Once stayed on a site that was littered with blowdown and widowmakers...finding a place to set my tent that gave me some measure of comfort was challenging to say the least. 

Last edited by RPDUKE (4/27/2017 12:37 pm)

Hands down the worst site I've stayed on is on Furrow Lake. There are two sites on Furrow, and the one I stayed on is the one shown on the map as part way down the creek towards Lady Slipper. I chose it because the other site on the lake, the one that would have a great sunset view in the middle of the lake and lots of space for swimming etc., is a burned out post-apocalyptic nightmare of charred trees and ash thanks to a fire that must have got out of hand. It would still have been the better choice.

The creek site is a tiny island with exactly zero flat areas for tents. We ended up pitching our tent on an angle in a patch of small but surprisingly prickly green things (otherwise known as plants, probably). The water is relatively swimmable/potable, but only if we're talking relative to septic tank. The creek in this part looks like someone left it steeping in a teapot for two weeks, then stirred in a bunch of dead bugs and floaty things. The "firepit" is a small circle of rocks built on an angle (because, again, there are no flat spaces on the island) and there's a stump chair beside the firepit that is 100% haunted. The thunder box is sturdy enough, once you find it, but there's a serious risk of bleeding out from all the cuts and scrapes you get pushing through the underbrush to get to it.

Anyways, don't go to Furrow Lake.

(If you want to know more about the site, I spent almost 2000 words on my blog going on about Furrow Lake) 

Western shore campsite on Godda was probably the worst I ever experienced.  it was a long time ago, like mid 1990's, so I don't remember everything, but I do remember this.  It was a steep scramble to get to the campsite, and once you were there, you found yourself standing atop a kind of rock peninsula that was totally exposed.  The view was pretty nice, I'll give it that, but I remember running the tent stakes down through a thin layer of pine needles into rock.  We had maybe one stake that was in there worth anything.  Plus there was nothing close to level there as I recall.  We just aimed our feet downhill.  In back of the site is the rest of the hill, and it is kind of straight up, so night comes very, very quickly.  The reason it was so memorable was that the hill shielded our view of the weather system that was coming from the west right over us.  It was not a nice place to experience one of the worst thunderstorms I ever have while camping.

Which campsite on Raven are you referring too? I passed by last summer and submitted the PCI reports for both of those sites, but I don't remember thinking the thunder box was in a bad location. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, and I didn't actually camp there either.

During that same trip, I went onshore to the south site on Owl, and that ranks as one of worst campsites I've seen (luckily just passing by as well, didn't actually camp there). It's small and uninviting, and from the water it doesn't even look like a site. Nowhere to swim or enjoy the sun, and bad fire pit/seating area, with the tent pad very close by. It's well sheltered at least, so it gets one single bonus point for that.

And not inherently bad, but some sites just give off a very eerie vibe. One that stands out in particular is the north shore site halfway down the lake on Louisa (campsite #2 on the PCI). I can't pinpoint exactly what it was, it just felt eerie and unsettling. And not algonquin, but the island campsite #15 on Killarney Lake in Killarney had to be the eeriest campsite I've been to. We set up our tent and were debating staying, but something felt very off and we switched to a much nicer site.

RCSpartan wrote:

@trippythings it was the site closest to the Owl portage and we stayed there last August. I know which site you're talking about on Owl. We didn't get out to look but it didn't look inviting at all. 

Looking back at my pictures from that trip, I upped the brightness on one of them and can see the thunder box. It's pretty darn close to the campsite, and definitely visible from the fire pit

Last edited by trippythings (4/27/2017 6:44 pm)

I'm not sure to be honest. That day I was feeling under the weather, I was double carrying from Linda to Source, and my phone was at 8% when I started the day... I was just trying to get to all of the campsites on route, snap a few pictures, and take note if any were worth camping on in the future... I clearly wasn't paying too much attention to my surroundings lol

There is a campsite on Club Lake (portion of Club near Mouse) where to enjoy it one of your legs needs to be about 2 feet shorter than the other as the entire campsite is, so say the least, not level.

I've bee n on some pretty nasty sites, but the one that scores a definite negative in my books is an the east side of Pen down past the portage to Night lake
This site has ZERO redeeming qualities; It's on a "pebble" beach (if you can call 3-6" rocks pebbles) with the perfect angle to roll an ankle on, It's impossible to land at without getting a bad case of rock rash (too deep for a "wetfoot" landing), a buggy path through the brush to the site, Once you're at the site, you feel like you're in a cave- the tree cover is 100%) The site itself is flat, but it's bare dirt that was still muddy from a previous rain 3 days earlier, The pit was a completely forgettable ring of rocks sitting in the mud, the bugs were intense even though it was early September, and after searching for an hour, we never did find the privy! on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a -2