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Day 18 Time: 6 hrs 45 min Distance: 28.7 km (274) I woke up at 8:30, lounged until nearly 10:00; we had a reasonable goal today so no need to rush. It's grey again but it's calm and a bit warmer. There are quite a few bugs in the hut and plenty more outside. Setting off just after Noon, it's a short paddle until we start to feel the current pulling us, the first rapid is submerged, the large rock island we ate lunch on in '06 which HW refers to as a ledge is under water with only a small wave to indicate it's presence. We paddle and drift, and stop to fish and float. No bites but I did get slightly confused and take a "long cut" down a narrow bay. Back on course we aim for the Wolverine River, we paddled up to the first rapid. I can only imagine what this looks like normally, as elsewhere the alders along the shore are in standing water. Steve fished from his boat on the East side; I fished from "shore" on the West. No nibbles and I lost an EGB lure. The mosquitoes were horrendous there in the bushes; I was fully protected but still the sight of 50+ bugs on the back of one hand! After a painful and frustrating experience thrashing around on the shore we headed downstream for the final 6 - 7 km of the day.
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Good current brought us there quickly; the final run consists of a huge swift followed by a CII with enormous waves. The "worst" of it is on river right so we take the outside left. Steve stayed way left for a smooth ride while I took a bit more center run for some fun wave action. The esker ends right at the bottom of the rapid, to catch the front side you need to be hard left, otherwise access is via a small lagoon on the backside. The access to both is poor, we missed the first one and ended up in the lagoon, it's a steep hike up to the flat areas, even further up is the main esker. Tree covered on this side there is a trail leading to the top. We set up the hut and relaxed, I felt tired in spite of the easy day, the fruitless fishing adventure and the climb combined with a lack of food & water did me in. We had a miab (Veg Parmesan Pasta again), polished off some Pringles and other munchies.
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A little after 10:00pm we went to gather some firewood and check out the esker, fantastic view from the top even in the dim light. In spite of a bit of clearing late in the day the skies are now the usual grey. It was very buggy along the esker, probably the time of day. The esker is massive, consisting of multiple ridges. Bugged out and tired the fire never happened…. maybe in the morning?
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We have an ambitious plan for tomorrow, I'd like to try for Great Island which is about 46km of almost all fast moving water with a number of rapids, mostly CI/II there are also 2 CIII's we will need to watch for. Turns out that food barrel #2 has no more miab's, everything in it requires some kind of heat & cook, and the kitchen barrel is at the bottom of the hill so this simply won't happen. Fresh tea & chocolate plus a wrap with jam will have to suffice as dinner round two. Fortunately barrel #3 is nearly untouched so we are fine for food. It's looking like we will be four or five days behind schedule, our Monday pick-up will probably switch to Friday, we'll see how tomorrow goes, I'll call Doug tomorrow night to set up the new date with Jack Batstone, Via and Bruce in South Indian Lake who has the Subaru. A nice sunny warm day is in order, we will be running some big stuff tomorrow, it would be great to smash through some big waves under a hot sun and I know Steve feels the same way, the combination of a spray deck and dry suit will keep me protected but Steve's set-up is not so good, at best his clothing is semi-dry and his spray "shield" helps to keep him from swamping it does leave him kneeling in a few inches of water after most rapids unless he takes a very cautious line.
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