March 2012

Well, the trip in June/July 2011 was a real adventure; Went down Cache Lake to the portage...1640 metres although a flat trip. It took the better part of 2 hours to do a double carry....then a short 1/2 hour canoe across Harness lake, got lost a bit then would my way down this reedy canal/wetland creek to the portage into Head Lake. Only 1100 metres but seemed way harder than the first one...took as long if not longer....FINALLY got across and was done for the day, so found an island site 10 minutes paddle from the put-in...was nice and secluded(turns out I had the whole lake to myself)

Two years on

I never did go the three-portage route...Went straight down Smoke Lake to the 245ish metre portage, over that, down and then around to the first site in the bay...lovely site...Whole trip in took about 3.5 hours..almost 2 of that getting to the portage and over and then on my way again.

Went again to APP with Danny the next July, this time up through Canoe Lake, into the Joe Lake System, up through a couple lakes into Tom Thomson...was fun but again crappy weather cut a trip short by a day....

Next week, the July 1 weekend, going up to Canisbay with the clan, a day there then soloing down through Cache to Harness and then the next day to Louisa lake and back to Harness,then back to Canisbay..

We shall see how that goes.

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.