solos wrote:

solos wrote:

Good news is that our destination lake still has 7/7 sites available. I'll be on Craig.

 
Came back from Craig and it was an excellent trip. My 22 month old loved the trip, loved visiting the beach on the east side of the lake, and said she wants to sleep in the tent again. We were lucky enough to get the small island on the west end and it’s beautiful, big rock outcropping, raised up with a perfect view down the lake and flat on top. Although the lake had zero reservations as of Thursday, on Saturday morning we were the fourth group to head into that lake. I think we saw the fifth group heading in as we were trying to find access 1b. The roads were in excellent condition, I would feel comfortable driving a small car on them. It was a short paddle and 3 short portages to get it. So I can’t figure it out. The wife summed up my thoughts exactly: it’s easy to drive to, a short easy paddle in, big beautiful lake, extensive beach, it has everything you want from the park, why isn’t it more popular?

I was wondering the same, we stayed on Nahma and it was a beautiful little lake. Not the greatest campsites, but still not the worst I have seen by far.
 

My MEC slogg 115 usually comes in close to 55-60 pounds, give or take. I should probably leave a few things at home and consider going lighter on a few other things, but it's working for me. It's a chore to single carry my glass canoe and this bag for any considerable distance, but maybe that's just my limitation.

Hey Paul, I have a 10' cheapo pelican canoe from Canadian tire that I did a few solo trips with a few years back. Stability was a big issue for me, I never felt comfortable paddling with it loaded and ended up buying a canoe because of this. I'm not saying you won't find a better way to pack it than I did, and it's likely that your storage place behind the cockpit is designed a little better than mine (mine has an oval opening compartment that has a lid held down by bungees.) I removed the lid and got my mec slogg 115 pack strapped to the deck behind me and anything else I had I tried to stuff into the nose by my feet, it was not a good setup, but still got me out there. I'll see if I can find a picture of it when I get home.

Rob

Thanks Shayne, I wasn't sure which way to go with this, but I think we will make an attempt for the Victory Lake site tomorrow.

Hey folks, trying to plan a last minute 2 night getaway for the weekend and saw these lakes on the map.

Can anyone tell me how busy we should expect these lakes to be this coming weekend, or anytime for that matter?

Any good (open space, bugs!) campsites we should aim for?

I think these lakes hold smallmouth bass, any reports on how the fishing is?

Any information at all would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

There could be better ones out there, but I found this one a couple months in an Atmosphere store. Shows species and what is stocked where. Not sure about accuracy or anything else and I don't own this one. I bought the Algonquin version as a back up to my Jeffs map while I wait for the Unlostify version to come out. I do like how it shows species, stocked lakes and includes species Jeffs map doesn't.

https://www.backroadmapbooks.com/backroad-mapbooks/ontario-backroad-maps/northeastern-ontario-backcountry-maps

 

Misty to Muslim?

You're welcome! I've got David Lake booked for the upcoming long weekend and my partner just backed out, so I guess I'm going solo. Maybe I'll drop into Basecamp and say hello when I grab my permit. Happy paddling!

​PS before I had my own canoe I rented from Canoe Algonquin (sorry, lol), and a guy from Algonquin Basecamp helped me out with an almost flat tire at the Rain Lake access back in 2015. Big thanks if that was you.

I did this exact loop last October in 3 days 2 nights. We camped at the 200m portage on the nip, I wouldn't recommend it as we had a couple people passing through as we cooked breakfast. They told us we were in for a long day and even told us we should consider turning around and paddling back upstream because the alders would be so bad past the point we were at. They were hiking and were surprised we had a permit as they thought the backcountry was closed to camping and didn't really wanna talk about where they came from or what they were doing. The nip was not bad at all, only a couple pullovers and the alders didn't bother us. The worst stretch was Latour creek to the 1300m portage into Floating Heart, not much water and really tight in spots and no bottom to get out and pull/push the canoe, but manageable for sure. If I remember correctly it took us around 5 hours to get from the 200m portage site to Rosebary, and we are by no means professional paddlers.

​Hope this helps, I know it didn't answer your question about time from Big Bob to Rosebary.