By the time you get to the crest of the hill you'll be so exhausted and delusional that you see a unicorn... or something like that.

I have to agree with Lenny. Though I've only ever gone down the hill, I do recall thinking 'this really isn't so bad'. I think it's not so much the steepness/incline, just the very long and shallow climb. Maybe it's a different story going up with a fully loaded pack (as I imagine most people travelling from Cedar to Catfish would have)

yellowcanoe wrote:

The folks that developed the online interior reservation system must be really impressed with the portages on the Cedar to Catfish route.  Unless the system has been modified, it would not let you book Cedar to Catfish in one day.  It wasn't a warning message either -- just a complete refusal to believe it was possible to do that route in one day.  Of course the reality is that almost everyone doing that route does it in one day.

Don't get me started. Wrote an email to Ontario Parks explaining why this needs to be changed which was forward to the people who set the limits . Nothing.. still can't book very standard 1 day trips out of Cedar online.

And the limits make no sense. you can book Cedar to Wagtail raps in 1 day online with a warning but can't book Cedar to Catfish..What?

Last edited by ShawnD (4/04/2017 8:58 am)

A couple years ago I day tripped from Catfish (Shangri La Island) to the Brent store, and was back on my site in time for lunch. It's pretty silly the system treats that as an unreasonable single-day travel distance. The last day of a trip is the only one the online system usually won't give you grief over, as it doesn't care if you're within a reasonable distance of your starting access point, just that you're in reasonable distance of any access point. That you're probably not heading for that nearest access point doesn't seem to phase it. It's odd to me that they'd allow that loophole in an otherwise very "nannyish" booking system. Of course you might legitimately be finishing up at a different access point than where you started, but I assume that's a small percentage of bookings.

Unicorn Hill didn't seem that bad to me either, but then again I didn't have most of my gear with me.

SwiftPaddler wrote:

It gets even better....  I was going to stay my first night at the Brent campground and then book my first interior night on Catfish. 

I tried booking Catfish for my first night and it gave me the refusal.  So I got to thinking, why don't I book one of the "jump off" sites instead of the camp ground (will be cheaper anyway) then try to book my second night on Catfish.  Well lo and behold, it gives you the warning but lets you actually select Catfish from there and then proceed with your reservation. Persistence pays sometimes I guess...
  

That's pretty odd.   It's as if the system figures that if you are not spending the first night on Cedar lake that you must be spending a good chunk of the day driving to Brent.  I expect the backcountry reservation system would be unaware of a campground reservation for the previous night.    I tried to replicate this situation on a trip starting from Kiosk but selecting a jump off site for the first night didn't affect how the system responded to a couple of long first day paddles.