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Day 11 Time: 8 hrs 20 min Distance: 31.6 km (157.6) Steve woke me up several times in the morning; finally at 10:30 I dragged myself out of the sleeping bag. This is day 11 on the river, add to that a 5-day road trip, I'm ready for a layover day and this would be the perfect place. The reality is that I feel like we are behind schedule by at least one day and I know we are likely to encounter some additional delays further along. This is also the halfway point in our "best case" schedule of 21 days; we have covered less than a third of the total distance. It's a clear day, the lake looks smooth and it's already warmer that it has been in days given that the sun has been shining for many hours. We hoisted our gear and made our way down the esker to the boats, loading and on the water at 1:00pm.
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This is a small lake and with virtually no wind there was some detectable current to be felt. It's a quick paddle to the end/top of the lake, at the narrows the current strengthens, it's easy to maintain 6 kmph and with a bit of effort up to 10kmph in the faster sections. There is an old burn on the left and both banks are thick with alders, this is no place to be looking for a campsite. We encounter a few swifts and eventually a real but small/easy rapid. It's a fabulous day, alternating "power" paddling with drifting in the sun. We are making great progress; there is chatter about theoretical campsites like Chip Point or even further, the funny part is that while we daydream we are not paddling and the likelihood of reaching any of these far off points completely laughable. We agree to stop at Porcupine Rapids to fish, the rapid starts with a CII section with some big waves created by unseen rocks below the surface. We both need to bail out before running the 2nd section; this is the biggest drop, a good size ledge on river right, hard to guess what it looks like in lower water. We both ran the ledge close to shore, Steve a bit further out to avoid an angled curling wave which put him just into some on the bigger stuff, we eddied out in the little pool directly below the drop. There are flat rocks here that make landing easy and provide possible camping.
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Looks like a good place to cast a line and have lunch. We do the chicken in a pouch and then get out the rods. First proper cast hooked a good size pike, a few casts later a much bigger pike, Steve also landed a fair sized one. I said one more pike and I'm outta here, we were looking for a tasty snack like a grayling not big bony pike. I cast a few more times and felt the line jerk, this wasn't a snack but rather something much bigger, it was putting up more of a fight than your average pike, a bit of a splash showed it was very nice lake trout! With lunch complete and dinner caught it was time to get back on the water. We set off for the 3rd and final section of the rapid, an easier CII.
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We turn the bend at 7:00 and drift while discussing possible destinations for the night, we agree to paddle for 50 more minutes (8:00pm) but then continue to drift for another 20 minutes! We still put in the 50 minutes plus a bit more. Heading to the right shore we start to search for a camp, there is an esker running along a lengthy stretch of shore but it is set way back behind both a thick band of alders and 50 - 100 feet of old lumpy burn choked with fallen trees. We stop to consider one spot with only one layer of alder and a steep climb to the top, from the water it looks rough so we continue on thinking we may find something on the first big island. Fortunately at the far end of the esker and the burn we spot a great access point, a small bank leads up a short distance to an established campsite, from the water one can see tent poles on the esker. Much relieved to find such a good spot we set up the hut. Making sure our dinner isn't stolen again I take care of the laker and soon we have an pan overflowing along with a Knorr Santa Fe Rice & Beans side dish. We stuffed ourselves and after attending to my daily notes I headed off to bed around 1:45. Tomorrow it's the relative giant Tadoule Lake, while the hut flutters in the breeze I dream of sheets of glass, what will tomorrow present?
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