Sunday, September 21, 2008

Day 3: 08-12-08 Tuesday










Lakes / Rivers: Flindt River

Distance: 12.5 km (7.8 miles)

Portages: 6

Swifts paddled: 3

Time: 4:39

Last night was a little warmer than the night before. My alarm already set from a couple days ago went off at 0500 am. I knew no one would be getting up right away, so I tried going back to sleep. By 0530 am I was ready to get up and by 0550 am I was out of the tent. I'll have to remember to set my watch for a little later in the morning.

It was still dark out, but I could see some fog on the water. I got my camera and tripod out and took a few photos.

I started the morning fire, so Dick and I got the coffee ready to go. By now everyone was up and moving about the campsite.

Dave usually gets up, comes over to the fire, and begins preparing breakfast. This morning was no different. Breakfast was fresh eggs; mine were done over easy, potato pancakes, dried cranberries and ham. Another fine breakfast I should add. Oh, and the coffee!

We broke down camp and were on the water at 0833 am. Looking like it’s going to be another hot day. The weather sure has been cooperating for us so far. There were some hazy clouds with no wind when we began our day on the water.

It was only about 2 km to our first portage of the day. Dave told us the other day about these portages. They were going to be tougher than the ones we’ve experienced so far.

Today’s first portage was on river left. This portage was 85 meters long. I’ve been stepping off the portages, since we began our trip. There were some rocks, but overall the portage wasn’t in bad shape.

The second portage began by us paddling through a swift starting on river right then moving to the center. The portage was on river left. There were some downed jack pine trees blocking a direct access to the portage. Dave and Dick stopped their canoe on the upstream side of the trees. It looked like Pete and I could hit a small opening just past the down trees but just above the rapids to get closer to the portage. I explained to Pete my plan of action of him paddling on his right side. I would be paddling on my right, also. I would tell him when I needed him to do a cross bow draw. We made it, but we were still a distance from solid ground due to all the rocks. We formed a line so Dave and Dick would hand us their packs over the down trees where we would carry them to solid ground. I guess maybe the correct term would be we carried the packs to “the soft, wet, muddy dark stuff”. Both ends of this portage were muddy. Length: 250 meters.

We saw several candy wrappers, Werters hard candy and a Kool-aid single wrapper, at the start of the portage. There was some recent chainsaw work done on the trail. The First Nation Portage crews are the only ones allowed to clear trails using a chainsaw. Later, I noticed on a couple more portages that had been cleared with a chainsaw had some more Werter candy wrappers left on the trail near the chainsaw activity. This portage trail was very rocky with some slight elevation change.

Just like most of all the portages so far there is only enough room for one canoe to unload and load at both ends. There were many blueberries lining the portage trail.




























There was a swift before the third portage that was on river right. The approximate length was 90 meters. The portage was rocky at the start and the end.

The forth portage was a short distance away on river left. There was a better landing about 10 meters up from where we stopped, but I didn’t see it from the main landing. The first part as very muddy, more blueberries and the final 20 meters followed the river and the footing was tricky.

The fifth portage was on river left, but we needed to paddle through a swift to get to it. It is to the left of a second swift. The portage was very rocky for 136 meters.

There was a campsite on this portage. There was enough room for one 2-person tent. The campsites are few and far between. When you find a site, the tent areas are usually not ideal, but that’s what’s it like camping in a boreal forest.

The sixth portage was on river right. We had to ferry across the river to the portage that was just around the bend to the right just before the fast water. I couldn’t see where the portage was until I was on top of it, but I figured that was the only place it could be located. Once you paddle in particular area you begin to figure out where the most likely spot would be for a portage and what to look for.

There was muck at the start of this portage, along the trail and at the end of it. I was portaging one of my packs across the portage when I came upon Dick who was just recovering after falling in the muck. He warned me about the sucking mud. We ran another swift area after this portage.

We stopped for lunch on an island campsite at 0112 pm. We had pita and cheese, gorp and dried fruit. Dave checked his maps and determined there wasn’t another known campsite until Tew Lake, but there were 6 to 7 long portages to get to that known campsite.

We voted to stay on the island campsite that was actually pretty nice. We made the decision to stay at 0200 pm.

Pete cleaned his gravity water filter that pretty much stopped filtering water this morning, but its now flowing again, so we can all fill our water bottles and hydrate ourselves.

Earlier today I jammed my ZRE paddle between two rocks while waiting in line behind Dave and Dick at one of the portages. When I pulled my paddle out I punctured a quarter inch hole opposite the power face of the paddle. Later on while paddling I felt my paddle flutter in the water a couple times on the power phase. I knew I had a good catch each time it did this, but I couldn’t figure what was going on. Then about a half hour before we stopped for the day I notice that my handle was loose in the shaft. I put some duct tape around it until I could epoxy it.

I’m not sure if the epoxy is going to set or not. I either messed up on the mixture of the resin or hardener, but my guess it’s not setting properly due to me using Purell brand Hand Sanitizer to clean the areas I needed to epoxy. The epoxy is only semi-hard…not good! If it doesn’t set over night I will have to use my new Whiskey Jack paddle that Pete’s been using this trip. He likes the Whiskey Jack better than his own paddle. A day or two ago Pete was using the Whiskey Jack paddle so I thought since it was my paddle that I would give it a try. I took about 5 strokes with it and handed it back to Pete and told him “that sucks”. Pete keeps telling me he will buy the paddle if I don’t like it.

















While at the campsite I noticed a sand beach on the far east shore. Dave and I paddled over for a refreshing swim. Dave also did some laundry in his self contained collapsible bucket. While there we found two aluminum boats that were cached and chained up. Pete and Dick stayed at camp and began cooking the fresh chicken. The chicken needed to be cooked, but we weren’t going to eat it until lunch tomorrow. Pete also began brewing some coffee.

When we were done with our swim we paddled over to the west shore in a bay looking for an outpost camp that we had marked on our map, but we didn’t locate it.

Just before Dave and I paddled over to the sand beach I twisted my right ankle. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it really hurt like hell and it throbbed for a long time. I immediately took some ibuprofen. I couldn’t believe I did something like that in camp of all things. Hopefully, I’ll recover. My ankle is still very sore.

Pete began cooking dinner. We were having Bear Creek Cheddar and broccoli soup with three cheese tortellini. Afterwards, Dave cooked up some dessert. He made Raspberry Sturdiwheat pancakes. Dave refers to these as “hippie pancakes”. These were a nice treat. We ate them like a muffin and not like a pancake with syrup.

It looks like we went about 10 km today. I haven’t been figuring out our distances on this trip, but I’ll do it once I get home.

We all sat around the fire tonight and talked a while before going to bed.













No comments: