We came.
We suffered.
We conquered.
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The Start |
The Race
90km of paddling across Algonquin Provincial Park.
7am start... clock doesn't stop until you finish.
Over a dozen rough back-country portages and some winding rivers, the odd marsh... it was tough stuff.
The Start
The first 23.5km were mostly lake paddling with one short portage.
This flew by... we were really steady and straight. Lots of boats around, we had taken compass bearings and went as straight as one could hope. The water was super still, some fog but no navigational challenges at all!
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Galearey, Rock, Whitefish Lakes |
The short river section leading up to Portage #2 were much twistier than we anticipated! A little tricky but we didn't make any wrong turns.
Portage #2 was a short hop around the Pog Lake Dam - we had to stop to wipe the boat and paddles off to prevent the spread of an invasive species (the spiny flea thing). All went according to plan.
We crossed the Lake of Two Rivers and kissed "flat fast lake paddling" good-bye...
Madawaska River (28km-37km)
This section of river is a nightmare to paddle.
Upstream, it starts off squiggly, then gets marshy, then gets beaver dam-y.
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Squiggles and Marsh!
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We had paddled this section a few weeks ago but it was definitely lower, which made it slower and tougher. Turn, turn, rudder turn, tuuuurrrrrn.... oh and Portages 3 & 4 just for good measure!
It all went great, though! But good-bye average speed!
Midway through marsh hell there's a decision point - you could either keep paddling or portage.
Having paddled this section a few weeks ago, we knew there were at least 4 beaver dams to portage over and with the lower water probably more. None of them were marked portages, so it was literally scrambling up a beaver dam, heaving it over, then sometimes falling into a deep pool on the other side.
We elected to portage - which was lonnnng (about 1.8km). I'll call it Portage #5. We took turns "Mr. Canoe Heading" the boat and it went pretty OK, the trail was very well groomed and wide, mostly flat. It was nice to use a different set of muscles (hello, legs!). The boat was a little unbalanced with the batteries for the night lights mounted, though, which meant a bit more arm than usual.
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Me Portaging Again Somewhere in Algonquin Park |
Then was another decision point - you could either put into the river for a short bit or keep portaging all the way to Portage #6 - we chose the latter this time, as this section of river was pretty decent.
Portage #6 was a steep and muddy and rocky trail, almost 400m (but felt like longer).
One little "oopsie" was trying to reposition the yoke during the portage to re-center the balance of the canoe and we moved it the wrong way! Front heavy, move the yoke forward - we moved it backward and made it worse. That didn't cost a huge amount of time and once we got it right portaging was much much easier.
Back To The Lake!
Finally we were back on lakes and some paddling in a straight line! Very calm water.
At this point I had to do my first water refill, so this is a good time to talk about...
Nutrition
This race is 100% self-supported - everything you need you must carry with you. There are no opportunities to re-supply, so this means you're either carrying many many litres of water or you're making it along the way.
It was a pretty hot day (especially for September!) so there was no way to skimp on fluids.
My stomach rebels against solid food so I went with pure sports drink... well, homemade sports drink!
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Mmmm Tang/Gatorade/Maltodestrose/Fructose!!! |
Additionally I added some crushed up caffeine pills (400mg total over the 15h) and table salt.
To drink lake water you have to treat it - 4 Aquatabs per 2L...
Anyway it ended up being about 1kg of sugar! I individually portioned it for 5 2L jugs of liquid. It was great, honestly, very little stomach anger and I had energy right through to the end.
Cache Lake, Tanamakoon Lake (37km-43km)
Flat, peaceful lake paddling - no difficulties, recovered a bit of average speed, leading to...
Portaging At The High Point (43km-47km)
This section was one we hadn't done before and I wasn't sure what we would encounter.
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Lake -> Pond -> Little Island Lake -> Pond -> Lake |
Portage 7, 8, 9 and 10 all within just under an hour! These were some gnarly portages in quick succession, we mostly carried the boat by hand until the last one which we "Mr Canoe Headed". There were a few teams we were back-and-forth with, and we encountered some recreational camping paddlers with a case of beer (we jokingly requested a beer, they declined).
The water was great, though, easy paddling for the most part (other than a few lilies on one of the ponds). Much better than I expected at the highest point!
Halfway and Back On The Lakes! (47km-62km)
7 and a half hours in, feeling alllllllright!
This was mostly lake paddling other than "Smoke Creek" (which had very little current).
Smoke Lake, Tea Lake, Bonita Lake, Canoe Lake, then back to Tea Lake and on to the Tea Lake dam!
Part of this was an out-and-back to the Algonquin Outfitters store on Canoe Lake - which looks lovely, but it was quite tough to take at that point knowing the Tea Lake Dam was riiiight there and we were paddling away from it.
Still, nice to see all the teams both ahead and behind us.
I made fresh fluids in both my jugs to prepare for the last 1/3 of the race down the...
Oxtongue River
30km to go, but it was going to be a tough 30km.
This started with Portage #11, a pretty quick one around the Tea Lake dam.
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Us Paddling on the Oxtongue River |
We were paddling this river downstream (yay!) but very squiggly (boo), lots of rocky swifts which sometimes were fun (Whiskey Rapids) but other times you just nailed the boat against rocks and ground to a halt, having to lift it over.
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Taking a lickin' from the Oxtongue |
We still had daylight for the short Portages #12 and #13 and no trouble...
... then it got dark.
Paddling in the dark is pretty freaky, even with good lighting. On a winding river it's very tough to tell where to go at times - every gap in the trees looks like where the river will go, but sometimes it goes the other way! A few oopsies along the way even though we'd paddled it before.
Then came the beavers. We saw zero last time we paddled this river in the daylight - apparently they are nocturnal?? We saw at least a dozen, and they make this loud "smack" with their tail before they go under water... in the dark it's quite unnerving!
The other challenge is that seeing what is under the surface of the water goes from "difficult" to "impossible" when you are using lights - so those little swifts became extra annoying and hazardous.
Gravel Falls Portage #14 Ruined Our Race
There are several little rapids coming up to Gravel Falls, the next portage - but at night they all just sound like water rushing, and going over Gravel Falls is death - so we were pretty slow just making 100% sure we were going over rapids and not heading to... death.
Fortunately they had a volunteer stationed at the portage with a light to ensure nobody died, which was nice!
This was where it all went wrong.
When we pre-paddled the river a few weeks ago, we put in just after the falls an paddled the rapids after this.
It was rough... we banged on a lot of rocks, and even got jammed up under a tree at the last set of rapids and the water was lower on race day.
So we decided we would portage past the rapids on the trail and put in after those rapids. On the maps it looked super simple, follow the trail until you stop hearing rapids and put in!
We followed the trail and this was the result...
... about 40 minutes of going back and forth in the dark.
It was brutal - we just couldn't find anything that looked like the "right" trail. There was a creek crossing and presumably a fork in the trail but we just couldn't find the way that hugged the river. My buddy thought he heard a large animal in the woods (which he probably did, there was poop on the trail too!) - so it was just a lot of scrambly bad decision making.
In the end we just put in before two of the sets of rapids we had hoped to avoid and carried the boat over the rocks (we were correct that it was unpaddleable!!!).
What was the mistake? I think we made two - one was not going back and scouting the portage in our pre-race paddle, and the other was not really knowing much about "lining" the boat (walking through shallow sections while pulling the boat by rope or otherwise).
Live and Learn.
We were following another team at this point down the rest of the river to Ragged Falls, Portage #15.
This one I definitely knew as we had got lost on our pre-paddle, in the light! There's a tiny portage sign and if you miss it you end up in a parking lot - which we had done. So this time, in the dark, I made the right turn and got to the put-in.
To The Finish! (90km-94km)
The last bit of river is straighter and leads out to the final lake section. At this point we were still feeling... good! I don't know how. We couldn't catch the team in front of us but we were paddling strong.
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The Finish (but it was definitely darker than this) |
Done!
15h28 and 93.91km later... we were done!
What can you say... it was wild. A proper "adventure". Paddling through lakes you can only get to by portaging, twisting and turning through a marsh, and so much portaging...
It took a long time but I was so busy trying to figure out what to do next it mostly flew by.
Other than the portage we had a near perfect race. Maybe we could have been a little quicker here and there at a few things, but overall I think we kept everything lean and mean and light, and had the right strategies at the right times... wouldn't change much.
Not sure what they'll have in store for next year but maybe see you in 2025, Muskoka River X? Maybe.
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