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		Travel Logs

Travel Log #6

Algonquin Park Portage

Having never portaged or done any serious hiking, Nancy and myself decided it might be better if I went on a preliminary trip into Algonquin with someone who has done it before. Terry and a Andy are both experienced campers and fishermen. (by the end of the trip, I have decided that fishing is not for me...). The goal of this trip: travel up the Nippissing river, hike or portage into an area called Cold Spring, and do a little fishing.

Before we left, we pulled out the map and got the coordinates for the lake and fed it into the GPS unit. Terry had flown over this lake before, so he knew what the terrain should be like... and he was confident it would be a short portage in and out.

Algonquin Park - River as smooth as glass

We ended up leaving a little later than expected...so by the time we got to the park, rented our canoes and got our tow across the lake, and made our first portage (almost 2 K!) it was getting pretty late. Darkness was just starting to fall, so we made a mad dash to the first camping spot... just barely making it before total darkness.

We had a great time that night... but decided that we had definitely brought along too much stuff. We condensed our packs of anything we could do without and left it hanging in a tree (against park rules I found out later!). There was no way we could have made it as it stood though. LESSON 1: Pack as lightly as possible!

We had 2 canoes between the three of us. We swapped packs every portage... Two guys carrying a canoe each, plus a lighter pack, while the third person carried the heaviest pack with the food, plus held the tent and some paddles in his hands. LESSON 2: Equal number of people for the canoes!

The trip was a constant seesaw between amazingley exciting and total boredom. Being out on the river was beautiful, but the non stop paddling at some points became monotonous. The winding path of the river made it exhausting, we would paddle for hours on end, and seem to be getting nowhere. Everything looked the same and we got very frustrated. (even after Terry warned us about this part).

We were there pretty early in the year (the idea was to get there before the black flies and mosquitoes came out), so a lot of the trails hadn't been cleared. We had to navigate across a couple of fallen logs while portaging, plus climb over, or go under a couple of log jams in the river. To tell the truth, it was nice to be able to get out of the canoe for a minute to stretch your legs and back.

Rob with Backpack and canoe.

Unfortunately, it was an early spring, and we got swarmed with both mosquitoes and black flies

Algonquin Park - Terry canoing under log

(plus it was freezing at night). No one brought bug repellent so we had to try to always keep moving. LESSON 3: Always bring bug repellent, even if you think you won't need it!

Other than these minor distractions, the trip was an amazing experience I won't soon forget.

Nancy and Myself will be going again next year for sure!

Algonquin Park - Peaceful canoing down river

Algonquin Park - Heafty portaging incline

This is the part of the trip that never seemed to freaken end! We just kept paddling around these bends non stop for 8 hours...

Yup, we had to carry a canoe and pack up that (and many other) hills

This was by one of our camping spots. Maybe hunters?

There were many areas where rapids made portaging the only option. I think there were a total of 12, with the largest being over 2 kilometers.

This is the creek that (from the air) we though we should be able to follow to Cold Spring lake. At this point we realized this we never going to happen. We whipped out the GPS and started hiking in. This was hard going. There was these crazy Alder trees that seemed to snag us at every point. We sank up to our knees in marsh and were hounded every second by Mosquitoes. It took about an hour of this before the forest opened up and we saw our target: Cold Spring Lake itself

By this time in the trip, I had decided that I was not much of a fisherman, so i just sat back and relaxed as the other guys went fishing. Since they didn't have a boat to get to the middle of the lake, they only seemed to get a couple of small bites. Terry went for a walk around the lake, and eventually caught a nice speckled trout, but threw it back because it was too far back to the canoe.

Well, here it is, the end of our quest. Cold Spring Lake itself. Not very visually impressive, but because of it's remote nature (no trails leading to it, and no direct boat access), Terry loved the fishing here. I think the whole thing was more about the journey that the actual destination though

Wondering where is it? Cold Spring Lake
(Terrys going to be pissed if you guys fish it out though!)

Just a quick follow up. It took less than a week for Terry to call me, and see if I was up for another trip next year back to cold spring. This time by an alternate route... more to come (maybe!)