A Successful Weekend

Well we made it back after a fun filed weekend in Algonquin park. We left the friendly confines of our homes at 5am on Friday. From there we stopped for a quick bite to eat at the Renfrew McDonalds. Their new coffee isn't that bad. We arrived at the Portage Store at Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park at approximately 8:30am. We really made great time driving up from Ottawa. We got our permit and rented two canoes (Kevlar - Expedition Canoes - 16ft) and were in the water via access point 5 (link to free map of canoe routes in Algonquin Park) by 9:30am.

We headed north to the 295 meter portage into Joe Lake. From there we continued on a North East route through Joe Lake past the Arowhon Pines Lodge and into Little Joe Lake. Once we crossed Little Joe Lake; we came to the 165 meter portage and into the creek that connects Little Joe Lake with Baby Joe Lake. At this point we arrived at our second last portage. Before entering and crossing this portage, we made a quick stop at the Lost Baby Joe's Cache (Algonquin Park) cache. We were the first people to find this cache since September 13, 2008. It was a nice way to break up the paddling. We traded a Canadian Geocaching patch for my first travel bug (ERIN).

Once our break was over, we entered the 435 meter portage; which consisted of rough terrain (mud, fallen trees; moose droppings and those pesky black flies). The portage finished with us reaching Baby Joe Lake - a nice and small lake. At the end of Baby Joe lake our final portage (200 meter) stood in our way before hitting our final destination; Burnt Island Lake. This lake is huge, we scouted out a few potential camp sites and settled in by 2pm with the 8th one in. If you count the sites from the south west end of the lake you will come to ours. It was the sight on the point looking back at where we entered the lake. A beautiful view of the sunset. We did some fishing and I caught the only fish - a nice sized speckled trout.

Saturday morning brought, clouds and cool weather. Once we had breakfast we headed out to find the Burnt Island Lake Cache. This cache was on an island within the bay we were camping in. The cache itself was a camouflage painted .30-cal ammo can; and the swag inside was dry as could be. We traded the ShakasFour Courners Benchmark Micro Geocoin#2 for the Purr-fect Geocoin, signed the log and placed the cache back where we found it. We were the first people to visit this cache since August 30, 2008. Once that was complete we began exploring other parts of the lake. We didn't get too far as the winds picked up and it was quite difficult moving around in such light canoes.

We headed back to camp and had lunch and that's when the rain started. It rained from noon to about 7pm and it got cold. Thankfully we brought multiple tarps and set one up under some trees to stay dry. We kept the fire going all afternoon and allowed us to keep warm as well. Once the rain stopped we had dinner and sat around the fire for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning brought some flurries as we were eating breakfast and packing up. Such a nice surprise. (sarcasm here). Once we were packed up we were in the water by 10:30am and heading back to access point #5 via the same route. Due to our key observation skills on the way up, we were able to shorten the time it took to get back to the portage store by entering the water once we got around the dams at the portages. The water level was quite high as compared to the fall. We were in the car on our way back to Ottawa by 1:45pm.

All in all it was a great weekend in the wild and I would recommend Algonquin interior camping to anyone who enjoys the outdoors.