Just a brief reminder and request for submissions of info regarding portage and campsite info to everyone heading out on interior trips. Those of us who are traveling with young kids or are getting a bit lame in our older years sure will benefit from knowing those details while planning our trips.

There are downloadable and printable "worksheets" to take along with you .. to make submissions easier to document.

Remember, we all get old sooner or later .. or may find we're bringing along a wee one or two!

http://www.algonquinadventures.com/PCI/PCIindex.htm

Barry Bridgeford
http://www.AlgonquinAdventures.com
http://www.ABRweb.ca .. Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry

Thanks for this reminder Barry.... I'll be sure to do this on our next trips (we have two coming up).

Laurie
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
www.outdooradventurecanada.com
www.wildernesscooking.com

Barry,

Are you looking for the same information for the backpacking sites as well?

Jason

Barry, you may want to include an example of a portage and campsite PCI so the reader has an idea of what is needed. Sometimes folks think that a lot of effort is needed to create a PCI, so they think it's too much trouble. The example can be added to the "Worksheet and Aids" page. I'm planning on printing 20 copies of each and giving them to our crews this weekend - hopefully they will fill them out and turn them in.

Carl

Jason

I haven't included backpacking campsites at the present time. But if you were to send some in, I'd incorporate them into the existing PCI format.

Barry Bridgeford
http://www.AlgonquinAdventures.com
http://www.ABRweb.ca .. Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry

Hi Carl

If you burrow into the PCI's "Alpha" frame, you can "right-button-click-load" individual reports into their own web-browser-windows and print them up one-by-one. Those that are already in the project are good examples.

http://www.algonquinadventures.com/PCI/PCIindex.htm

Barry Bridgeford
http://www.AlgonquinAdventures.com
http://www.ABRweb.ca .. Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry

I have the forms printed and ready for our trip in two weeks!

Thanks Barry for all the info you post on the AA message board. As a rookie canoeist I have learned lots.

Your panorama shot on Booth Lake caught my eye. Is that the lone site on the second lake? I will be taking my first ever trip to Booth August 14-15 and I was thinking about this site. It looks great from the pic.

Thanks,

Paul

Hi Barry,

I'll be providing you with over 4 dozen completed PCI campsite & portage forms (incl supporting pictures) from all corners of the park - but won't have time to start submitting them until November or December this year.

SM

Thats too bad, I kinda like not knowing whats around the next corner.

You don't have to browse the campsite inventory if you would prefer to make your own discoveries.

Thanks for saying that James. I was sitting back here, biting my tongue! LOL

Barry Bridgeford
http://www.AlgonquinAdventures.com
http://www.ABRweb.ca .. Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry

It's when reading the posts on the forum that it gets hard to avoid an unwanted deluge of information/photos. I don't mind a bit of info when I'm researching places to go, but lately there has been just so much posted, that it leaves nothing to the imagination, or for other people to discover on their own.

I would prefer that excruciating detailed info be confined to the PCI project, where I can have the choice to view it or not.

It's amusing to me the way everyone is now in favour of the PCI project. A few years ago, I asked Markus for some recon about two campsites, and the whole place went into an uproar. I was "accused" of planning to start up a database of campsite info. Wasn't my intention at all, but the indignant reaction to that assumption was strange.

Now we have the PCI Project, and Jeffrey's map....and everyone seems cool with both sources of detailed information.



Barbara
(finally stopped biting her tongue)

Nobody has to visit this forum or look at any map if they dont want to.

LeoV

Really?

so what am I supposed to do...let's say I'm been reading a thread, keeping up-to-date with it, when suddenly someone posts a whack of photos. I get no warning that they been posted, so it's pretty hard to avoid seeing them.

How exactly does not visiting the forums solve that problem? (That is one of my least favourite answers, by the way...extraordinarily unfriendly and detrimental to the well-being and continued existence of any forum.)




Barbara

I understand where you're coming from, Barbara, and I also feel that way sometimes. On the other hand, sometimes I find a series of pics really interesting and want to view every single one. On some days, I want to get a lot of info about an area I might want to explore. Other times, I want to leave some mystery. Sometimes, when a thread goes in another direction, you've got to let it go. There will always be more the next day.

Exactly what I mean. If you are not interested in certain information dont look for it.
Nothing unfriendly intended.
LeoV

Wow Barbara. I would never have believed that posting pictures of my trip could spoil YOUR trip!
I do understand that the surprise of what is around the next bend is important, but it needs to be balanced with an awareness of what your route is all about.
Even if I have looked at hundreds of pictures of the area I am going into,(which I do!) I don't feel that the experience is spoiled in any way! Even returning to an area I have been to before, seems like a new discovery all over again. Imagine paddling into a lake and saying "Oh s**t, this is just like Tom's picture! Damn Him!!"
I am curious as to what your solution is? Don't post pictures. Be vague in your descriptions?
I suggest that you be a self censor and only look at what interests you.
I know that you posted that this is difficult for you, but I think the majority would like complete trip reports with pictures. Am I wrong?
Maybe you want me to post a warning in front of my posts that there are "spoilers ahead!"

I must not have explained the issue properly. I wasn't talking about threads titled "Trip Report from Lake XYZ". I was talking about general threads, that start out discussing/asking info about an area, and people post suggestions, and general help. Then, boom....a whole bunch of photos.

There's no way to avoid seeing them....there's no warning.

If the photos were posted in their own thread, titled "Lots of pics from the area of Lake XYZ", then I could choose to ignore or read.

But when they are dropped into an existing thread, or a thread that started out about one area, then veered off to discuss a different area, there's no way that I can "choose" to see them.

Hope that makes what I mean more clear.



Barbara

OMG! its the attack of the killer photos! they snuck up on me.....and....and....ruined my algonquin trip!!!........ahhhhhhhhhh!

It would sure be a different story if we inventoried every great fishing hole and posted GPS coordinates ,now would'nt it!........just saying

I find it intersting how peoples opinions can change overtime, even Barry himself.
To each thier own. I am just saying at this point in time I agree with Barry's origianl Statement. See below

http://www.network54.com/Forum/352882/message/1121115590/last-1121192570/Drawing+a+line+..

I have to say that reading information about a trip or seeing a lot of photos from the area has never ruined a trip for me. In fact, it has often encouraged me to go to lakes, Sunbeam or Louisa for example, that I would have never visited otherwise. Hearing of another person's experiences doesn't detract from ours - it enhances.

An example... in a few weeks Bryan, Tobias and I are staying at Welcome for 2 nights and then moving onto Louisa for 2 nights. Had it not been for Markus posting about the same area on his website (that's the trip where his canoe went on a little excursion of it's own - lol - sorry Markus)... I could never have talked Bryan into that last portage from Louisa to Rock.

Basically I am of the thought that those who are so serious about tripping that they don't want info... don't really participate in internet forums. You can always see when a thread is starting to turn... if that happens... no one is forcing you to continue reading.

Laurie
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
www.outdooradventurecanada.com
www.wildernesscooking.com

To Mike, Barbara and all

That 2005 comment was definitely "pre-crunch" for me. The following year, I started feeling some minor "age-related" limitations creeping up on me. Along with them came a realization that not everyone is in the youthful or middle-age "prime-of-their-life".

I started becoming more aware both of those who plugged away at Algonquin backcountry trips regardless of difficulties .. the blind lady being helped along by her husband on the portage from Pen to Rock .. the fellow on arm-assist-canes hauling his pack along a Barron River portage .. regular AA'ers commenting on the forum about bad knees, sore shoulders and such.

I also came to realize that many families were searching for child-friendly routes, by which to introduce their wee-ones to the backcountry, without undue risks and rigors. I recall one person even planning a "last backcountry trip" to take their aging 'gramps' along on.

Irony of ironies, I'm having to sit-out this summer myself. This spring I was diagnosed with a herniated L4-L5 and have surgery scheduled for this fall. Next season, I'll definitely be exercising appropriate "age-related" caution in the routes I select. I hadn't foreseen that at the age of 62 I would be personally benefiting from the PCI Project. I guess it just goes to show that we all get old, things do happen and we just never know!

To sum up, the PCI Project is dedicated to all old, young and otherwise challenged Algonquinites.

Barry Bridgeford
http://www.AlgonquinAdventures.com
http://www.ABRweb.ca .. Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry

Ok, so no one gets what I'm talking about, no matter how I tried to explain it.

whatever.

rainbows, lollipops, & sunshine




Barbara

Basically I am of the thought that those who are so serious about tripping that they don't want info... don't really participate in internet forums. You can always see when a thread is starting to turn... if that happens... no one is forcing you to continue reading.

Yeah, that's right, I don't have any experience in participating in internet forums, or experience with seeing when a thread is starting to turn. Stupid me, eh?


Barbara
Moderator &
Assistant Administrator
http://www.myccr.com/SectionForums/index.php

Time for us to all step outside and chat with the birds. Sometimes they make more sense anyway.

It's like the old "TV saying". If one doesn't like the program, there is an off switch.

Love you all.

Barry Bridgeford
http://www.AlgonquinAdventures.com
http://www.ABRweb.ca .. Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry

I just talked to a Blue Jay!

LOL, I understand you Barbara, and I feel the same way. If I am reading a thread, and come across info that I didn't want to hear or see, I quickly close the thread. I know how youy feel, I like being surprised, we just need to vigilant and hope too many things are not spoiled for us. But, you can't blame people for posting pics and whatnot, this is what this forum is about. One, of the problems, probably is that this forums format. There are no sections and sub sections. If you had an areas like other forums with headings like, Trip Logs, Off Topic, General Discussion, Equipment, etc.it would be much easier. Than you could just avoid the trip log section, and if anyone posted info or pics in the wrong area, they would suffer the wrath of the moderator. But anyway I am rambling...

Gordie

http://www.solotripping.com/

http://www.abrweb.ca/

Interesting side discussion on the "spoiler" effect of photographs. I've never viewed photos that way ie as a "spoiler".

Photographs always represent someone's interpretation of the scene.

Here is an illustration. Go to Google. Switch to "Images" and then google "Moon and Half Dome". You will get a ton of Ansel Adams famous photograph (one of my personal favourites). But, you will also get a few, more recent, colour photos. Some re-creating Adams viewpoint, some not.

I know that none of these photographs represent the actual reality I would experience if I made the trip to Yosemite. So,for me, none of them would in anyway detract from my enjoyment of the Half Dome should I ever get there.

In the same way, photos of Algonquin, however well done and beautiful, are just one person's interpretation of the scene and once I get there my experience of the place will still be uniquely my own.

As for speaking to the birds ... well one of the local urban Peregrine Falcons did zoom by my office window a short while ago ...

Peter B.