Took my second solo trip 9/14 – 9/16…was supposed to include 9/17.  The plan was Day 1: Shall-Booth, Day 2: Booth-Boot, Day 3: Boot-Booth, Day 4: Booth-Shall.  I was thinking “Barry’s gonna love this!”, because there are so few trips reports about Boot. But….

Well, weather was terrific, had a great animal encounter, and pet peeves on parade!  Where to start?  At the start.  Wildlife experience #1 was on highway 60, when I spotted a buck.  He was chest deep in tall grass, with his headgear all set for the rut.  He might have to wait a year before he can compete for that special lady though.  

Construction on 60 was most unpleasant, but if you are stuck behind a logging truck long enough you can smell the pine, so that’s nice. 
 
On the access road, I saw a…..mink?  Barely larger than a squirrel, black, body like a weasel.  Wildlife encounter #2.  Small black critter.

I made the Shall access point at 11:15.  540KM in 6.5 hours, average speed was “stop”.  In the water at 11:45am. 


Before reaching the 90M portage to Kitty, I was overtaken by a couple of gents.  They skipped the carry to push through the mini-rapids.  I saw them briefly, and heard their canoe going bangy-bang on the rocks.  Water levels allowed them to make it, but that was not an option for me.  I did not want to hear canvas going rippy-rip.
Here's what the 90M was avoiding, along with a little guy who had a lot of faith I would see him and not step on him.


I had my dad’s no-longer-used Nikon Coolpix P80 for this trip.  The photo quality is debatable, but it is light and small.  I kept it at the ready, which really paid off later on (oooh,  foreshadowing). 

On the 650M from Kitty to Booth, I experimented with “selfie’s” while carrying the canoe.  My wife laughed at these photos, but I don’t think she was laughing WITH me.  

 
Farm, Kitty, and Booth were like paddling mill ponds – but “uphill” current-wise. 


Here's a leaf I spotted floating on Booth.  Pretty cool!


My target was the western-most island campsite on Booth.  I wanted proximity to McCarthy Creek, plus I stayed there around 1995 and liked it.  Made the site at 3pm.  3 hours 15 minutes. 

The site has terrific water access, decent tent sites, and nice sunset viewing.  Unfortunately, a giant pioneering project had been left behind. It resembled a trebuchet.  The trebuchet thing is on the left.

Looking around, it was clear that some of the pioneering logs and firewood came from trees that were cut down.  I don’t know that there is a prohibition on cutting dead trees, but come on.  This island is large – there is dead wood laying all over.  (Barry had a great post in April, 2014 on this subject).  Also, it was evident that two or three live trees had been cut down.  One was laying with the firewood.  Photos for your viewing displeasure are provided.  I reported it on the way out, forgetting I had pictures.  There’s really not much to be done, but I wanted to report it.  I reduced the trebuchet thing to firewood.  The bits of cord became tinder for my campfire. 





LOTs of blowdown birch on the island.  There was a grove of them on the north side, now pretty much all of them are down.

Had a late lunch of pb&j, trail mix, and an orange.  Then I realized I couldn’t count.  My dinners (to accommodate food sensitivities and my lack of imagination) was tuna sandwiches, carrots, and trail mix.  The tuna comes in a pouch, and “sandwich thins” for the bread.  Except I only remembered sandwich thins for pb&j lunches.  Oops.  So dinner was tuna from the pouch, a few carrots, and some trail mix.  (Lunch the next day was apple dipped in peanut butter, squirting jelly in my mouth, and some trail mix.)  Living like a KING. 

Went fishing about 5pm, and caught fish immediately.  I lost several off the barbless hooks while trying to grab the camera.  I hooked five or six, and got three to the boat before they jumped off.  Only one needed help of the hook, the largest one, pictured here.

And here's a pretty courageous Hemlock I spotted.


Mosquitoes were present at dusk.  I slathered myself in picardin, which is apparently like ringing the dinner bell.  From now on, deet.
Here's kind of almost a sunset.


Day 2.  This was the day I had been planning since March.  I bought a GPS for this, worked out the coordinates of the portages entrances, had satellite photos to help me spot entrances, and I had studied it relentlessly, anticipating, scheming, etc.  I contacted the one person I saw who had done a trip report for this area, who provided me with his GPS tracking information, and Jeff helped as well.  I figured it would take 5 ½ hours to go from Booth to Boot.  I was mentally prepared for low maintenance trails, to be three lakes away from the nearest campsite, to be exhausted, etc.  I was also prepared for the possibility that I would not make it, and while I had backup plans, I would not give up easily.  I wanted to know that if I did quit on it, it was because I really could not get there.  I got a fortune under a bottle cap shortly before the trip.  “Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.”  I decided to take that as a good sign.

I slept pretty well, in spite of a barred owl, and awoke on Day 2 at 6:30.  Had my usual breakfast – oatmeal, breakfast bar, and tasty tang.  Packed up the boat, and shoved off at 8:15.  The water levels on McCarthy were good.  In the area where the creek commits to heading west, it narrows, and it was at this point I had wildlife encounter #3.  I saw part of something dark move into the water 50-75 yards ahead of me to the left, but it disappeared behind some marshy plants.  There was one short C-curve between me and the area where this animal was heading, after which the creek straightened out.  I stopped paddling, and grabbed the camera, thinking I knew what it was, but wondering…is it?  Could it be?  Seconds later - a bear.  An honest to John bear, swimming across the creek from left to right.    



I was watching it thinking “this is the animal I’ve always been afraid of.”  “And it has those cute teddy bear ears.”  It didn’t seem all that big, but the command respect.  It never even looked at me.  It just booked across the creek, got out the other side, and disappeared.  I’m fortunate I got the photos I did, but the camera mostly focused on reeds rather than bear.  arrrgh.    I waited a moment to listen for it.  It seemed like the kind of sound I would want to know in case I ever needed to draw on that memory in the future.  Seconds later, noises came.  It sounded like it was pushing over a couple of dead trees, or pouncing with its’ front paws and weight on one very rotted log, then another.  I thought it is either getting into a couple of favorite bug trees, or it is letting me know whose territory this is.  It seemed like a lot of work to go eat ants or termites, so I figured this was territorial.  Then there was silence, and I paddled on.  Was it watching me?  I was mindful that it might head the same direction I was, because I was getting into a very narrow section where I would have limited ability to create space should it decide to bluff charge or re-cross the creek.  But I never heard it or saw it again.

I was soon occupied with a couple of beaver dams, both small, and both easy to manage. 

Then a dam I could not run.  It is marked on Jeff’s maps with a bunch of criss-cross marks.  Unless there are car-sized beavers out there, this wasn’t a beaver dam, it was a log jam.  Yaaaaay.


Some logs were stable, some were not.  I unloaded the heaviest items, balanced them on a log, hauled the boat over the log back into the water, reloaded it, pushed to the next log, and repeated the process.  This time I was able to put the boat down on Mole Lake.  It took some time to get past this, but I was careful with each move.  My ankles are not the greatest.  Balancing situations are near constant fine-tune-wobbling for me, and round surfaces like that require some effort.  It is hard to describe.  I choose my steps carefully, and there were lots of balance checks.  Wildlife encounter #4 happened here.  A baby snake didn’t want to hang out on the log with me, so it disappeared into the marsh.  He left, but his deerfly friends did not.  They thought it was awesome that I showed up.  They had been planning for my arrival, so we got reacquainted.

Mole is a picturesque lake with an unfortunate name. 

There are two campsites.  One at the eastern end, associated with the portage to Godda, and the other on the western side, where I was, associated with the portage to Raja.  There’s enough room to put a tent, water access is good, thunderbox is there, a little firepit, and a log bench that looks at the lake.  It wasn’t particularly buggy in spite of its’ proximity to the marsh, but I bet when the wind is right…..

There was a little diamond-shaped tag on a tree, indicating the start of the 1140 portage to Raja.  My reconnaissance work told me that this trail was “no problem”, but I had been warned of blowdowns when I checked in.  Duly noted.  On a level surface, I walk 1KM in about 12 minutes, so I figured 20 minutes to cross.  Seemed reasonable.  I don’t time myself on carries, but I check my watch to kind of set the expectation and help me guess how far I’ve gone.  Pack on back, daypack and paddles in hand, gps on and in pocket, off I went.  It was 10:00am.  I figured I’d see Raja by 10:20.

The first part was fine.  Narrow with blowdowns, which I expected.  OK, six, seven, eight blowdowns seemed like a lot in the first 200M.  Then mucky sections.  OK. Had to go around some mucky sections, and more blowdowns, but ok.  Soooooo many blowdowns.  Then I slipped and fell on my side along a mucky section.  Not a hard fall, but had to kneel in the muck to get back up wearing the pack.  That’ll take the starch out of your thighs.  Then it was blowdowns everywhere.  I could see the trail, but now the blowdowns were more substantial, and more difficult to go around.  Going under, the pack would get caught, going over, my man-parts were at risk from stub branches.  Going around meant untrustworthy terrain.  Then the trail went severely downhill, and followed alongside the creek.  The trail was kind of gone here, and you couldn’t tell if you were stepping on soil or muck or mush.  The path forward seemed to go uphill, away from the creek.  Continuing along the creek was no longer possible.  The apparent path (where it looked like others had gone) scrambled up a hill, but it was steep and the soil soft, so I was putting a foot in place, then grabbing something and using legs and arms together to advance.  Vertically it was probably fifteen feet, and I bet the slope was around 60 degrees.  The top of the scramble had another blowdown, almost like a top step.  I dropped the pack to rest, next to an enormous downed tree that had been there for some time.
  
With the canoe I’m good for about 750 or 1,000 meters without a rest (my canoes weigh 58 and 68 pounds), but I don’t think I’ve ever had to drop a pack before.  The terrain was unpredictable in its’ variation, so you couldn’t trust what you were stepping on.  My thighs were shot after that scramble uphill and all that had preceded it.  I looked beyond the tree I was resting on, alongside where I thought the trail was, but I couldn’t see a trail.  Everything was enveloped by the forest.  I walked ahead a little without the pack to scout it out.  Nothing.  Then I walked laterally, uphill, thinking maybe I’ve just gotten off trail.  Nothing.  I looked behind me.  There was the “top step” log from the scramble, and the big downhill right behind it that I had just come up.  Now what. 

Decision time.  I was 17 minutes in.  On a normal carry, I would be at my destination, or within sight of it by now, but I knew I had distance to go.  GPS indicated I was maybe 400 meters from the end.  I knew I could just follow the gps, but 400 meters seemed forever in conditions that were just getting progressively worse – effectively bushwhacking.  Plus, I had already fallen with the pack.  It seemed a certainty I would fall with the canoe.  I couldn’t imagine how I could get the canoe to where I was.  It was so rugged.  I knew I’d need a lot of rests too.  And I knew that if I did make it through, an 800 meter with a hidden entrance was waiting for me that would be just like this, then two shorties (two 250M carries).  I realized my 5.5 hour total travel estimate was low, and tomorrow this would all be repeated, including the trek over those logs on McCarthy Creek and back to Booth.
 
I weighed all of this against my desire to get there.  The thought of getting the canoe as far as where I was right then was on my mind.  How?  I said “Booth it is”, took pictures in both directions to memorialize the site of my failure, and started back.  Here's the view in front of me:

Here's the view behind me.  The deadfall marks where the scramble hill was, and you can see bits of the creek down there somewhere if you look sharp.

I put the decision largely out of mind so I could focus on the hike and not beating myself up.  The new task was returning to the canoe, and I knew it would be an effort.  I did not repeat the scramble in reverse down toward the creek.  I was sure the mushy soil would give way and I’d tumble.  Instead, I worked laterally alongside the hill, which turned out to be just as bad.  It would have been handy to have one leg much longer than the other for one thing.  But really, I was stepping on roots, grabbing branches, both living and dead that I hoped were stable, but trusting nothing.  I wrapped my right hand around a small dead tree, and it started giving way, so instead I stuck my foot on the root ball and grabbed something else.  This went on, with multiple balance checks for probably 75 meters.  A fall to my right would have been disaster.  I kept heading higher up the hill, away from where I knew the trail was, trying to get away from deadfalls because they were so treacherous while on the side of this hill, but they were everywhere.  I probably should have just scrambled back down the hill from the point where I stopped. 
After several minutes, I regained the trail, which felt like “home”.  Slipped again in a mucky section but “HA!” no fall that time.  Grabbed a bandana that I had seen on the ground on the way in (don’t like trash, even when I feel trashed), and finally reached the canoe.  (that bandana became my tinder for the fire that night).

My estimate was that I was about 740 yards in at the turnaround point, so in all, it was a 1,480 meter walk that took 35-40 minutes I guess.  I apologized to the boat (I really did.  Who else am I going to talk to?), for not being able to complete the mission, but explained how it would have gone for the boat on that trail, and all was quickly forgiven.  If the canoe was sore at me for the indignity of being dragged hauled over the logjam for nothing it didn’t let on.  The boat is a gamer.

I can’t help being an armchair quarterback.  Maybe I was too quick in the decision.  In the moment, I was trying to be realistic about what I had left in the tank compared to what I was facing.  Right up until I dropped the pack, I was all systems go, but the second it was off my back the decision point was obvious.  My thighs were cooked, so was the rest of me, and I had plenty of carrying to go.  Part of tripping like this is being able to evaluate your situation, make a decision, and act.  Not a rash decision, but decisive.  I thought I was.  But maybe I should have rested fifteen minutes rather than five, then pressed on without the pack using the gps to get to the end point (or close to it), and work my way back. It felt like I would just burn energy doing that.  If I had remembered that I had the satellite photos in the daypack, I might have solved my problem.  That portage does eventually cross the creek.  (I knew the Raja-Muskrat carry did that, but forgot entirely that the Mole-Raja did).  Maybe that was why the trail disappeared and maybe I never needed to scramble uphill where it looked like others had gone.  The creek was probably 20’ wide, swift, and rocky there, not very inviting for wading in under burden. It never occurred to me to look across the creek.  Even if that was the crossing point, the canoe still would have been awful to get through that tangled mess.  I conclude that I could have made it, but I would have been completely spent, with the 800 to Muskrat waiting plus two more.  I’m comfortable with the decision, but disappointed, and wishing I had presence of mind to look across the creek….or in my daypack to see the satellite photos.  I guess what I wish is that I could know for sure if that was the crossing point for the creek.  But my armchair quarterbacking waited until I wrote this up.  It wouldn't have been productive on the trip, but I guess a little retrospective doesn't hurt now.  

I rested at the Mole campsite for a few minutes before venturing back to Booth with my tail between my legs.  The failure wasn’t playing on my mind, I was focused on the task at hand.  The good news as I knew Booth had openings, in fact maybe my island site was still open.  Also, I would be paddling “downhill”.   The logjam was easier to navigate.  Experience speeds that kind of thing, and the paddling was easier.  A deal was made with the deer flies.  From now on, anytime I got in the canoe, one and only one would stay with me and buzz my ears for ten relentless minutes, until it got me or I got it.  This remained in force for the balance of the trip.

Here's a view of the eastern shore of McCarthy Creek after it has opened up.


In the open area of McCarthy creek, where you can see the islands of Booth, I ran into a terrific couple from Montreal, I would guess around 60.  They took a photo for me (thanks!).  

They come to the park annually - for a month.  30 days, no re-provisioning.  They carry two 65L food barrels, and all the other stuff you’d need.  They have to triple every portage, and while they try to travel lighter every year, “but when you’re in the park that long, you need some comforts”.  No doubt!  They tend to base camp for 7-8 days at a time.

I can handle a base camp for a day, but if I’m not on the move, I’m fighting boredom.  That aside, can you imagine the planning that goes into their trip?  That is a long time to go without perishable foods.  I suppose they dehydrate dinners themselves, so that means they probably start doing that in June.  Imagine how much bug spray, toilet paper, medication, etc., you’d have to plan.  Planning would be all-consuming.  I enjoyed chatting with them enormously.  The husband asked where I was from, I said Buffalo, and he told me the whole story about seeing a Rolling Stones show there in 1981.  I was in high school and didn’t go, but I’ve heard the story many times.  It rained and rained, then Jagger walked on stage and a sunbeam came right out on him and the crowd went nuts.  My new friend relayed that same story.

I mentioned about the bear, and that got their attention.  The husband concluded that maybe when they got to the Tattler cabin it would be waiting there with a wine bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other.  How can you not like a guy who thinks like that?  (Speaking of the bear, I learned when you tell the folks at an access point that you’ve seen a bear, they say “Lucky you!”  When you tell somebody who is in the park, they turn funny colors.)

We parted ways, and soon I was close to "home".

I had a late lunch, rested, and then went fishing for a while, which was more of an exercise in trolling for weeds and touring the lake.  Saw a little flock of mergansers.  Those are just fun birds.  They look so comical with their red heads, but look so determined in the water patrolling their lake. The sunset was nice once again.  "Sunset on failure day."



As Day 2 wound down, I contemplated my revised Day 3.  I wouldn’t be returning triumphant from Boot.  I would be dangling on Booth.  I debated getting a campsite closer to the portage to reduce my travel time on Day 4 vs. staying put.  Heading home was an option too, but with this great weather?  I woke up a bit late on Day Three, Saturday, undecided.  I had breakfast, and was thinking about it as I was cleaning things up.  Then, without any warning...I’m sorry, this is very gross….I had the biggest wet burp ever, as in turn your head and spit.  Just a one-shot thing.  I yelled “What the hell was that supposed to be?”  I felt fine.  I’m not sick.  Am I?  No!  I’m fine!  Decision made.  Heading for home.  Why?  I knew I would spend the day plagued by concern that maybe I was actually ill (I wasn’t, and I knew I wasn’t, but I knew it would remain on my mind), and I also knew my stomach would be feeling goofy all day after that.  So I bugged out.  My most graceful exit ever.

The paddling was downhill, with the wind at my back (mostly).  Coming off the 650 onto Kitty, I encountered a father-son from Ottawa.  They were navigating the swift water to get to the portage in a beauty of a cedar strip they had made.  When I got in the water heading the other direction, I scraped my hull pretty good against a rock.  Graceful.  I thought I was clear of it, but surprise!  Not even a scratch on the hull.  Canvas is tougher than you’d think.  On Farm, three Mergansers zipped past me, looking like they were on a mission.  Surprisingly quiet flyers.

Made the access point in three hours. 

On the drive out, I had one more wildlife encounter.  A palm-sized turtle on the access road.  I was afraid he’d get creamed, so I used a baggy as a glove to pick him up and move him to safety (turtles carry some bacteria that don’t treat humans well).  He had leaves all stuck on his back, and I explained to him that even a guy as handsome as him would get squished if he stayed there.  He tucked into his shell and waited for the giant bi-ped to go away.

I stopped at the visitor centre on the way.  Several years ago, the father of one of my friends died, who was very instrumental in helping me develop a love for camping, canoeing, canvas canoes, and Algonquin.  Back then, I had the guys from our old scout troop chip in for a plaque in his memory at the visitor centre. 

I doubt he ever realized the extent of his influence on us, but we all admired him so.  Thanks again, Mr. K.  The circle on the plaque is an old scout trail symbol that means “gone home”.