It's down to single digit days before I go

In fact this time next week, I'll be back and sleeping it off at Leslie and Mark's place....hopefully with a ton of stories and pictures..

WEll, upon review and consultation of a trip-planning website that calculate travel time based on ability and how many carries you typically do across a portage, I've rethought the three-portage into Parkside BAy route; by the calculations, doing a double carry across 3 portages totalling 1.4 kms was at LEAST 90 minutes longer than doing the single double carry across the 250ish metre Smoke Lake/Ragged Lake portage, even with then having to paddle around the point and back into Parkside bay....

As well...

You might have noticed that, instead of veering east at the bottom of Smoke Lake, I'm going the other way and doing a three-portage route into Parkside Bay. Now, in light of the fact that unless I find a way to really go gear light this trip I'm looking at double or even triple carries across these portages...and that'll epically suck....so, I know you're asking why do three portages instead of the one into Ragged Lake and then just paddle around and back up...

The thing is, though...I have no idea how long it'll take from the put-in at the top of Smoke Lake down to either the portage into Ragged Lake or the series going directly into Parkside Bay...Could be 2 hours, could be 4...and depending on when I get there, That could make it early to late afternoon and then do I REALLY want another 1-2 hours going the long way around through Ragged into Parkside???

Two factors, then:
1) possibly getting there near dinner and then having to set up quickly.
2) the sites being filled up and having to settle for something less than good...


The real factor, I think is going to be how efficiently can I pack???
If I can do double carries, then the 3-portage route makes wayyyy more sense; it's faster and far more direct...If I am doing 3 carries (or more, let's be honest, last year was not a banner year for gear efficiency...) I'm doing ONE carry and paddling the long way around....

Well, this is the route I'm currently planning to be day 1 of the three day solo run from Smoke Lake Access down into Parkside bay, then down into Big Porcupine to camp, then exploring up into Bonnechere for the rest of the day....

I love this map, which was put together by a guy named Jeff McMurtrie.

Really an outstanding job of combining a topo map with an informational brochure format...truly a work of art and love and a great resource to use...his map is truly awesome. He's pretty much married to APP and does at least one 30 day trip a year. All the history and information he's able to stuff into that map, including parks that border APP is really sweet.

Ok, so we're far farther along than we were:

In the past couple of days, we got off our butts and booked a few camping trips (ok, 4, but better than the zero we had booked before this)

There's a KOA Kampground over-nighter for us guys and the girls (neither Leslie or Grace have camped with us before)

Sam and I are going to Frontenac in the end of May (potentially brrrrrr) over night..

Then, the one that concerns, excites and generally occupies my mind at the moment: a 3 day SOLO in APP for MOI!!!!

More in another post

Looking at where to go this year...

There's the same old choices; Frontenac, Depot Lakes, Algonquin. etc etc
And it's hard, in the middle of February to be thinking, trying to put my thoughts into the summer and think "Now, where would I WANT to be on July 15th or August or whenever?"
It's hard to NOT see the snow and cold and ice everywhere and find my sunny hot "happy place"

Though I know that eventually I will be on Gould Lake and Big Salmon and even maybe Smoke, Canoe or Galeairy Lake and paddling.
This thought from here as I sit here at 6 in the morning on February 17th will still be there (here?) as I read it in 5 months and I'm here in July...

I realise I need to move on a coule sites before they are taken but as well I want to not just pick a day to just pick a day.

Trips we need to think about:

1) over-nighter with Danny and Phil
2) over-nighter with Gunnar and Joachim.
3) over-nighter with Sam and me.
4) over-nighter with Sam, Grace, Leslie and me (KOA).
5 1-27(kidding) nights with just me.

All that plus Bon Echo and the Cottage..

PLUS day trips...
PLUS beach days....

oy.....

Already looking at 2009 trips.

Hopefully, I can get a few more day trips into the schedule this year.