Trip Journal/Log/Report/Diary:
Trip Notes
- ate lunch at "The Porch" in Huntsville, great patio, service, and food.
- camped at Pog Lake the first night to get an early start on our trip
- Opeongo Outfitters provided canoes and Water Taxi.
- Portage into Proulx seems harder than it is when you haven't carried a pack in a year! Where the path splits, we have to take the hill unfortunately.
- The rivers into Big Crow are a great paddle
- The 3750 into Hogan is a challenge. We took the packs through to assess the path and found it easier to carry the boat through the cart trail in the middle part of the portage to avoid a monster hill!
- saw a young beaver and many frogs on the little madawaska river.
- saw no people for two whole days on La Muir. We camped on the south side of the lake, but there are many excellent sites all around this lake.
- take advantage of the calm water early in the morning on La Muir.
- would like to have camped on Red Pine Bay, will definitely return to stay on this gem.
- avoided two portages into Longer by wading our boat through the small, rocky, rapids, a nice way to cool off on a hot day!
- Big Trout is a frequently visited lake, some of the sites showed signs of wear. We camped on the west side of the mouth of the Otterslide creek. Another very nice beachy site was around the bay to the west of us.
- paddled up to take pictures of the little otterslide creek falls on our day off.
- marshes out of Big Trout are a challenge to navigate. Had to check direction on the compass and lift over a beaver dam! Saw the first moose of the trip out here though so the confusion payed off.
- only one moose sighting on this trip in August.
- Happy Isle Lake is heavily camped but does have nice sites, one on the island with a great stone couch!
- portage into the north arm is long but easy.
- during this trip we decided that camping on Opeongo is a disapointing way to end a trip, the sites are abused, the wind is killer, and there are too many people to take when you've been in the backcountry (if you stayed there the first night you probably wouldn't notice this as badly!). Next time we'll take the water taxi straight out.
- a good trip, in spite of the colder weather this August. It'll be the first time I can say I way lying in the hammock wearing my winter coat in august!!