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Anyone been through this area lately - as in the last year or three? My Spring trip has me spending nights on:
North River Lake
North Depot
Menona
Big George
Wabamimi
Merganser
.. which involves quite a few low maintenance portages and even some bushwhacking and logging road travel the way I'm planning it (If AlgonquinLakes is lurking, he'll recognize it as the trip we almost did together years back before I had to back out).
With the exception of a tiny little stretch between Clamshell and the start of the portage into Menona this is all new territory for me (which I'm excited about), so any info on the portages or any commentary on the lakes/campsites is appreciated. My intent is to bushwhack from Big George to the logging road north of it (looks to be ~150 meters) and then walk the logging road up to Wabamimi and bushwhack in (which is even closer). Then the next day I'll find the logging road again and follow it until it crosses the portage up to Merganser. Satellite imagery confirms the roads are there so I don't think this is going to be a problem, but if anyone knows anything relevant about this plan, I'm all ears!
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Awesome that you’re doing this as this is the route I’m doing with some buddies in September 😀. Can’t offer any intel now, but looking forward to hearing about it from you!
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My brother, son, and I completed a trip out of North River Lake a couple of years ago that went down through Merganser, Kabibonoka to Cedar, and returned through Radiant to Allen and upstream on the North River back to North River Lake as sections of a larger trip.
The sections that overlap your plans were clear and well maintained at that point (August 2022). The North River between North River and Allen did get shallow in a few spots (late August), but any difficulties were overshadowed by how beautiful that whole area was.
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To answer my own questions (now that I’m back):
The bushwhack - logging roads - bushwhack from big George to wabamimi is doable. The stretch of logging road immediately north of big George hasn’t been used in many years and is quickly being reclaimed (I dragged, not portaged, my kayak - overhead foliage made portaging impossible). It connects to a logging road that still is in use after a few hundred meters that takes you to wabamimi. I didn’t try bushwhacking out of wabamimi, I stuck to the official portages. They have blowdowns and occasionally it wasn’t obvious where the trail was but I got through then without too much trouble.
The portage from Menona to Wee George hates you and wants you to die.
Lastly: my bushwhacking took place in primarily deciduous forest in early spring before the leaves were out and I had great visibility to figure out the best path forward. It will likely be considerably more frustrating with full foliage.
Trip report to follow eventually!
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Cool loop! I have been looking at that one for years. Look forward to reading your report.
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Sent you a PM, Uppa, I hope you don't mind.
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captainchaos2000 wrote:
Sent you a PM, Uppa, I hope you don't mind.
Of course not!
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