Hi All ,,,,

It's been a terribly busy week, and while I have returned from my first solo trip in the park for almost a week now, it is only now that my trip log is ready for reading.

For those interested, it can be found at:

http://algonquincanoeing.blogspot.com/

As always, comments are welcomed, encouraged and appreciated!

Jeff P
http://algonquincanoeing.blogspot.com/

Thanks for sharing, Jeff. How did you find your paddling skills suited to soloing? Were the lakes pretty calm? If not, did you find you were still able to handle it quite well?

Way to go Jeff!

Did you read that Racoon....triple portages....and you thought I packed a lot!!! LOL

Nice story Jeff and it sounds like you had a really good time!

My first solo trip into Algonquin was to Kenneth Lake (which is my name by the way other than Bo) and faithful reading of this site will know why I never went solo again for a few years!!!


Bo

Nice little jaunt, Jeff! That dry spot on the ground gives me a warm, cozy feeling for some reason.

When you say triple carry, do you mean that you head from point A to point B, back to point A and then to point B again?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I've always referred to this as a "double" carry...two trips with gear in the direction from A to B. I figured it was what I would call a double carry based on taking about an hour to do a 900M portage. I can't imagine you tripled that portage in an hour...that would mean roughly 4500 meters of portaging! If you did, you are DA MAN because that's a solid pace!!!!

Nice report and great map!

Hi all

Thanks for the comments and feedback, I appreciate them!

Bryce, I would still consider myself relatively new to portaging, but on the canoe I feel very comfortable. I still need to work on my J stroke, as I still rotate my paddling from side to side for course corrections at times. I lucked out with the weather, and the lakes were really calm until I was on the final lake back to the access point, where the winds picked up, and I had to paddle close to shore by virtue of the winds.

Bo Knows, To be honest, I thought I packed light, but in the end did have a few items I could have left at home. Seeing as this was my first solo, I thought I would play it safe and not risk carrying everything at once. When I packed my gear, I deliberately distributed some of the gear in my day pack, as I decided to do multiple hikes the night before I left, thats probably why it seemed like I was carrying a lot of gear. Also, my main blue pack is the smaller (75 L) model, unlike the more common 110 L option (http://www.lebaron.ca/pdf_files_sp08/camping/eureka_barrels.pdf).

PaPaddler, when you ask "When you say triple carry, do you mean that you head from point A to point B, back to point A and then to point B again? " YES thats what I did. I thought that was called tripling because I ended up hiking the trail three times, but yes, I can see how it could be called a double carry, as only two of the hikes are with gear. Yes though, the P900 was done in about an hour, in all it added up to about a 2900 M. I didn't stop once, for fear that if I stopped, I would have a hard time starting back up. Besides, the bugs were the worst on that portage, and hence made for a good incentive to move fast. I'm not ashamed to admit though that I was very tired after that portage, and was not looking forward to doing it again the next day (although it did seem easier the second time). I'm still a novice in terms of portaging, and so I think I will keep my portages to a maximum of 1 km for now, and doubt I will be single portaging for some time yet; I'm pretty strong, but not "strong like bull."



Jeff P
http://algonquincanoeing.blogspot.com/

Hey Jeff, Jeanine and I have talked about trying a single portage trip for over 10 years. I somehow think it's just not going to happen. Maybe next year.
Glad you had a good trip.