| Route |
Opeongo - Proulx - Crow River - Lavielle -
Dickson - Opeongo (4 days) |
| Distance |
~85 km |
| Comments | Probably my favourite route in Algonquin. The
Crow river and the lakes it passes through are the highlights. This trip is also full of portages, the lengthest being a 5 km portage. Blair finally saw his first moose, despite having spent 20+ days canoeing with me on previous trips. Other highlights were beavers, loons, stars, and a rickety fire tower. |
| References |
| Day 1 |
We left Collingwood at 5 am, arriving at the
park around 8:30, and on the water by 9. Although Opeongo was a tad
rough and windy, it only took us 4 hours to get the first portage on
the north arm of Opeongo. On the Crow river we spotted a moose and her calf feeding, although all we could see were the heads sticking out of the water. As we slowly approached they climbed onto land, but they didn't seem particularly concerned, and stood on the edge as we paddled by. We arrived at our site on Big Crow lake around 5 pm. After swiftly setting up camp and gorging ourselves, we hiked up to the cliff nearby and watched the sunset. I had the courage/stupidity to climb the decommisioned fire tower, which required me to shimmy up a support until I could reach the ladder which was about 7 m above the ground. The hut at the top is definately falling apart, for floorboards were missing that were there just 3 years ago. |
| Day 2 | We were on the water at about 9 am, and were
through the Crow River by about 4 pm. This segment is full of portages
and is quite shallow at the beginning. Once on Lake Lavielle a storm blew in, so we sought shelter. It only lasted about an hour, so we were able to continue down to an island half way down the lake, where we made camp at about 5 pm. |
| Day 3 |
Today we started a bit earlier, hoping to get
across the 5 km portage by early afternoon. The portage was not too
bad, although by the end our patience was wearing a little thin. We
hopped over 2 more short portages and landed on the beach on the east
arm of Opeongo by about 2 pm, where we proceeded to swim and sun
ourselves. We arrived at our campsite on Opeongo Island at about 4 pm. |
| Day 4 |
Spent the night under the stars, so we were up
with sun, and we on the water before 8 am. We paddled the calm waters
of Opeongo south to the access point. |