Boreal bailout

[Iskweo]

I saw the weather report for this week and when the option of a cabin stay in Ear Falls was officially taken off the table I decided to get outta Town for a few days. There is a nice spot by Bissett MB that gets me onto the lower Wanipigow River. We have been there a couple of times. It used to be quite pretty but burned about 4 years ago. I thought it might be time to scope out the portages to see what work they might need.

Another consideration is that it is a short easy paddle that gets me to a good campsite in a couple of hours at my speed.

I threw together some gear at short notice, which I further pared down later by leaving some in the trunk of the car. Yes car. I dug the old roof racks that Mem gave me out of the garage and bolted them onto my Buick after some slight alteration. I have to say, they worked awesome. In the spirit of get er done, I left final packing to the morning of departure. Once it was all stuffed into packs, which I had had to reassemble the night before, I sauntered over to the hardware store to round up some muscle to get my Cottage Bruiser out of the rack in the boathouse. That was too easy and I was on the road by a respectable 10.00.

I was on the water by 2.00 with the first port only 300m away. That one turned out to need some deadfall cut out and a little trail reconstruction done. As I got to the far end I saw two moose swimming the river just an easy rifle shot away. I grunted a couple of times and they stopped to look at me. Nice start to the trip.
From there I paddled rather slowly up the Wani looking for a small creek that supposedly empties out of another lake. It appears to be not running any more.Quick port across a small island then across a pool to my campsite.

Wow. The fire hit here full bore. Trees down everywhere and just a lot of bare rock. No problem. Have chainsaw, will travel. It actually took about an hour to assess and clean out a site.Then set up camp, supper, make a firepit, cut more wood and make an ad hoc bear fence. The usual crap. I got a fire going and roasted some marshmallows and had tea and a cigar. Ahhhhh the good life. And chocolate. Did I mention chocolate?


Thursday I scooted across with my trail fixin gear and scoped out the remains of the port from hell. In the end I opted to change the trail a bit as some other poor SOB's had hacked a path through the jungle and I felt it would have been rude of me not to take advantage of their hard work.It looks like they only had an axe to work with so there was A LOT of cutting to do. At my pace it turned into an all day job. But you could drive a truck through there now.

And that was the end of that foolishness. I did spend some time back at camp in the heat of the day napping and sitting in the rapids to cool down. I even made a bench at the firepit. But the prospect of dragging my canoe over 400m of portage, twice, to get to the other two ports a little farther upstream just was not giving me any warm fuzzy feelings. Maybe later on this fall. Or some other time. But that was plenty. And plenty hard at that. My bush pants and shirt are torn beyond repair and I was suffering from some new bruises. I felt good but knew not to push it any more. I probably overdid it to be honest anyways.

Friday I broke camp and headed back out the way I came with some more trail maintenance on the first port. Left Bissett at 1.00 and got home, with a pizza, @ 4.30. The wind on the way back was fierce. 60 km/hr. It blew me off the side onto the shoulder a couple of times but those racks held and I was mighty glad when I shut er off in the driveway.

Nope, no pictures. The batteries in the camera were dead and the spares were too. I guess the grandfathers wanted me to just enjoy being there. Sometimes they do stuff like that.

It was a great little last minute trip and I was able to test my ability on a solo. Its not great but still doable if I keep my pace slow and the distance short.I think I have a couple more left in me yet.


Christy

 

[Mihun09]

No Title

Actually there is one photo, Old Yeller on the Buick Century once she got home.

 

[forest runes]

Iskweo , What is a bear fence , down here were I live the black bears would skedaddle if you said boo, do you need to actually set up a fence, are these brown bears or are they more agressive in your neck of the woods ? I've never gave it a thought to bring any protection while camping as the ones I've run into down here can't get away fast enough. I've crossed paths with quite a few as there is a den area on the back of my property. Sows with cubs too. Never a problem .Have You had a close encounter where you felt threaten ?

 

[yellowcanoe]

It was a great little last minute trip and I was able to test my ability on a solo. Its not great but still doable if I keep my pace slow and the distance short.I think I have a couple more left in me yet.

OK she does a weeks worth of work in two days and wonders if she has some solo trips in her?

 

[Mihun09]

The fire was in October 2010 and burned a swath 6km wide and 26km long up to the Gammon River. Marten encountered a northern portion of this fire on his trip this year, further up the Broadleaf after the junction with the Wanipigow. Christine was on the section of the Wani downstream from the Broadleaf Junction, a way we went in Summer 2009 and spent time lost on the portage from Hell, which took us 5 hours to cross the 400 metres. That year we went back up in October and cleared it out, then the fire came the following year.

 

[Iskweo]

YC...yes well I had to take a lot of breaks and it was really tough going, on stuff that had already been worked over once as it was. I just had to clean it up. Still, point made. I need to lighten up the outfit a bit so I can scoot along those routes. I need to find one of those old mini Mac chainsaws too. Do you think 4 carries is a bit much ?...lol.

Bear fence.....I have always thought that a bear fence wouild be a great idea at my fave campsites. In this instance there was an abundance of 15-20 foot dead spruce trees everywhere that needed to be cleared. Soooooo I just cut them a little and stacked them in an impassable wall around the bush side of the site. It was on a sort of small peninsula eh. That only left the portage trail or the pond as access points and I slept nice and sound in my comfy little enclave.

And no, the bears are not scary but they are hungry and we are having issues with more predatory black bears so better safe than sorry. I did have spray and bangers with me. The fence thing was just one of those rare opportunities for one of my brainier ideas to get put into practice. Because no one else would bother to go to that much trouble.But if I set it up on select sites then I can have a network through the area. And as I said, there were a lot of trees to work with. This is actually a good trip to take kids or beginners on.

This route, once cleared, gets me to Leaf Lake quicker than the other way through Wallace Lake, with less ports.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Bears here are hungry too and this is a time of year when they really need to pack it on. But Bruin is a dedicated climber..I expect you know that and were meaning to divert Bruin to an easier path.

That said I don't mean to add to bearanoia but bears are excellent swimmers. If your site was abused by people before and Bruin wants it , Bruin will get to it.
Your defense was mostly psychological. We all have campsite habits that we believe will make us safer..

That said the cup of coffee I was holding last month was no defense had the mother moose in camp ( she and her calf first whanged up the boats) then walked right into camp.. 3 meters away from me... That was scary.

But man woman did you do some good work!

 

[Robin]

Nice little get away, I bet that chain saw would be a good bear defence...if it's a one pull starter.

purrrfft...purrrffft...purrfft...oh shucks

 

[GearFreak]

Great work! Curious on where you put in? and do you go up or downstream?

I am pleased to hear some moose in that area, hopefully they come back with the closure.

 

[Mihun09]

No Title

Great work! Curious on where you put in? and do you go up or downstream?

I am pleased to hear some moose in that area, hopefully they come back with the closure.

There is a little nondescript picnic area about 17 km west of Wallace Lake on PR 304 which is the put in. It is upstream travel towards the Broadleaf River Junction. All the portages are in a short space, the port from Hell is where the river makes a turn and there are 3 waterfalls in that section. There is also a nice long set of falls right at the picnic spot.

The map shows the where and how, the photo is of the second falls on the corner before the fire went through.

 

[Iskweo]

GF...yes, I headed upstream. The downstream run is pretty cluttered with logjams from there to Wanipigow Lake. That little camping/picnic area is at the crest of a hill on the left side as yoiu are heading to Wallace Lake. It's easy to miss as its a hundred yards or so off the road and screened by some bush. There is a gravel road going into it though as opposed to the dirt tracks in other places. People do camp there on occasion. The put in is pretty steep, but doable and the first port is only @ 300m away. Nice easy one though.

I bet that you could make Leaf in a day easy now, unless that last port is awful. It does look as though someone came down that way recently though so I would bet it is at least passable.

There is about half the water as in that picture, and none of the trees. The moose are enjoying the new growth though it seems.

 

[GearFreak]

Thanks!

 

[Marten]

Good work on getting more of that route ready for others. I can add that the ports on the Broadleaf are all clean. Also that the fire missed most of the Broadleaf. I was really impressed with the Wanipigow and Broadleaf Rivers. I can understand why you put in the effort you do to keep it open. The ports you cleared on the Broadleaf and Wanipigow in years past sure made this summers trip an easy romp. It is a great place to spend a week or two. The Pickerel my friends caught on the Wanipigow made their day and our last supper of the trip.