Triplogs / Triplog#36 / Days 3&4 / Days 5&6 / Days 7&8 / Day 9 / Days 10&11 / Days 12&13 / Days 14&15 / Days 16&17 / Days 18&19 /Days 20&21
Lake Opeongo(IN) - Merchant L - Big Trout L - Hogan L - Big Crow L- Lake Lavieille - Dickson L - Lake Opeongo(OUT)
Day 20 - Wed. September 27th
Temperature Readings:
7am: 6°C
8:15am: 7.1°C
3:30pm: 18.3°C
Inventive Algonquin Park rangers manufactured
superb camping facilities
It was good to get up and not have to worry about carrying a canoe 5+ km's. That feeling made for a leisurely coffee and oatmeal breakfast. We packed up, and with just one pack each...we strolled across the long portage to Bonfield Lake. It was a relaxing walk through the forest. I saw a leech on Bonfield Lake as we were un-loading at the take-out for the trail to Wright Lake, and I did not tell Joan about it! This trail is only 260m, with a slight incline, then a long shallow descent to Wright Lake. The landing is like a scooped out hole in the bank along the shore. The paddle across Wright Lake was peaceful, we landed and then began our last portage of the trip. We were to camp for three nights on Opeongo's east arm. We carried our gear over the trail which rises at first then crosses an old logging road, after which it descend rapidly, tracking it's way through the red pine stand that populates the eastern shore of that part of the Lake. We arrived at around 1pm. The water was quite rough, and Joan didn't want to paddle in it, so we quickly selected a site, a few campsites over from the portage landing. The entire group of campsites along the shore were all empty. We were all alone, and had the whole beach to ourselves ...really nice! Joan and I set-up camp, then strolled around our never-ending beach and red-pine forest. More signs of the powerful destructive force of the July storms was very evident as we walked along, from campsite to campsite. There were trees down all over the place..in some cases there were whole trees, uprooted. It must've been some storm.
An uprooted tree within sight of the memorial to James Dickson
A late September Thunderstorm approaches
The sky moments before the storm struck our campsite
At one campsite, we came across signs of ill-responsible campers. Someone had poured a huge amount of salt on a tree stump, obviously to attract wildlife. Not a good idea! I also found compressed gas canisters stuffed under a log. Two were empty, and a third was full. I scooped them all up and took them home. One campsite had A++ facilities. I surmised rangers were busy clearing a campsite of fallen trees, when they decided to get creative, and constructed a picnic table out of wood. Very nice! By 3:30pm it had begun to cloud over in the west. It was very warm, with a trace of humidity in the air. Fifteen minutes later, I heard thunder and looked west, I saw a darkening sky, complete with lots of forked lightning. By 4:30pm, the storm struck, there was lots of lightning and thunder, a few times there were lightning strikes close enough to make us jump in our tent. The storm lasted for a good hour, and by 5:30pm it was over, another storm skirted by, bring more lightning south of us...over Annie bay by the looks of it.
The red pine stand that our campsite was nestled in
Day 21 - Thurs. September 28th
Temperature Readings:
5:30am: 11.6°C
8:55am: 8.9°C
10pm: 6.5°C
It was another grey morning. It was quite wet outside, and finally after 9am I got up, or rather I was forced up. I heard a motorboat coming. Joan heard it too, Hurry up! Joan said all of a sudden, go flag down that shuttle, I'm not paddling out of here. We had two more nights, but Joan wanted to move closer to our exit. I wandered over to the Cart trail, as this is where the shuttle had pulled up to. It was an AO shuttle, and the fellow there was loading up a group of four fishermen. I asked the fellow, if he could shuttle us down to the south arm. I was asked where in the south arm specifically. I thought about this for a moment, taking into account both Joan's concern for rough paddling conditions and my weariness of the seemingly never-ending rain. "Somewhere near Bates Island", I said. "Bates Island!", one of the fishermen said. I shot back, "Oh, that was over 15 years ago". "yeah but did ya hear what happened there this year?" the fishermen continued. The was a long pause. I looked around. Fishermen, such jokers! We had a good laugh all around. Simon, the helmsmen of the shuttle said he had another party to pickup, and that he would be back for us in one hour. Perfect, that gave us time to pack. I walked back and told Joan the good news. An hour later, as promised Simon showed up, I helped load the canoe on, then Joan and I loaded the rest of our gear onto the boat, while Simon tied down our canoe. $70 was the cost to ferry us from one arm to another. Not the most economical way to travel around with a canoe, but the shuttle deposited us at a well protected campsite with a sandy beach and landing ....across from the tip of Bates Island. We set-up camp, then paddled to the docks at Opeongo.
"Simon" of Algonquin Outfitters was a good lad,
shuttling us with great efficiency down the lake
Dave Harman and family chatted with us at the docks of Opeongo
We landed at the small beach landing, grabbed my car, and headed into Whitney, leaving my canoe on the beach. Before we did leave, I drifted over to the permit office to look at the weather forecast. The weather called for partially sunny skies the next day, and not surprisingly rain on our last day...Sat. the 30th of September. It was supposed to be a 23 day trip, but we had enough of the rain. So we decided we would leave a day early, tomorrow morning. We picked up beer in plastic bottles, some liquor in plastic, and pop for mix, we ordered pizza, and picked up some hot dogs too. Then we drove back to the docks. A family of on-lookers were there. It was Dave Harman and his wife and kids! We last saw Dave on Big Crow Lake, eleven days earlier. "Leaving already?" was Dave's greeting. What a hoot! No, we already left, now we were back! We explained that we were leaving a day early, and tonight was our last night, so we loaded up on beer and pizza. Yum!
We talked with Dave and his family for about 15 minutes. His family was camped at Mew lake. I asked when the colours were going to peak? Dave told me that they peaked a week earlier. Both Joan and I were surprised. Not much of a peak in colours..I guess all the rain had indeed muted the colours. Dave asked us to stop by on our way out. We said our good-byes, and paddled back to camp. Our spirits were high that night, as we got a good fire going and we stood around the fire drinking semi-cold beer and cold pizza ..boy was it delicious! Joan and I were talking back and forth, when I heard an odd sound. It came from behind the campsite, in the direction of the thunder-box. The closest I could come to describing the sound, was it sounded like an empty oil drum being moved. Odd. Maybe there was a campsite over the ridge on the other side?
A hurried blurry image of a young bull moose,
passing through our campsite
Pizza and Beer: A tasty way to end a trip,
into the Interior of Algonquin Park
Some fall colours on Lake Opeongo
Joan heard nothing and continued her conversation. I heard the resonating sound again, sounding closer. What was that? Not one minute later I heard a loud *SNAP* as a branch snapped clean. Not the kind of snapping you hear in the forest, while you are in your tent at night, camping solo, but the loud snap of something stepping on a tree branch. I looked up, not 20 feet away, and slightly behind a large pine, was a bull moose, standing there staring at me. Holy Crap! I interrupted Joan's sentence, saying, "Hey look, a moose!" "Yeah, a moose, right, sure", Joan's manner changed when she looked up and saw the moose standing there, her mood changed to awe. Mine was near panic. It was rutting season, and I was concerned what the moose might do. The real problem was that between the moose and us, was my camera hanging on a tree. I studied the moose. It wasn't a prime bull moose ..perhaps one of only 3 or 4 years of age. Its rack was not very large. I slowly crept forward and grabbed my hanging camera bag. As I did so, the moose snorted, and turned 90°, and with that, it snorted again and walked away into the forest. It was almost a snort of disgust. I believe that the moose had come down to our campsite to drink from the lake, and we were in the way. I fired off two hurried blurry photos of the moose. All I captured was blurry antlers ..might as well have been branches sticking up, 'cause that's what it looked like. We stayed up late, till nearly midnight. Of all the rain and grey cloudy days we had, the moose appearing on our site, made a terrific end to our trip. It is magic like that, that keeps Joan & I coming back to Algonquin for more.
>Next Page - Day 22