I should be, I can say that the Fall2011 Hang was definitely a memorable one.

It's usually not a good omen when you're driving down the highway towards a weekend hang through a night so dark and rain so heavy that you can barely make out the taillights of the car in front of you. Add to that a weather forecast that called for rain, wind and cold, and top that off with zero sleep. Someone should've been taking notes.

Around 8am Wolvaroo and I turned off of Highway 60 and pulled up to Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake Access Point. Located at the end of a long bay opening onto its namesake, Canoe Lake is probably the most popular jumping off point for canoe trips throughout Algonquin. One I’ve known well since I was a boy. On any given summer weekend, this now tranquil place transforms into a madhouse, crowded with canoeists and tourists of all shapes and sizes, each going about their business of coming and going. A steady stream of canoes, paddled by unsteady novices and grim veterans alike, would head northwards to the main lake bound for new adventures, while others would return southwards; weary but always smiling as they recalled their exploits. Canoes and equipment would line the shore and the docks in front of the grand two story Portage Store, while upstairs in the restaurant, pretty waitresses would be serving large helpings of their excellent breakfasts or burgers to hungry travelers, who would wash it all down with a Coke, or better yet, a cold beer. As a matter of fact, the 2011 Spring Hang had ended in the very restaurant over a meal of burgers, fries, beer and soda. As for myself, I prefer the tail seasons of early spring or late fall, when the staff are busy getting ready to either open for the season or close down afterwards. A time when the crowds are at a minimum and you have the Park almost to yourself.

As the first to arrive, Wolvaroo and I took shelter from the rain on the wide Portage Store porch. It was nice to be able to relax for a while after the long drive and watch the patterns the rain made on the quiet lake. I took the opportunity to pull out my pack and make sure everything was as waterproof as possible. Traveling in the rain is not bad once you're on the water. Once you're wet, you're wet. The real concern is for the gear. A wet down sleeping bag or reserve clothes bag at the beginning of a trip is a misery particularly early or late in the season, and I’ve always been careful to never let it happen. As a boy in camp we were taught how to wrap our sleeping bags in a plastic tarp, after which the camp counselor would then throw the finished bundle into the lake. That bag was your bedding for the night so you better have made it waterproof. Another issue is as the packs get wet with rain, they absorb the water and get noticeably heavier, something that makes slippery portages even more of a challenge. As I’ve said, paddling in the rain isn’t much of an ordeal as long as you’ve paid attention to the details.

The rain was still coming down, and although it appeared to be clearing slightly, the prospects of a rain-soaked weekend and a lack of sleep the night before were beginning to wear me down. I was starting to seriously consider the alternative of base-camping at a drive-in site. Before long however, Ryvr, [o]TTer and Bubba showed up and their enthusiasm was infectious. Come hell or high water, we would go on with our plan: two nights in the piney woods of Algonquin Provincial Park. We registered at the Park Office, zipped across the highway and pulled up by the Smoke Lake dock where Dan8tro and Brantwing were waiting. Let the good times roll!

Our little band consisted of three canoes and one kayak. Ryvr and Bubba would be in Ryvr’s 16’ Kipiwa, Dan8tro and Brantwing in a 16’ Kipiwa rented from Algonquin Outfitters just outside of the Park and Wolvaroo and me in my 16’ prospector. [o]TTer, ever the rebel, would be paddling his small solo kayak. With the exception of Wolvaroo, the rest of our group had been on at least two or more trips together, including a winter hang at Valen's in early 2011 and the May 2011 Spring Hang.

The route we had chosen called for us to push off Friday morning from the Smoke Lake access point, paddle our way south through Ragged and Big Porcupine until we finally set up camp in Bonnechere some fifteen kilometers and four portages distant. Our second day, Saturday, would see us looping eleven kilometers and five portages east and north through Phipps, Kirkwood and Pardee and then up through Harness to our second night's camp on Head Lake. Our last morning, Sunday, would see us covering about five kilometers with the longest portage of the trip followed by a short paddle through the island maze of Cache Lake to the parking lot and the cars that we would park there. A good three day trip, especially with the fall colours at their best.

Just before departure Ryvr, Brantwing and I pulled our vehicles out of the Smoke Lake parking lot and drove the twenty or so kilometers to Cache Lake where we'd leave two of our vehicles in advance of our arrival Sunday morning. We all were eager to get back on the road as early as possible Sunday morning and this trick would cut at least four hours off the route. As the three of us drove back in Ryvr's truck, it was astonishing just how far one could paddle in a few hours and how much paddling we were saving. Even at 90kmh, it took a good ten minutes to drive back to Smoke lake.

Back at the docks everyone was ready to go. Packs were loaded into the canoes, protected by rain covers and tarps, and our rain gear was on. Ironically we weren't the only ones with questionable mental health that morning. Despite the weather, a large group of young adults were transferring their gear from a chartered coach bus to a flotilla of rental canoes. We'd see them again as they paddled ahead of us down Smoke and again along the first portage to Ragged Lake, but that would be the last of them. I hope they fared well.

[o]TTer launched first and paddled straight for a little reef that rose out of the water nearby. The rest of us pushed off and quickly turned south. Our trip down Smoke was damp but uneventful. As if to make up for the wet weather, we were blessed with a light tail wind that would follow us for most of the day. Smoke Lake is a beautiful lake; long, wide and flanked by steep, forested hills that were now in their glory of full autumn colour. When the wind picks up Smoke Lake can become truly treacherous as I found out that spring, but today even under a light rain, she was a pleasure.

We passed over the first portage with little trouble. We reflected on the three missing members of our original group, Shawnh and his family. They were planning to be in the park the day before and then meet us on this portage. Unfortunately last minute complications forced them to cancel. It’s too bad. It was great having their company at our spring hang and they’d be missed. From Ragged we first paddled south past several large shield outcroppings and then turned east to paddle around the large, steep island that dominates Ragged Lake. From there we headed south to our second portage that rose over a high hill and down to the North arm of Big Porcupine.

The Ragged-Porcupine portage is a pig, plain and simple. Although it's only six hundred metres long, almost all of the elevation gained on the trip came on this one portage, and specifically on one long, often slippery hill. Here's where portaging goes from a pleasant walk in the park to a real workout. For better or for worse, portaging is an essential part of traveling by canoe. Each portage takes you a little further away from the distractions of "civilization" and brings you a little closer to the wilderness that most of us go canoeing to find. Whenever I meet people deep in the park, people who have endured the same hardships I have, I find that we share not only the same deep respect and compassion for the land, but also a strong sense of camaraderie. Never have a table of latté sipping yuppies on some Starbucks patio invited me to sit down and join them, but many times I've been asked by other canoeists to stop a while and share a cup of coffee around their campfire. Although normally I politely decline, I always paddle away heartened knowing that there kindred spirits nearby. Make no mistake, when you finally shoulder your pack, flip up you canoe and head down that portage, all portages are work. Some may be better than others, but just let me say that the Ragged-Porcupine was a pig.

Our basic tactic was to try to do single-carry portages, taking all of our gear and canoes with us over the trail in one trip. The alternative, the double-carry, calls for taking half your load on the first trip, and then returning for the remainder of your gear. The actual carries themselves are easier but you wind up covering three times the distance and taking three times as long. My rule of thumb is that one kilometer of portaging takes about twenty minutes on a single carry and one hour on a double carry. Although we generally started off as a single carry, we had no reservations about dropping our canoes and coming back for them later. Case in point: Dan8tro, Ryvr and I were carrying the canoes up the Pig with Dan8tro far in the lead, followed by me, then Ryvr just behind. About halfway up the main slope, Ryvr slipped and went down under his canoe. The overnight rain and wet leaves had made the trail quite slippery and he had slipped on the same section that I had slipped on two years earlier heading downhill, the other way. After asking him a couple of times if he needed any assistance, he finally grunted that he did, so I dropped my canoe and pack and turned to lift Ryvr's canoe off of him. Slipping under a canoe is an easy way to sprain an ankle or worse, but fortunately Ryvr wasn’t seriously injured. We decided to leave the canoes for a second trip and just continued with our packs down to the other end. His ankle was a bit tender for a while, but he managed to walk it off.

By the time our little band had collapsed at the end of the portage into the north arm of Big Porcupine Lake, it was time for a break. Ahead of us we had the choice of either paddling around a large peninsula that divided Big Porcupine into three parts, or doing a short paddle and then an easy four hundred metre portage to the other side. Over the course of previous trips I've used both, but have always found the portage a little faster. Besides the paddle around is fairly lengthy and it’s always nice to be able to stretch one’s legs on the way. [o]TTer, wary of having to unpack, carry and repack his kayak yet again, decided to paddle around while the rest of us chose the portage. In the end, however, we met up at about the same time.

As we were getting ready to launch, I found a large ziplock bag with a photocopy of a route map in the water behind some driftwood. Turning it over I saw that it was marked on the other side with all of the details of their trip, including emergency contacts. I’d rate losing your only map deep in the park as a few notches above a wet sleeping bag on the adversity scale. I certainly hoped that whoever lost it had a backup.

In the southern arm of Big Porcupine we had a half hour paddle to our last portage of the day, an easy 200m into Bonnechere. As we crossed the lake we saw a gentle mist rolling across the lakes between the islands. Getting closer the mist looked wrong. It was the wrong colour, less the pure white of mist and more the grey-brown of wood smoke. Sure enough we paddled into it and you could smell the fire in it. While the rest of the group paddled to the portage, Wolvaroo and I took a little detour to check on the source of the smoke and hopefully find the owners of the lost map. Following the smoke to its origin, we met up with a nice retired couple and their dog. Their small campfire that was causing all of the smoke and it was amazing how the weather conditions were forcing that smoke right down onto the water. No, they hadn't lost a map but they invited us to join them by their fire to warm up. I guess we looked cold: I was in shorts after all. We politely declined and turned to rejoin our group at the portage.

Once in Bonnechere, we faced an important decision; we needed to find a site that offered maximum protection from the cold north wind. We passed by the site I had stayed on with my "trout'n" buddies at the opening of this year's trout season, only one day after ice out, and paddled to the site on the north shore with it forested back into the wind. We unloaded the canoes and everyone immediately scattered, each intent on finding those perfect trees for the night. It’s amazing how long it actually takes to pick one’s trees. Some people, myself included, wandering around the site for a good twenty minutes or more weighing our options, annoyed that some of the best trees were located around the thunderbox, the ubiquitous wooden box that serves as the backwoods toilet throughout Algonquin. Before long, a little "Hammock Ghetto" sprang up near the main clearing where Brantwing, Dan8tro, Ryvr, [o]TTer and Bubba had pitched their rigs. I found a couple of nice trees in a small clearing some twenty yards away. Wolvaroo, in an effort to optimize the warmth of his gear, set up deeper in the woods, his tarp staked directly to the ground. Very sensible. As I mentioned earlier, the rest of us had survived a winter hang with temperatures well below freezing. Wolvaroo would be pushing his three season gear to the limit on this trip.

With camp all set up, attention turned to dinner. I had brought some small lamb chops and wanted to roast them over an open fire. Eventually I grabbed my axe, Dan8tro grabbed his insanely wicked saw and, joined by Wolvaroo, we headed off into the forest behind the site to get some firewood. After a long search we found several standing dead pines, roughly twenty feet high and a good five inches across. We picked one, felled it down and sawed in half to carry it back to camp. Once there Dan8tro started sawing sections that I started splitting up into firewood. In no time we had a good stock of wood. Pine burns hot but fast and we'd go through our supply quickly, but that wasn’t going to be a problem. For years I’ve been given grief for carrying my axe into the bush, mainly from the ultralight crowd. In my view no piece of equipment is more valuable. Fire means life, plain and simple. In cold, wet, windy conditions when you’re on the verge of hypothermia, nothing knocks the cold out of you like a raging fire and the ability to get a fire going in those conditions is critical. Battening an adequate supply of firewood with a stout bushcraft knife is possible, but an axe will do the job faster and more safely. Suffice to say that on any canoeing trip, an axe and saw always accompany me.

Most of us had had little or no sleep the night before and we were all looking forward to an early night. I set up a "burn-down" fire and [o]TTer went to town shaving kindling. For some reason, the wood we had found was absolutely beautiful to carve. Dry and well seasoned, it cut like butter. [o]TTer was in his happy place. He then took firesteel to birchbark and got the fire going... first try. Once the blaze had burned down I grilled the lamb and shared the little chops with the group. Excellent.

Standing around the fire for a while, we just enjoyed each other's company, but before long the sleepless night and long paddle caught up with us and it was sleepy time. Settling into my cozy down cocoon, I was in my happy place. Through the night I could hear the wind blowing in the treetops, but my tarp only flapped slightly. Our campsite was well protected. I'm a light sleeper and at one point I could feel and hear some critter tripping over my guy lines. Not too long afterwards I'm sure that, just for a second or two, I smelled that wet dog smell. But then it was gone and I fell back asleep.

As I said, most of us didn't really get much, or any, sleep the night before, so we generally agreed that we'd have a lazy morning. We’d sleep-in and get a late morning start on what should be a short paddling day. I woke up at dawn the next morning to the sound of quiet voices coming from the Ghetto. It was brisk outside with temperatures just above freezing, and the prospect of getting out of my warm down sleeping gear didn't really appeal to me. But after lying still for half an hour, I unzipped my hammock (a DIY full zipper mod on my Hennessey Expedition), swung my legs out and, wearing only a pair of gym shorts, slipped on my wool sweater and teva sandals. Standing up I “adjusted my gym shorts” (polite phrasing for "scratched my butt") and stumbled towards the main camp.

There was a figure huddled over a small stove so I wandered over, careful not to trip over Brantwing's tarp lines along the way. It turned out that [o]TTer's was up already and had his alcohol stove flickering away under a Heinie Pot. We chatted a bit and it dawned on me that it was snowing. Snowing!!! [o]TTer was fully bundled up with long pants, jacket, shoes and hat. I on the other hand stood in nothing more than a light wool sweater, a pair of cotton shorts and bare feet and sandals. That not too unusual, I like the cold, and unless the weather's truly miserable, I'm usually in shorts.

I eventually hopped back in my hammock for while, but I my craving for a coffee dragged me out again. Slipping on a pair of convertible dry camp pants, socks, a down vest and a toque, I went to get my foodbag hanging high in a not-too distant tree. On the way back, I grabbed my cook-kit and headed back for camp. Although I had my MSR Whisperlite with me, I felt like giving my DIY BushBuddy clone a go. Reaching for one of the unused logs from the night before, I battened out a small pile of kindling, broke up one of the dead branches lying around and started my woodstove. I managed to get a nice little fire going until I realized that I had forgotten to take out the windscreen before starting the fire. I carefully dumped the burning contents on a flat rock by the fire, took out the windscreen and put it aside. Then, using the already glowing coals as firestarter, started the whole process over again. I found myself scrounging for small pieces of wood as my fire burned down, but that’s what I get for not using my woodstove too often. Meanwhile Bubba, also thinking about a hot breakfast, pulled out his own authentic BushBuddy and got to work processing up a nice pile of small wood. You could tell that he was a practiced hand because his preparations were meticulous, and he was rewarded with a good burn and a quick boil.

People were starting to get up now. Brantwing was hilarious, sporting a black hat with faux-hair coming out of the top that made him look like a "Raven Haired Fabio". It was a real laugh. By late morning, everybody had been fed and outfits were beginning to come down. It wasn't long before the Ghetto had been dismantled. For my part, I stuffed all of my gear back into their respective stuffsacks, waterproofed the dry gear in their large, heavy-duty garbage bag, and got ready to go. I usually use my bear rope to tightly wrap my down sleeping gear and clothes, using it to progressively compress them to half their original size. Since today was to be a fairly light day, I didn't bother with the rope, opting instead to just use one strap to reduce the height. No biggie. My Ostrum Wabikimi maxes out at a whopping132 litres or 8046 cubic inches. The only problem with a pack that big is that you have enough room to bring all kinds of crap and consequently my bag is usually one of the heaviest around. On my first solo trip I made the mistake of filling my pack, “because I could”, and the first long portage I did was torture. I still pack too heavy, but on the flipside, I've never been cold or hungry.

The sky was mostly overcast, although now and again the sun peeped out to warm the rocks by the shore. The wind started to pick up again and the snow began to fall more heavily. The forecast was definitely shaping up to be "sunny with a chance of flurries". To our east, in the sheltered main basin of Bonnechere lake, the snow fell gently in the sunshine but to the west it was a different story. Down the long narrow channel we'd be soon paddling, the howling wind was blowing snow quickly down the lake. It figured. The long range forecast had called for northerlies all weekend, and so far they had been correct.

We got ready to push off from camp. We had only about eleven kilometers and five portages to go. The snow had started to let up and I figured that we'd be able to make camp on Head Lake within about three hours of good paddling and portaging. [o]TTer launched first. He wanted a bit of a head start because although he had no problem keeping pace with the canoes, the headwinds would make it hard work. Next off were Ryvr and Bubba, eagerly hopping into their canoe and taking off around the rocky end of the campsite and up the channel.

As Brantwing, Dan8tro, Wolvaroo and I were getting ready to launch someone spotted a life jacket on the shore. It was Ryvr's, who, in his enthusiasm, had forgotten to put it on. It's funny because earlier Ryvr had remarked on some of his wife’s, Odd_Duck's, pre-trip comments, and mentioned that “she said I'd do something stupid". Forgotten life-jacket, yeah, that'll do it. Luckily the water wasn't too cold. Hypothermia wouldn't have been much of an issue if there had been a mishap, probably nothing more dangerous than a good old-fashioned drowning. Sometimes it's good to keep things simple.

We were soon all paddling north on Bonnechere, towards a shallow section where a long low rock outcropping effectively separated the lake into two parts. Dan8tro and Brantwing caught up with Ryvr and gave him his life-jacket, and they all wet footed it around the obstacle. Wolvaroo and I, on the other hand were wearing boots, so we landed by nearby and lifted the canoe up and over the small obstruction and were off again. The portage, our first of the day would be a quick 175m into Phipps Lake. So far everything was going well. We beached the canoes and donned our packs. I swung the canoe up on my shoulders and headed down the nice trail. When I popped out of the woods by a little creek mouth shortly afterwards, the group was milling about. Looking down around the put-in, I could see why.

Between the end of the portage and the edge of the open Phipps Lake, some three hundred metres away, was a flat land of grass and brambles. During the normal canoeing season, in midsummer, a deep creek wound its way through the marsh, carrying canoeists out to the main lake. Now, so late in the season, the creek had dried up leaving only a narrow trickle flanked on either side by wide mud flats.

Without dropping the canoe, I trudged past the group and moved into the bracken by the edge of the "creek". Just ahead the water looked to be about half a foot deep, just barely enough to float a canoe. Convinced that paddling/poling through this muck would be preferable to hiking three hundred yards through thigh high bushes and grass, I pushed the canoe out into the muck and followed behind. On my first step I sank to my knee in cold mud. By the second step I was up to mid thigh. The only reason I didn't go deeper was because I was able to lean forward and put most of my weight onto the canoe. In disgust, and partly in desperation, I hauled my muddy self up and into my canoe. The entire stern of the canoe was now a chocolaty brown mess. Meanwhile, Dan8tro had come up a few yards away on my right and had also taken a first tentative step into the muck still wearing his backpack. Quickly sinking into the muck past his knee, he found that he was stuck and needed help. Answering his calls, some of the other guys ran up. Carefully they tried to pull him out, but were rewarded with a groan of agony as Dan8tro felt his knee being twisted by the sheer suction of the mud. Convinced that his struggles were pulling him in deeper he shouted "I'm sinking!!". He was reassured that he was fine. He was in safe hands and soon he was free. Dan8tr0 had become a fully-fledged "Bog-Buster". All the while I was lying facedown on my canoe, unable to do anything but watch.

Seeing our plight, the rest of the group wisely chose to follow avoid the creek altogether and make their way by the forest's edge to the distant open water. Committed as I was to the creek, I managed to paddle and pole a little way before the water became too shallow to pass. The bushes along the south edge of the creek were just within reach, so I hauled my canoe over and stepped out, again sinking up to my knees before I managed to get ashore. Looking around I saw the rest of the group making good time along the north side. I hauled my canoe up on shore and began to pull it, fully loaded, towards the open water up ahead. There were few, if any, game trails here and we were all thigh deep in bracken and thick grass. For my part I had to cross several smaller feeder creeks, complete with sucking mud, along the way. In the spring I had managed to do a similar feat, but with an empty canoe, but the weight of all of the gear made the hauling very difficult.

Ryvr had been watching my progress for a while when all of a sudden I disappeared, probably at the point when I had tried to stride across one of the feeder creeks and had fallen forwards. Before long I popped up again, but this portage was turning out to be exhausting. A little less than halfway I stopped and unloaded my backpack and propped my paddles to mark the spot. I’d come back for them later. I continued to pull the canoe towards where the creek emptied into the lake and saw that the water here was maybe half a foot deep, again enough to float a light canoe.

By this time the rest of the group had made it to the north shore of the lake and were getting ready to push off. Ryvr called to me and suggested that I try to move my gear to the southern lakeshore beyond the marsh where launching might be easier. I was exhausted so with enough water to float my canoe in front of me, I decided to leave the it where it was and instead just carry my pack around to the far shoreline so I could pick it up in deeper water. I turned and began the long walk back to where I could see my paddles sticking up in the air. Once there, I shouldered my pack and started back. I tried to use the paddles as hiking poles, but although it helped at first, and it wasn’t long before I was dragging them behind me.

Separated from the rest of the group by the impassible muddy creek, I grimly considered the likely outcome of any number of scenarios involving myself and a raging bull moose emerging from the woods beside me. It was the middle of rutting season and bull moose are known to be ornery critters. There was no way the rest of the guys would be able to help me if anything happened. At best, they'd have ringside seats at the first class trampling.

So with more than a couple of glances into the forest on my right, I bushwhacked my way to the shoreline, managed to force my way through impassible thickets and blow downs, and finally placed my pack onto some flat rock by the water's edge. I made my slow, tired way back to my canoe, climbed in and, under the watchful eye of [o]TTer, paddled and poled my way into the open lake. My next challenge was now retrieving my pack, which was waiting for me on the south shore and retrieving Wolvaroo who was waiting for me on the north shore. Wolvaroo bushwhacked his way to an open spot in deeper water by a beaver lodge and climbed in. Meanwhile Ryvr and Bubba had very kindly offered to paddle to the far side to retrieve my pack. I don't think they expected it to be quite as heavy as it was and I recall seeing Bubba strain a little as he hoisted it into the back of their canoe. I never claimed to be a gram-weenie.

I can honestly say that the Bonnechere to Phipps Lake portage was the absolute worst portage I've ever had the displeasure of doing. Hands down. Give me a five kilometer portage or the “Pig” any day. Slogging through bog and bracken was more a grueling experience. I suspect we spent at least ninety minutes navigating a paltry 175m portage. Now, instead of arriving at our campsite in the mid-afternoon, we'd likely be forced to make camp a little before dusk.

Once again on our way, the paddle and portage across Phipps and Kirkwood were quick and pleasantly uneventful. I reclaimed my pack at the Phipps/Kirkwood portage and I'm sure Ryvr and Bubba were glad to be rid of the dead weight. The portage and crossing of Kirkwood Lake beyond went smoothly, so we decided to stop for lunch at the end of the next portage. This particular portage splits at the very end. The left opening onto the rocky landing of Pardee Lake to the north while the right fork continuing a few more yards to the shores of Lawrence Lake in the east. Luckily I had come through this area twice on last year's 2010 Fall Hang on our way to Lake Louisa some five kilometers distant. I pointed out that were had taken the wrong turn and that we’d need to backtrack a bit and take the left fork. Nonetheless, we stopped in the sunny spot by that put-in by Lawrence Lake for lunch and a bit of a breather. We all needed to refuel from the effort at the Bog and prepare to battle the headwinds that were already blowing down Pardee from the north. Baguette, mustard, mayo and enough salami to share, all washed down with some cold water; I had a fine paddler's lunch.

Now fully rested, we carried our gear back to the Pardee put-in and pushed off. It wasn't long before we had found ourselves at the end of the next portage into Harness Lake, one of the longer lakes on this particular route. Halfway across Harness, I looking over my shoulder and could see [o]TTer in his short kayak fighting his way into the stiff headwinds we had been battling all day long. A large spray of water lifted high as he drove his bow into the oncoming waves, spray that was caught by the wind and driven onto him; [o]TTer was wet from head to spray skirt, but his paddling jacket kept him dry underneath. Despite what looked like a real workout, [o]TTer kept grinning, the epitome of the "Mad solo kayaker"!

We finally arrived at the last portage of the day, an one kilometer portage into Head Lake and our camp for the night. Bubba and Ryvr were the first across, so after a quick talk it was agreed that they'd go ahead and scout out the several of the possible campsites we were considering on Head Lake. Unless they signaled to us, we’d rendezvous at the far western site that we had used on the first night of the 2010 Fall Hang. Dan8tro, Brantwing, [o]TTer and Wolvaroo soon arrived. [o]TTer’s kayak was proving to be fairly awkward on the portages, but without too much trouble they had made their way across. We got our gear stowed away and pushed off down a wonderfully thin, deep creek that wound its way towards Head Lake proper. There were only a few spots that were shallow enough to wade, but for the most part it was pleasant paddling.

Head Lake's a lovely lake. Not too large with a high hill running the length of the north shore where the colours of fall contrasted beautifully with the evergreens, framed as they were by the dark blue of water and the light blue of the sky. Gorgeous. This was why we had come to Algonquin.

Wolvaroo and I pushed off and soon Dan8tro and Brantwing paddled up behind us, followed by [o]TTer in his kayak. On the north shore we could see the small figures of Bubba and Ryvr paddling their way, checking sites. We aimed for the far western site, ready to head north at any signal from our scouts, but when they started to paddle our way we knew they'd rejected the sites they'd seen. I wasn’t worried. I knew the western site was well suited for hammockers, with an abundance of trees set back from the water. Unfortunately the landings were terrible. The two other canoes attempted to land around the windward north side while [o]TTer, Wolvaroo and I tried to find a sheltered landing in the lee of the south side. The best we could come up with was landing beside a large rock that sloped steeply to the lake. [o]TTer was able to wedge himself between some large boulders and get out there. We flung our packs high on the rock, careful not to let them roll into the lake. After a long and difficult day, we had landed.

The campsite itself was quite nice, with a large open area flanked by trees. To the northeast a thin line of large trees protected the firepit from the cold north wind that was blowing while behind us stood a grove of smaller trees, perfect for hanging a group of hammocks. There was a chill in the air and the clear skies promised a cold night that would probably get close to freezing. Wolvaroo, eager to find protection from the wind, scouted up and over the small hill that rose behind the camp and came across an amazing section of forest that truly had an Elvish air. Passing through the lower undergrowth and around a tree, as if through a gate, the trail opened up into a wide dell where a number of mature pines towered high above a forest floor almost devoid of undergrowth. In the centre of it all, four tall pines rose up. It was here that Dan8tro, Brantwing and Ryvr decided to set up camp, with Wolvaroo pitching his tarp a few yards away. Although outside, by the lake and in the main camp, the wind had continued to blow, here everything seemed still. Wonderful.

[o]TTer, Bubba and I decided to pitch our camp in the young stand of trees behind the main camp, the two of them head to head and myself a dozen yards away. When our rigs were set up, I grabbed my "bear rope" and Bubba and I went to look for a suitable tree to hang our food: a task best done before dark. We eventually found a suitable tree but after many unsuccessful tosses I was beginning to get frustrated. While I looked around for a rock, Bubba, the "Bear Bag Master", tied an impromptu "monkey's fist" knot onto the end of the rope, and after a few more tosses we managed to get it up and over the branch. For years I've used the rope & pulley method to hang my all-to-often heavy foodbags. A main line and pulley is thrown up and over a high branch and secured while a second rope is threaded through the pulley. Bubba had already taken out his evening's meal so we clipped his foodbag to the bowline at the end of the second rope and hoisted his food up into the tree. Neat.

By this time the sun was beginning to set, and it was getting close to dinner. [o]TTer and I walked over to the firepit where he had hung his gravity water filter a little earlier. I needed a refill and he needed to take pictures of the sunset. After topping up my two bottles, I grabbed my food bag and we all headed over to the dell for dinner.

By this time dusk was creeping in. Under the those tall trees everything was a little darker. The rest of the crew had already eaten and were sitting under the four large trees talking. Ryvr graciously allowed me to use his lifejacket as a sit-pad, and before long I had my MSR Whisperlite fired up and set a pot of water to boil. Bubba and [o]TTer fired up their alcohol stoves across from me and went about getting their meals ready.

Once my water had boiled, I transferred the water to my coffee mug and second pot. Under the red light of my headlamp I poured two large helpings of homemade dehydrated spaghetti and spicy meat sauce into my main pot and set it to simmer. When it was ready, I topped it off with fresh parmesan I had stored separately. I was starving and it was delicious. Just like home. By the time I set down my fork I was stuffed. Awesome!!!

I brewed a cup of coffee and broke out the can of Jalapeno Pringles I had been saving for this moment. Just sitting back and relaxing in that amazing dell, with a warm coffee and a great meal in my belly, that more than made up for the brutal portage on Phipps. In fact, the moment was actually enhanced by the memory of it. Things too easily gained don't hold much value for me. Looking around, I don't think I was alone. We had all come through a tough day and this was our reward.

Not long after dinner we retired to the hammocks. We were planning to get an early start tomorrow and to try to get to the vehicles as early as possible. Bubba, [o]TTer and I headed back to the main site, but made a detour on the way to hang our remaining foodbags. The cold north wind had blown the sky clear of clouds and the Milky Way shone bright overhead, so the three of us walked down to the same large rock that Vgnbkr, Shawnh, Michael and I had watched the stars one year ago. We spent a good while watching stars, taking pictures and talking before finally turning in.

Expecting cold temperatures and strong winds, I battened down my tarp and fastened my windward beak to the end of my tarp. I tightened the tension on my down underquilt and crawled into bed, confident that my winter tested setup would keep me warm regardless of anything Mother Nature could throw at me, short of a tarp flattening, tree uprooting windstorm. I pulled out my IPod and watched a little Ray Mears, the one about his canoe journey down the Missinaibi, until my eyelids began to get heavy. Accepting the inevitable, I turned off Ray just as he began to prepare Bannock, stuffed the IPod into its place on my ridgeline mesh gearsack and fell asleep listening to the wind blow in the trees.

In the middle of the night I awoke with a start. It was pitch black outside. Snap!! Snap, snap. SNAP!! I could distinctly hear the sound of branches breaking not too far behind my head, close to where I knew Bubba and [o]TTer lay sleeping. My heart started beating hard in my chest. Snap!! It sounded like something large was moving through the trees not more than thirty yards away. My first thoughts were that it was either a bear or a moose. Bear? No, too noisy. Moose? Probably. Okay, cow or bull? My first worry was that the moose might not see my black tarp in the dark and stumble into it by mistake, and destroying the silnylon tarp in the process. My second worry was that it was a bull moose and anything that I might do would piss him off.

The snapping continued and now I pondered the best course of action. Do I turn on my headlamp? Do I talk quietly and make my presence known. For all I knew, either course of action was all but guaranteed to bring a furious bull moose my way. In the end I reached down and slowly unzipped my netting. The last thing I wanted to have happen was to be trapped in a zipped hammock as a surprised and angry moose played "trample the burrito" with my head. I checked my watch and it was 2am. The thermometer read just above freezing. Meanwhile, the snapping continued, but more quietly now, as if the source was moving away. My heart rate slowed back to normal. I tried to relax and go back to sleep, but something was wrong. I thought I started seeing dim light dancing across my tarp. The northern lights!! What were the chances of having both moose and the aurora borealis in my campsite on one night??? Not very likely. Reaching out of my hammock, I pulled back the end of my tarp and peeked outside. From the direction of the main campsite clearing, near the firepit, came an orange glow that danced on the trees all around. As if almost on cue, I saw the clear white of a headlamp and in an instant everything fell into place. Wolvaroo had started a fire.

My train of logic was more like an old railway hand cart, but this was how it went. Conditions? Cold and windy. Temperature? Just above freezing. Fire? Someone was freezing and needed to warm up. That left who? Nearby lay eight winter tested hangers and one rookie on his first trip. Yup, Wolvaroo had started a fire, and all of the snapping I had heard was him getting it started. Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Wanting to make sure he was alright, I put on the same light wool sweater and sandals I had on the morning before, grabbed my headlamp and staggered over to the sizable blaze that Wolvaroo had going. Judging by the size of it, the rookie definitely had a bit of firebender in him. I must have looked a little nuts, showing up in shorts and sandals, but we stood around the fire and talked for a while. I learned that apparently Wolvaroo’s problems were twofold. Not only was the cold getting to him, but he also worked nights and his internal clock was making it very difficult to go back to sleep. He had already had a hot drink and was warming the rest of himself in front of the fire, stomping any of the embers that were being blown out of the fire by the cold winds. He had planned on keeping the fire going until dawn, by when I told him the time he had second thoughts. I told him about the hot water bottle in the hammock trick, reminded him to not burn down the forest and went back to my hammock and sleep.

Morning came quickly after that and I was determined to get packed and underway as quickly as reasonable. I lay in my hammock a moment longer "collecting my thoughts" as it were, when my hammock shook with a sudden lurch and I heard Ryvr urge me out of bed. Up and out I came. The weather was clear so I circled my tarp pulling pegs and then rolled it into its snakeskin. I removed all of the gear that hung from my ridgeline each night; IPod, asthma spray, knife, camera, watch and headlamp and threw them onto my pack’s open raincover. Soon my underquilt and sleeping bag were compressed in their stuffsack and being shoved into their garbage bag, followed by my clothes bag. With the garbage bag end rolled tight, I started packing my remaining gear, and within a few minutes I closed my pack and carried it to a sheltered area a little closer to my canoe. I fired up the Whisperlite and brewed up some water for coffee.

The "Dellers" began to show up and as I was finishing the last of my coffee, life jackets were starting to be put on and canoes carried to the water. I switched out of my sandals and back into my hunting boots. I had managed to dry them out fairly well overnight from the soaking they had received in the bog and I had a nice warm pair of wool socks on. I knew we had a 1600 metre portage ahead of us and I wanted to be as comfortable as I could be. People seemed to be leaving the site from all over. Dan8tro, Brantwing, Bubba and Ryvr from the north and [o]TTer, Wolvaroo and myself from the south again. Wolvaroo helped me move the canoe down to the water and we rested it between the same steep sloping rock and a small deadfall.

We were about to throw our packs in and I warned Wolvaroo about how slippery the algae growing on the waterline could be. Famous last words. No sooner had I said it than my right foot touched the algae, slipped, and plunged into the water. Trying to steady myself, my other foot caught the slime and went in as well. I could feel the cold water flood my boots and rise past my knees. With no traction at all on my feet. I fell forward and desperately clutched at the rocks to try to stop slipping in all the way. It's not unusual for a rock face like this to plunge straight down into deep water and I was seriously concerned that I'd be up to my neck in no time. Luckily my foot touch bottom just as the water was rising to my crotch and Wolvaroo had sprung down to lend me a hand and haul me up.

I was pissed. Seriously pissed. I had never been so clumsy before. I suppose I was more tired than I thought, but that was no excuse. If things had been a little different, I could have easily been swimming or worse. Chard the "sure footed woodsman". I noticed that blood was dripping from my left hand. My left ring finger and pinky were bleeding freely, the tips having been scraped off as I scrambled for a handhold. Annoyed with myself, I threw my pack in the canoe, Wolvaroo and I hopped in and we paddled after the rest of the group to the portage, not more than a few hundred yards away.

By the time we came ashore at the portage, everyone had already pulled their gear to the top of the landing. I hopped out into the water and started to unload as well. I brought my pack a little way up, sat down and took out my first aid kit. The ring finger was still bleeding so I applied a couple of waterproof bandaids. I then unlaced my boots, pulled them off and drained out the water. Following that, I took off my wool socks and wrung them out. Ryvr helped by putting a bandaid on my right ankle where it had gotten raw portaging in my wet boots after the bog incident. I put my socks and boots back on, all hopes for a dry portage gone. Instead I'd be squishing my way across a kilometer and a half of trail. Nice. I was pissed, but sh*t happens.

I shouldered my pack for the last time, flipped up the canoe and took off down the trail on my own, leaving several guys including [o]TTer, Bubba and Wolvaroo behind me. Fortunately the trail wasn't too bad. Although long, it was fairly flat, with only one very steep but short downward slope near the end. I stopped at around mid-way, dropped my gear and had a water break. Within a few minutes I loaded up again and finished the portage. Along the way I passed Dan8tro and Brantwing walking back towards Head Lake.

The northern end of the Head to Cache portage is marked by a steep set of wood stairs that descend to a small platform. From here the canoes need to be taken down to a small beach and loaded. With my canoe, paddles and pack back in the water I sat down to wait for the rest of the crew to arrive. Hearing a commotion, I looked up to see four guys bearing [o]TTer's kayak down the stairs. They had passed two large branches through the handholds at either end of the kayak and were carrying it stretcher-style. Quite the production. Eventually all of the gear was brought down to the beach and we loaded up for the last time.

Now Cache Lake can be a little tricky to navigate. It has numerous small islands, channels and bays, and I had gotten turned around there before. Carefully taking note of the cottages and marking their position on the map, Wolvaroo and I headed out on the final leg of our trip. Shores that had until now been pristine forest now gave way to a number of small rustic cottages, on land leased from the crown. For as long as I've been traveling to Algonquin, I've always admired those cottages and dreamed of how nice it would be to be able to spend a season up here in one of them. For me they are truly the essence of Ontario's cottage culture. We paddled towards a seemingly unbroken forested shoreline that miraculously opened up into a narrow channel, and onwards to the edge of the main basin of Cache Lake. On the hill to the north, I could begin to make out large transport trucks moving along Highway 60 and I knew we were close. Rounding the last bend we could see the light colour of the parking lot, wood docks and the shine of cars.

The 2011 Fall Hang was over.



Survival is about getting out alive, Bushcraft is about going in to live.