organizer: Jeff McColl
participants:

report:

Queen Elizabeth Wild Lands Prov. Park.

April 24 to 29, 2010

The goal of the trip was to go from Head Lake up past Fishog and Crooked lakes to Victoria and Wolf lake go westward by pond hoping and see if a route could be established across to the Black river and then pond hop south to Smudge Lake and then back to Head Lake.

I left home in Milton at 5:30am and was on the water by 9.  I borrowed a Swift Raven to try out so I knew the boat would be a little faster.  Because of my butt and sitting problems I took a kayak paddle so I could keep my muscles balanced, usually in canoe I am a sole righty.  The temp was just about10c and not a breath of wind, and only a few black flies.  The weather forecast was for rain later in the day or evening.  I arrived at the top end of Crooked Lake by 12:30, which is about 18k with 4 portages, 3 are very easy wide trails, the one from Head lake to Fishhog is steep but easy to traverse when you are fresh.  I was still feeling fresh, and the temp was 20c.  With the forecast still in my mind and the wind picking up I made a bad tactical error, I decided to push on.  In the 70’s there used to be a trail network from Fishog to Victoria, much of that has grown over, one cement dam is partially washed out, and the years of drought enabled a lot of vegetation to grow in the shallow waters, but the beavers have moved in and their dams have kept it paddle-able for canoes.  With the low water this spring there are no sort cuts through the swamps, you must stick to the small narrow channels.  Some of the old trails are easy to pick up, because of the clear granite ridges, but I still had to clear small dead falls out of the way so walking the gear was easier, or there was no other way to get to the easy put-ins.  There lower areas where there is some soil, the brush that is a mainstay of the beavers is incredibly thick and hard to push through, and the ones that are chewed off are deadly.

There are 4 small lift overs beaver dams up to the washed out dam where the Head river heads north to Victoria.  It is a short 25m carry around it to the next small lake, which are about 200m long.  If you are looking for a soft landing the portage here would be about 300 m long and the climb on river left (east side) is not that steep.

In higher water it should be pretty easy to line the boat upstream or paddle down through.  I paddled up as far as I could and carried my gear up a 3m rise and walked 100m to a beaver dam at the top of the narrows.  I was able to just lift the boat and go from pool to pool to get it up.  (Too much of a chance of injury on the slippery rocks to carry the gear)  Because I thought I was going to carry the boat, I attached the yoke, but left it attached when I decided it would be easier floating the boat.  This is when I noticed that I was tiring and should have camped.  When I took the tightening toggle off I juggled it and dropped it into some deep water……

In a straight line it is only about 350m to the next portage, but because of the low water levels it is about a 500m paddle through the meandering channel.  If there is some trail clearing there would be an easy walk up the ridge on river left  (east side), it would be about 400m long, but because of the time it would take to clear I again paddled up the narrows and climb up a steep hill about 15 to 20m high, I still had to push some dead fall out of the way and clear some lower dead branches from a couple trees to make it safely to an open ridge.  It was easy to spot the old trail, but at the end of the ridge there is about 50 m of that beaver bush to push through…and as I get more tired, you misstep on those sharp chewed pieces and stumble a few times, but I continue to push on.  In higher water you should be able to line the boat in both directions, running most of it downstream except maybe the very narrow drop in the middle. Boulders steep sides and a lot of thorns make carrying the boat through the riverbed not a good idea.

At the put in there is an older cached aluminum boat, abandoned now; the oars underneath are rotting away.  50m upstream from the boat is the next pull over and this is where you see the results from the years of drought.  There is no way even a small aluminum boat could get up, but canoes J.  There are 2 more pull over’s till the river opens up to another small lake.

The portage into Victoria is on the river right side (west side) is not too steep and a hour of clean up time would make this a very easy carry, but because of the growth over the old trail there is a bit of a meandering walk and because of a large number of logs at the lake exit the portage is about 300m, I still had to clear some deadfall.

A short paddle on Victoria and you come to the portage into Wolf lake, a short 25m long flat wide trail.  At this point it is now 6:45pm, it has been a warm day, and even though I have already drank 2litres of water, I know I am dehydrated, bruised and tired.  3.5 hrs to go 18k and over 6 hours to go about 8k…..  So I decided to camp right on the spot, it was flat, gravel and a breeze to keep the black flies at bay and I was too done to go any further to find a site on the lake.  I should have stuck with the original plan and camped on Crooked Lake.  I should have known better.  The only thing I cannot do is sit for long periods of time because of my “displaced” tailbone.  Ego/trip goals got the better of me and I paid the price for the rest of the trip.

First thing I did was refill my water bottles, twice, set the tent up and lied down for half an hour.  Even though it was really dry, the position between the 2 lakes and the gravel underneath made it easy to set up my wood stove near the water so that any sparks that did come out would go over the water.  The sunset was not very colourful that night but the different layers of clouds did make for a neat effect.

I had already decided I would need to rest for a day (from sitting) and awoke to a beautiful sunny day, I was just pouring my coffee when a cow moose stuck it’s head through the opening of the trail, (queue The good, the bad, the ugly music) my camera barrel was beside me and I tried to slowly reach for my camera, the moose freezes but as I lift the lid starts to turn and move away, that is when I see the calf, a quick shot with the small lens through the trees and then change to the big zoom for some shots.

Being right on the Ganaraska trail I go for a hike, following the trail is not too bad since there are no leaves, but through some of the swampy bush areas I see it would be very difficult to keep an eye on the trail markings.

The one thing I have noticed the entire trip to this point is a complete lack of birds, both waterfowl and forest birds, even though it is warm and the bugs are out.  Most of the time paddling there is no sound of birds at all, very eerie for this time of year.  Only a handful of ducks, 5 pair of geese, no Blue Jays warning your arrival as you paddle, even he rookeries on Head Lake had a much small number of nesting birds.

I went for a paddle to scout out my proposed route for the next day and found that the first beaver pond was not active and you would have to be a mountain goat if you wanted to carry the boat.  At this point approaching the beaver dam is where my bear spray got snagged and “removed”, most likely by a very thorny bush, I didn’t realize I had been pick pocketed until later.  When I backtracked where I had been the thorns almost took my hunting knife off.  I searched the water but with the muck and depth there was no way to see if it was there.  (note to self, place bright colour on black bear spray bottle)

The portage to the pond system to the north was short (about 150m) and only bushy for the second half.  A quick hike to a small valley and system that would take me back to where I wanted to be was way to bushy and swampy on the bottom and the mountain goat would be needed again.  A quick climb to some high ground and it was easy to see you could paddle the one system easily.  I continue to paddle along Wolf lake to where the pond system comes in, and there is no way as easy as the short carry to access the system.  This is where I find the balloon wrapped around some small plants.  After a short snack and drink I paddle along the cliffs on the north side of the lake.  Even though the winds where very strong out of the northeast it wasn’t that bad in the shadow of the cliffs and it made for a very “Deep” relaxing paddle.

It was still nice and warm, and even though they’re where some black flies out of the wind they were still well with in the tolerable range.    By the time evening rolled around, it was still windy but with nice clear skies and the loons calling from lake to lake.

Next morning I was up fairly early and still no sign of cooler weather, a strong wind out of the northeast.   I got to the first carry to the next pond and started working my way west.  In many of these ponds the straight line distance is not very far, but you have to work through a lot dead heads some times or some small tight little channels.  When I arrived at the next series of 3 beaver dams  (2 small 1 over 2m) I climbed up the ridge to get a view of the next pond.  It is a great way to scout these waters because once in it is hard to see your way.  If I had a partner I would have been through here in about 10 minutes because it would have been very easy and safe to leftover the big dam.  So it took 30 mins. instead, It is not very far but there is no trail and you have to be careful walking through the rocks and raspberry brush.

Once loaded I was just taking a drink of water before pushing off when I noticed a large black object under a 100m away and I did not remember anything that black when I scouted from the ridge, then it started to move and I knew it was a bear.  So first I watched which direction it was moving and it seemed he was in full searching mode, even though the wind was blowing directly from me to him he was not responding.  Since he was where I had to go I was not overly confident since I had lost my bear spray, so instead of grabbing the camera I stood up full view in the middle of the dam and started to blow my whistle.   3 sessions of about 15 seconds each did nothing except make my ears rings, at this point again not want to create a surprise meeting I pulled my bear banger out of one of my cargo pants pockets and put it together.  The next problem was because of the extreme dry conditions I was very wary of one of the ends going in to the dry brush starting a fire.  The first time practice shot I did 2 nights ago at least gave me an idea where the fired bits would go.  So I fired it off and instead of watch the bear reaction I watch the two bits fall into the water, (one whew!) I then look up to see the bear starting to run away, stand up and identify what I was and then take off quickly. (2^nd. Whew)

At this pond I had 2 choices to try and find a way to the next water shed, the one at the far west end of the pond was the shortest but the brush was incredibly thick and hard to walk through, if there had been leaves it would have been that much harder.  The other way was up a ridge the portage would be approx. 400m and would have been clear to the last bit, so I took option 3…. By myself I found that I was working way to hard, getting too tired, stumbling through the bush, not stopping to take the time for pictures, losing equipment, (lost the second toggle to the canoe yoke in-between the two small beaver dams….) so in general not a smart combination to be doing in the bush by yourself.  If there had been a partner or several boats lifting up some of these ridges would have been easy, this trying to establish routes through the park would have to wait for another day.

By the time I got back to Wolf Lake the bugs in the out of the wind areas where pretty fierce so I paddled out into the lake and drifted to eat my lunch.  I drifted into the southeast corner and decided to hike the snowmobile trail towards the next lake at that end.  It quickly intersected with the Ganaraska trail.  You could pond hop to the next lake with a couple of quick portages, even hiking was less than 10 min. and the lake … pictures do not do it justice, It would be worth the carry just to camp there.   That’s the thing about this park, there are a few areas that you stay in that are just breathe taking, and because it takes a bit of work to get there are incredibly unspoiled and gives you the feel of being alone with the world…  (Insert Zen moment here)

I decided to camp on the portage trail between the lakes again, mostly because with my wood stove I could have a fire.  Any of the other spots because of the dry weather I just felt I could not safely have a fire.  The cool weather finally showed up and the bugs where slowing down, so I decided it was time for the bath,  Heated up some water, and had a great bath with about 4 gallons of hot water poured over your head after soaping up. (had to get purdy for this pic)  This was the point how bruised my shins actually where.)

It was a very cool night and the wind started to blow very hard in the early morning hours, the forecast on the radio was a chance for snow squalls in the afternoon, so anticipating the cloud cover I paddled to the high ridge on the southeast side of Victoria Lake and by the time I got there the conditions where perfect.

Another thing about this park is even when it is cool, if you get out of the wind on the rocks, it can get very warm.  Everywhere in his park there are a ton of hiking possibilities, when you paddle along the north shore of the lake you see how rugged this stretch of the Ganaraska trail is, and the stretch along the south shore of Wolf lake would be very hard to follow when the leaves are in.  On the way back to the tent I stopped to move some floating logs away from the takeout to head to Crooked Lake.  Back at the tent, a quick cup of coffee and some time to play with the camera, first trying to catch the sun reflecting off he water and even though there is a bit of prism effect in the image, you get to see how many reflections there is of the sun to make the flash of light you see.  What do hatching black flies do when it is too cold to get off the water….. they form working groups to take over the world…. Then it gets warm and they just lose it and attack instead.  It was too windy, even for a fire here so I set up a windbreak and sat in the sun behind it, and the temp dropped some more, no snow but there was some ice pellet squalls but most of the bad ones went either side of where I was.  The windbreak came in really handy to cook dinner, the wind finally died down enough to make a fire by the water.

Up early the next morning but did not rush, and when I got to he portage and having the approach clear was nice.  I carried my camera out for the first carry incase there was any wildlife, there was an Otter, but I think it either thought I was a bear or it had a bad experience with people because it hit the water at full tilt and I did not have time go even get the camera up.

I took my time going back to Crooked, I needed some images for the fight for access in this NWPA thing for minor waters of less than 3 m…. (long story, getting longer)  the weather being much cooler made the carries much easier, that and the fact I knew where I was going and had cleared any dead fall out of the way.  I stopped for some side exploration at the small stream you can cut over to the Smudge Lake and found that the beavers have moved back  and started to rebuild the dam.  Even in these dry conditions there was some flow, and with any luck it should cut off a 4oom portage.  There is a nice camp site just above the narrows of Crooked lake and I decided to camp there, it’s a nice site with one of the few areas to actually put tent pegs in.  Again with the very dry, very windy conditions it was unsafe for a fire, for picture taking purposes it would have been wiser if I set up camp on one island in the narrows.  Not a great site for camping, (just semi flat granite) but would have offered better views.

Next morning was nice and bright with no wind and just a good temperature for paddling, I explored the shores of Long lake looking for picture opportunities , the wind picked up and at the south end of Long Lake a cow and calf moose were grazing along the shore.  The wind was blowing in that direction so I set up the boat to be blown in that direction and it worked perfectly and was rewarded with a perfect pose.

Out of the wind it is very warm on the portages and the black flies have re-emerged, I stop for lunch at the falls where he Head enters Fishog.  By the time I enter the wind is fairly strong out of the west and I paddle across to the north shore to avoid the chop and save some energy, it is here for the first time in 6 days I stop and talk to a retired couple.

 I almost feel guilty to have that much area all to myself (not!)  I will return to try and finish the loop, but I will have to find some help to do it.  But if I end up on a solo trip again in this area I will remind myself to slow down and just enjoy being there.

Jeff

Rest of pics

http://community.webshots.com/user/jedi_jeffi?vhost=community

Story with pics mixed in

http://www.myccr.com/SectionForums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=35761