-Londoners left town at 5:30, and soon learned to open all windows in under 4 seconds, due to Kevin's repeated gas attacks (and this was before we had the chile)
-plan was to meet at Mattawa info centre, and Scott was late as usual {grin}. He arrived just as Larry was phoning London to get his cell phone number. Took forever to get park paperwork done.
-couldn't find beer in a plastic bottle to go with our first night chile in Mattawa - forgot about it until too late.
-arrived at Brain L at 1:30, & met uniformed park people on road near launch point, which is at the south west corner of Brain L.
-easy paddle through Brain L, and winding passage east of the main body of the lake.
-this is about as far as Kevin's sunglasses made it - lost 'em on the first day
-after the twisty creek was a pretty 25m portage to another winding creek, which brought us to the 805m portage to no-name L which was a little more exciting- lots of fallen trees requiring detours, and a 10 foot wide creek to cross in the middle.
-after the brief crossing of no-name L, an easy 100m portage takes you to the river leading to Stretch L. Crossed a couple of beaver dams, and caught & released cisco & bass, and one speckled trout which we kept for breakfast next day.
-Scott & Kevin went back to search for sunglasses, leaving Doug & Larry worrying as it got later, but they showed up just before we went out searching.
-Larry's notes say Kevin acted normal at this point - not sure what that means - probably continuing noxious emissions.
-mediocre site with lots of blackflies and mosquitoes.
-Larry & Kevin did an evening paddle back to the river, catching bass & cisco & seeing a muskrat.
-Larry discreetly describes my efforts to reheat the chile as cajun style blackened cuisine - I burnt the crap out of it. Scott took the pot out in the canoe to clean out the carbon deposits in the lake.
-when we discovered that we'd forgotten the scrub pad, I created the Bart Brush - frayed ends of doubled over polypropylene rope held together by a scaled up version of comon whipping. Works great!
-we were in the tent (escaping the bugs) around 9:30, only to find that we were still victims of Kevin the windbreaker.
-up at 6:30, and had yesterday's trout for breakfast.
-broke camp, headed out, with fishing at every opportunity, catching lots of out of season bass.
-300m portage to West Corbeau L - lots of poison ivy at south end of portage
-portage 120m to a river, then walked boats through shallow rapids rather than take 165m & 80m portages
-looked at Hurdman sites, one sort of grassy, but not very open to breeze to clear bugs. saw waterfall
-the picture shows a view from the island toward the south east bay of the lake.
-all the modern facilities, including a biffy with a styrofoam seat - very civilized.
-Kevin's allergies are subsiding, but his emissions aren't.
-everyone had a head ache (could be from the fumes of you-know-whew)
-caught more cisco & bass, but no trout.
-it was a long day with lots of bugs, so we retired to the tent to play euchre. Kevin & Scott won both games.
any pictures on this excursion.
May not have been able to
take time out from swatting
bugs
-arose at 6:30 and had a pancake breakfast, followed by a swim/wash
-looked like rain so we put up a tarp, and sure enough, a storm rolled in
-headed out in rain gear towards Aura Lee L, and the sun came out on the way.
-when we got to the 275m portage to Aura Lee, Kevin & Larry walked down the stream, fishing.
-they caught 2 trout, and promptly lost track of time, as fishermen are wont to do.
-after paddling around the lake for a while, and walking the portage a few times, yelling at the anglers, Scott & Doug debated going back to camp, but eventually got a response. An hour after that, the fishermen reappeared at the far end of the portage.
-Once under way on Aura Lee L, we tied the boats together and ate lunch as we drifted.
-Went under a narrow train trestle and lazed our way down a lagoon like channel.
-no fish, but Scott and Kevin did see a large turtle slide into the water from the bank.
-it got shallow with a faster current as we entered top of Little Cedar L, which was where we turned around.
-back at camp the consensus was that it was snooze time, but Larry soon headed out to see the dam and waterfalls on the portage to Little Cauchon. (hmmm, "Little Cauchon", I think my wife has called me that a few times. wonder what it means?)
-he also managed to cut his toe, but nothing serious.
-created a tasty supper of Thai rice, chicken noodle soup, steamed trout and the trusty raw carrots to ward off scurvy.
-had a rum nightcap around the campfire, and noticed a planet to the North West bright enough that it cast a reflection in the water.
-tried to read our astronomy field guide (present from Larry) by the flashing red light of a bicycle safety light (to save our night vision) with limited success.
-Fishermen must have a lot on their mind, because at some point in this day, Larry lost his sunglasses, too.
Monday June 7
-Doug slept in until 7, perhaps because it was one of those rare occasions
where he didn't have to heed the call of nature in the middle of the night.
-did a voyage to photograph the waterfalls by Little Cauchon. Illustrating
the law of conservation of lures, Larry lost one but Kevin found one. "Found"
doesn't really describe this operation - he snagged it off the bottom in
about 7 feet of moving water from a tippy canoe. The new acquisition was
so big it wouldn't fit in his tackle box.
-Scott continued to record campsite locations using his new GPS, enduring our jibes about his high index of nerdosity.
-When we returned to camp, Larry found his sunglasses in the lake where we docked the canoes.
-witnessed flocks of geese returning north.
-while paddling on a fairly wide part of Hurdman, Larry & Doug were surprised to see a chipmonk swimming across the lake
-walked up river to avoid the first 2 portages again, then crossed the third portage to West Corbeau. Had lunch on the rocks which the sun had heated enough to make them uncomfortable to sit on.
-slugged through the lake and did the 300m portage to Stretch L. Passed our old campsite, and the noisy cliff dwelling birds again.
-Caught lots of bass & cisco going up the river, and saw a couple of turtles with shells over a foot across
-on the bright side, we discovered that our collapsable plastic bucket also does a great job of bailing a boat.
-It was somewhere around this point where we last saw Scott's Gerber multi-pliers being used to remove the next bass from the lure, never to be seen again. I was beginning to wonder why I wasn't losing stuff like everybody else.
-Kevin's allergies had been improving and were pretty well cleared up by now, probably due to cleaner air.
-made camp at the end of that portage at a mediocre campsite that was infested with bugs. Pitched a tarp quickly when rain started, and it seemed like a relief.
-had some of the samosa that Jim Johnson had supplied - nice & spicy.
-Kevin realized that the Gerber was missing and searched through all his gear. Meanwhile, I managed to get each of the two ropes needed to hoist our food pack in position on the very first throw, which cut a half an hour off my previous record time.
-Kevin & Larry went northward exploring Hurdman creek, doing a liftover on the way. Kevin caught a humongous bass, Larry caught a little perch, and they saw a couple of herons.
-I guess Scott & I (alias the troll motors) must have let something slip, because Larry's notes make reference to the formation of a troll union and possible motor mutiny. (Kevin and Larry can get distracted by their fishing and forget to paddle, sometimes for days)
-pretty sure we went to bed early this night to escape the bugs.
-arose again at 6:30 & had leftover breakfast. Larry did his 1 cup of water version of doing the dishes.
-S & K retraced our path southward to search for the Gerber where we'd done beaver dam liftovers. K had his face in the water with his hands cupped to act as goggles. He got slimed, but no Gerber - just goober. Meanwhile, back at camp, L & D started ferrying gear across the lake, and over the 805m portage.
-On the way in, Kevin had dragged a couple of logs across the creek so we could cross without getting our feet wet. (With that famous Elliott timing, I'd already waded through before this.) His bridge was still intact for the return trip, and made it fairly easy, even with a canoe on your shoulders.
-paddling and portages back to Brain L were uneventful, and vigilence for Kevin's sunglasses went unrewarded.
-stopped at the south island in Brain L for a swim, lunch, and sunbathing.
-after the short paddle back to the put in point (which was dock in good condition) we found that the bugs once again were quite intense. We unpacked the boats and lugged everything up the hill to the road in a semi-controlled frenzy, since we didn't want to douse ourselves with DEET after washing up.
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