There and Back Again...And the Trails You Take©

 

 

Sunrise on Lake Lila, William C. Whitney Wilderness Area in the southwestern Adirondacks, photograph by the Author.

Sometimes the outcome of your wilderness trek depends on the trails you take!  This sounds obvious, I know, but sometimes the trails you take can seriously affect your plans and the conditions on the ground can be very different from what you expect when you study a map.  Also, you should always have a “Plan B” ready to go and you should always be ready to cut your losses and change your plans when conditions and situations warrant it.

 

As an example of this, I just got back from guiding some members of the Scouts BSA, Troop 285, on a wilderness canoe trek from Little Tupper Lake to Lake Lila, traversing through the William C. Whitney Wilderness Area in the southwestern Adirondacks, and the trails we took and the conditions on the ground changed our plans and the route we ended up taking.

 

The area through which we travelled, photograph by the Author.

We had originally planned to travel from Little Tupper Lake to Rock Pond and then on to Lake Lila and to Low’s Lake, via Clear Pond and Bog Lake, before portaging to Big Deer Pond and the headwaters of the Oswegatchie River, coming off the water at the Oswegatchie River inlet to Cranberry Lake.  We knew that the second day of our trek, when we planned to travel from Rock Pond to Lake Lila would be a long and hard day, but what we didn’t plan on was “unimproved” portages!

 

But unfortunately, the portages from Rock Pond to Hardigan Pond, from Hardigan Pond to the Salmon Lake Outlet and from Little Salmon Lake to Lilypad Pond were “unimproved” and for our nine-member trek crew almost impassable.  And it looked like the portage between Lilypad Pond and Single Shanty Brook was going to be just as bad or maybe even worse than the others!

 

The beginning of the “unimproved” 2.2 mile (3.5 km) long portage to Hardigan Pond, photograph by the Author.

The Trails You Take ... “Improved” versus “Unimproved”

 

The best way to describe these portages is as “unimproved”, but what does that mean?  Unlike the well-travelled or “improved” path between Little Tupper Lake and Rock Pond, the portages between Rock Pond and Lake Lila apparently don’t see many travelers.  At various points on these portages, the path was a stream, a bog, a washed-out ravine, was covered with fallen trees, or was an overgrown thicket.  Now, to be fair, the maps of the area were excellent and the portages themselves were marked with round yellow markers nailed to trees along the trail, orange tape tied onto branches and markers at the landings.

 

An example of one of the trail markers nailed to a tree, a tree which a bear had decided to use as a scratching post.  This photograph was taken on the portage between Hardigan Pond and the Salmon Lake Outlet by the Author.

It wasn’t that the portages were bad necessarily, it was that the level of wilderness experience of our group, the age of the members and the heavy weight of the equipment which we were carrying which made these portages difficult for us.  Now, we were looking for the “full wilderness experience”, and that is exactly what we got.  The problem with this “full wilderness experience” was that seven of the eight people I was leading, were new to wilderness canoeing and trekking and when these seven people reached the portage to Hardigan Pond, they were only on their second portage of their lives.  And not only were they new to the wilderness, but worse yet more than half of them were 14 years old or younger!

 

Crossing the Rock Pond portage, carrying the heavier 72 pounds, 33 kilograms, canoe.  This was a well-travelled, “improved” portage.  Photograph by the Author.

Compounding this problem, when you are leading people who are relatively new to canoeing and trekking in the wilderness, the canoes you use, have to be virtually indestructible, which means heavy, and in this case the lightest weighed more than 60 pounds or 27 kilograms, and the heaviest was 72 pounds or 33 kilograms.  Carrying this type of canoe over an “improved” portage with a clear path, without fallen trees, bogs and wash outs is difficult enough, depending upon the incline, roots, and rocks.  Carrying these same canoes over an “unimproved” portage, which at different points is a bog, a stream, the top of a beaver dam, pushing through thickets and over fallen trees, is much more difficult!

 

Sunrise over Rock Pond, at the beginning of day two of our travels, through the William C. Whitney Wilderness Area, photograph by the Author.

When we planned this trek, I originally had estimated, based on my previous experience in Algonquin Provincial Park, that the 2.2 mile (3.5 km) long portage to Hardigan Pond would take us just over two hours, -- it actually took us over four hours because of the condition of the path and the difficulty of shifting canoes and gear across the portage.  I also had originally estimated that the next two portages, which were both about half a mile or 800 meters long, should take about half an hour each -- they actually took well over an hour each, due to the conditions of the portages. 

 

The additional time that it took to cross these portages, put us seriously behind schedule by the time we reached the portage from Lilypad Pond to Single Shanty Brook.  Because of the lateness of the day, a developing thunderstorm and the awful beginning of the portage from Lilypad Pond to Single Shanty Brook, in which you had to cross 50 feet or 15 meters of hanging bog and three trees, which had fallen down on top of each other to make a three-foot or 1 meter high wall across the beginning of solid ground, we decided to stop there for the night and camp near the portage path and not try to make it to Lake Lila until our third day.

 

Camping along the portage is an example of cutting your losses and making a new plan on the fly.  Nobody really wanted to camp alongside the portage path, but we had to get off the water because of an incoming thunderstorm and because, since it was 7:30 pm and there was at best only two hours of daylight left, there just wasn’t enough time remaining in the day to make it to Lake Lila.  At that point in our travels, we had no choice but to setup camp then and there, whether we liked the location or not.  Also, it is always a good rule to stop and setup camp, while there is still at least two hours of daylight remaining (for more on this read “Estimating The Time Till Sunset ©”, HERE).  While we were setting up camp along the portage path, I reviewed our options and the chances of successfully completing our original travel plan and decided we needed to move to “Plan B”. 

 

With “Plan B” we would have to change our planned pickup site from the Oswegatchie River inlet into Cranberry Lake, to an exit from the Lake Lila access road instead.  Lake Lila was the last pickup point on our trek before we reached the Oswegatchie River inlet pickup site and was therefore the only “Plan B” option available.  We needed to move to “Plan B” because I knew that we wouldn’t be able to make up the time we had lost on the second day of the trek, without canoeing harder and longer than anyone would have wanted to.  At this point a forced march was the only way to get us back onto schedule and since this trip was supposed to be fun for everyone and not a forced march, we had to go for “Plan B”.

 

Lake Lila, a beautiful lake that everyone enjoyed exploring, photograph by the Author.

The good news is that because we switched to “Plan B” and didn’t push everyone to complete the original plan, everyone had a good time and enjoyed the remainder of their trek, which included canoeing the entire circumference of Lake Lila and exploring part of the Beaver River.

 

The beginning of the portage from Little Tupper Lake to Rock Pond, photograph by the Author.

If I was to follow these trails again, now that I have firsthand knowledge of the ground conditions, I would travel with a more experienced crew and with lighter canoes and gear, that way these “unimproved” portages wouldn’t get the better of us.  And again, I would make sure that we had a good “Plan B” and knew to cut our losses and change our plans when the conditions warranted it!

 

Sunrise on Lake Lila, photograph by the Author.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Field Repairs, or What I Learned on My Canoe Trek ©”, where we will talk about what’s in your repair kit and how to repair your gear.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!