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Just back from a short 3 nights at the Drummer Lake Lean too. What a great area if you only have a short window and dont want to see anyone. The sites on the adjacent lakes we explored were short of extrordinary but would do for a night or two. The lean to was great and would be a godsend in the rain. Not needing to set up and take down tarps was a bonus. Not allot of choice for tent pads but was good for our hammocks. Portages were in good shape. Not much issue with water levels. The skip from Sam to Gill lakes was passable with getting wet and a decent beaver dam to manœuvre Still beats loading and unloading the boat. This area is very much a diamond in the rough for getting away from it all without going too far. Warning. At night when all gets real quiet you can hear some noise from highways 60. Not bad just enough to know Its there. As an added bonus we located the AO paddle in the park hidden on the 1700 in to Drummer. Cha Ching!
Last edited by Shayne74 (9/14/2019 8:58 pm)
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Congrats on the paddle find Shayne! I was following along the AO clues but was reading too much into many of the clues offered I think. Did you suspect the paddle was there or happy coincidence?
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We booked the trip in May I think. As the clues were released in the weeks leading up to the trip I began to think we may have a shot.. As we approached the spot we found it all the clues came together. It was 300ish meters in to the 1700 to drummer. Pretty lucky coincidence.
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I have been going to Ahmek district for years, it gets much nicer and quieter once you get passed drummer (altho no more lean-to's), as dummer has begun to get busy these days beleive it or not. I was looking for that same paddle this summer and went way past drummer, all the way out to E.U lake from there looking for it along portages. Damn passed it on Drummer!! Hahah
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Went through Ahmek only a few days before you (Sept 6/7/8)! Didn't know about the Paddle in the Park contest at the time... guess we hoofed by the paddle twice on the 1700m and were none the wiser... good for you!
Mini trip report:
Friday we did
Canoe
Sam
Gill
Drummer
Little Drummer
Tonakela
Thunder - stayed here Fri night. The one canoe site here is one of the worst - crappy landing, totally overgrown site, couldn't figure out a good tent spot, no sign of thunderbox - we managed to get a bar of reception and figured out one of two backpacking sites was free.
Saturday:
Panther
Dace - more of a swamp than a lake
Ramona (Dace to Ramona portage nearly killed us - serious uphill battle)
Namakootchie
Little Drummer - stayed here Sat night. Liked the position of the site, up high on a point overlooking the lake. Only way to the overgrown thunderbox is across a slick rock face. Rained quite a bit that weekend and I slipped pretty hard once
Sunday
back out through Drummer/Sam/Gill. We tried to paddle Gill to Sam but to us, navigating that dam seemed like more work than the 110m portage. We only had one bag so didn't mind to load/unload
Only saw hikers - 1 on Thunder and Ramona looked fully booked. Not a single canoe/kayak.
Drummer lean-to looked cool. Stopped for a snack there and tried to find the oldest name carving. 
can't imagine this was a fun 25lb carry across that 1700m to drummer:
view from little drummer site:
pretty much only one spot for a tent on little drummer - very rocky up there:
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Haha. Awesome trip. We used that water up between drinking and cooking and packed those bottles out. I can't imagine having carried those in either. They didn't look like they had been there long so figured they were ok. Off the ground and out of the sun. That's a great site. Love to get there in the winter sometime.
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