AUGUST 2009
Algonquin Provincial Park

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Participants

Mike Reilly   Bill Yacovissi
Bob Alspaugh Mike Alspaugh
Don Gfroerer Hans Krohn

The Route
Put in at Access 3, south then east to Misty, Big Trout, Burnt Island, McIntosh, and Little Trout

Distance
63 miles, 54 miles by water and 9 miles of portaging.

We left Wellsboro at 4 am Sunday, picked up Buffalo Mike on the way, got our canoes from Algonquin Outfitters, and arrive at Access Point 3, Algonquin Provincial Park around 3:30.
We paddled a short distance on Megnetawan Lake and made camp.  It was a small campsite.

Unfortunately it was cloudy and cold form the remnants of hurricane Bill.  It's always a downer to start a trip in the rain.

It got cold overnight, probably down to the low 40s.
The next day dawned bright sand sunny but still a bit cold.

We paddled out into mist on the lake.
Don stepped off the dock at then end of this portage.  He quickly found out why they built the dock there.  He was out and rescued by the time I got there and none the worse for wear except for being muddy.

I instantly had this vision of a memorial service in Wellsboro.  We lost Don to the muck so all we recovered was his blue campaign hat.  We had it on a pedestal in the Presbyterian Church.  You get the idea.
We continued down the Petawawa River.
You run into a lot of beaver dams on these trips.  They are a pain but they do keep water in the river so you don't have to drag your canoe through the muck, something we've done a few times.
The view from our camp on Misty Lake.
My new tent pitched at our camp on Misty Lake.
Algonquin is a long portage area.  You can't go far until you have some long carries.

The good news is you  have some trail improvements.  On more wilderness parks like Quetico you would just slog through the mud and the water to traverse this marsh.

Buffalo Mike is carrying a double load on this portage. 
The Petawawa opens up into an area known as Grassy Lake.
We found a great campsite on what we thought was Big Trout but was really still White Trout Lake.

The camp had a throne chair made of rocks that I availed myself of.
Most of the camps in Algonquin have various improvements.  On the one hand these detract from the wilderness aspect of the trip.  On the other hand they are convenient.
I always like to have a picture of my tent pitched in a particularly nice and scenic spot. 
A beautiful sunset ended out second day of paddling.
The next day started cloudless as you can see.

Baltimore Mike calls these brochure days and so it was.
Hans and Don enjoy the morning paddle
Unfortunately we discovered we were paddling in the wrong direction for about and hour and had stopped short the previous evening by about a 1 and a half. 

We mistook a channel between and island and the shore in White Trout Lake as the entrance to Big Trout Lake.
We figured out our mistake retraced our route for another hour, then finished the distance we should have made the previous day.  So about 3 hours after starting

Finally we get to the end of Big Trout Lake and start down Outterslide Creek.
We made camp on Little Outterslide Lake rather than Burnt Island in view of the morning detour.

The weather was cool in the evening.  Baltimore Mike has his gloves on.  On the other hand the wine is getting suitable chilled.
Another brochure day dawned as we continued the trip.
A plane landed on Burn Island Lake as we paddled across.  I thought it was a ranger maybe checking permits but it turned out to be dam maintenance.
Unfortunately we repeated the mistakes from the day before in not settling the navigation issue and took the wrong channel out of Little Doe Lake which made the day a couple of hours longer.

After all the years of following Jim and his GPS it was not that we lost the ability to read the maps it was we forgot the protocols we used to use to use to avoid getting lost.
Once we reestablished navigation protocols we didn't get lost anymore.

We found another nice camp on McIntosh Lake.

A fabulous full moon rose over McIntosh Lake.
I think of these pages as a journals rather than photography pages.  I select photos that tell the story of the trip rather than good photos.  

It's nice to have both but story takes precedence over photos.  I'm going to break that rule now with the following artsy photos.

Sunrise over McIntosh was spectacular.
Don sitting on the rocks watching the sun come up.
One last shot of the sunrise over McIntosh as a loon swims past the sun's reflection.
Later in the day we flushed a moose out the water lilies. 
Our six night's camp on Little Trout Lake.
Saturday was another spectacular day.

The wind calms down overnight and often in the morning the lakes are perfectly still. 
Maybe this isn't such an unusual phenomena but I still find it strange that such a big body of water can be so still.
All things must come to an end and after six nights and seven days we're reading to have the trip come to an end.

Despite the navigation problems, it was a good trip.


The End