We planned a nice leisurely day to drive up to the park, set up camp at Coons Lake, do some site seeing and head out early on Sunday. That is until I got my invitation to my granddaughter's 8th grade graduation for the drive up day. My Son and grandson were also going on the trip so we made the most of a beautiful day.
The new plan was to drive at night and start when we got there so's not to screw up the reservations.
We paddled to the bottom of Rock Lake only to find we hadn't gone far enough to the west at Picto Bay and there was a 1700 meter bonus carry between us down in Forest Bay and where we needed to be over on Penn Lake.
The Carry wasn't too bad for our 1st long carry, no steep climbs and lots of board walks. The area was very dry and this was the only carry we had problem with the bugs.
I found a large round leaf Orchid, but as usual not in bloom.
The next day we made the short paddle across Penn Lake and up the Galipo River to the 2100 meter carry over to Welcome Lake.
By the time we got everything over the wind was blowing up whitecaps board side to our intended route and thunderheads beyond that, so we opted on staying there for the night.
The next morning the wind was still blowing but the skies had cleared. We paddled north thru Harry, Rence, Frank (where we were supposed to have stayed the night before) and Florence.
There's a 1700 meter carry into Louisa that needed a little work to get around
On this carry I figured out why its called Canoe Tripping.
http://vid56.photobucket.com/albums/g179/sweeper54/Algonkin 16/Canoe Tripping.mp4
On Louisa we decided to to go straight north into the lake instead of the 1400+ meter carry to the west into North Grace and to spend a down day on the big island at the west end of the lake.
After setting up camp we did a little fishing and swimming
This is where we spent the day cleaning out the fire mound. See Down Day thread
http://www.canoetripping.net/forums...discussions/general-discussion/47951-down-day
We headed north again thru Rod & Gun, and Lawerence. At Pardee we picked our original route and carried over to Harness and onto the 1000 meter carry to Head Lake.
Not a lot of water in that brook
We camped on the point on the west side of the lake and found very little fire wood, same thing on the island back on Louisa. These sites are pretty well picked clean.
The next morning we had a visitor that didn't want to go away.
We paddled into Head Creek and then into the Madawaska River and crossed many unmaintained beaver dams. It looks like all the beaver have left valley. Some of the dams were breached, all were in disrepair, which made sections tough to paddle.
My stepdaughter's canoe was attacked by a Loon in the narrow channel behind Pog Lake
We pulled out at Rock Lake around 3 pm set up camp at Coons Lake and headed over to the Cafe at the visitor center for a quick meal.
A great 1st trip, we'll be headed back there next year to try another route, better prepared.
The new plan was to drive at night and start when we got there so's not to screw up the reservations.
We paddled to the bottom of Rock Lake only to find we hadn't gone far enough to the west at Picto Bay and there was a 1700 meter bonus carry between us down in Forest Bay and where we needed to be over on Penn Lake.
The Carry wasn't too bad for our 1st long carry, no steep climbs and lots of board walks. The area was very dry and this was the only carry we had problem with the bugs.
I found a large round leaf Orchid, but as usual not in bloom.
The next day we made the short paddle across Penn Lake and up the Galipo River to the 2100 meter carry over to Welcome Lake.
By the time we got everything over the wind was blowing up whitecaps board side to our intended route and thunderheads beyond that, so we opted on staying there for the night.
The next morning the wind was still blowing but the skies had cleared. We paddled north thru Harry, Rence, Frank (where we were supposed to have stayed the night before) and Florence.
There's a 1700 meter carry into Louisa that needed a little work to get around
On this carry I figured out why its called Canoe Tripping.
http://vid56.photobucket.com/albums/g179/sweeper54/Algonkin 16/Canoe Tripping.mp4
On Louisa we decided to to go straight north into the lake instead of the 1400+ meter carry to the west into North Grace and to spend a down day on the big island at the west end of the lake.
After setting up camp we did a little fishing and swimming
This is where we spent the day cleaning out the fire mound. See Down Day thread
http://www.canoetripping.net/forums...discussions/general-discussion/47951-down-day
We headed north again thru Rod & Gun, and Lawerence. At Pardee we picked our original route and carried over to Harness and onto the 1000 meter carry to Head Lake.
Not a lot of water in that brook
We camped on the point on the west side of the lake and found very little fire wood, same thing on the island back on Louisa. These sites are pretty well picked clean.
The next morning we had a visitor that didn't want to go away.
We paddled into Head Creek and then into the Madawaska River and crossed many unmaintained beaver dams. It looks like all the beaver have left valley. Some of the dams were breached, all were in disrepair, which made sections tough to paddle.
My stepdaughter's canoe was attacked by a Loon in the narrow channel behind Pog Lake
We pulled out at Rock Lake around 3 pm set up camp at Coons Lake and headed over to the Cafe at the visitor center for a quick meal.
A great 1st trip, we'll be headed back there next year to try another route, better prepared.
