Mk631 wrote on Sep 17^th, 2012 at 8:28pm:


We crossed paths with you on this portage and had the job of navigating around/over this tree. You're right--the wind was substantial. The more I travel in Quetico, the more careful I have become with respect to trees when setting up camp. I can't say that I've given it much thought on portages though. This one was a little too close for comfort.

Yeah-that was us. We were on the final leg of our journey. We began east of the park in the headwaters of the Wawiag River and made a three-quarters loop to exit at Stanton Bay. We experienced a fair amount of misery, with the absolute worst mosquito swarming I have ever encountered on the river, combined with the mandatory flipping of canoes in the area of the Wawiag where we could not portage around rapids--no real injuries but soaking our food pack made for some nasty odors towards the end of the trip. The Kawnipi portion was great but the winds made Sturgeon a bear. We managed a layover day on Dore which was wonderful. The winds kept the bugs down and I got an incredible video of a bald eagle taking out a gull. Managed a good morning of fishing in Stanton Bay. The most entertaining part of the trip was Jim Clark from Canoe Canada driving us around a maze of washed out logging roads trying to get to the predetermined drop off point at the head of the Wawiag. That's a whole other story worthy of a new thread. So, as always, we had a great trip in spite of and partially due to the miseries we experienced.

Hi MP--we did actually begin on the Wawiag River, about 4 miles east of where the Obadinaw River joins the Wawiag. We bushwacked a camp on the side of the road after a 4-hour adventure of wilderness road driving (we left Atikokan around 4:45 pm and finally got to the drop-off point near 9 pm) characterized by washed out roads, getting a little disoriented, and some serious off-road 4-wheeling. Day one was about a 28-mile journey down the winding Wawiag River before finally getting to a campsite in Kawa Bay. Long and HOT (this from a Texan!) day. After tipping our canoe early on, we were able to retain almost all of our gear. The worst thing, though, was losing my trusty expedition hat to the rapids. After that episode, I became a true "rag-head" (not a racist comment--the only thing I could find to cover up was a dish rag).

I've attached a satellite view of our starting point. The red X is Powell Lake, the yellow X is Hamlin Lake, and the blue circle is our starting point, on the side of a bridge on a logging road.

You got dropped off on a different logging road than we did.  I have been in the area a few times all but one time arriving at the washout at point A on this aerial photo. Last summer (2011) I did a solo bushwhacked from Belaire lake to the B on the aerial photo.  At point B there were car-truck tracks.  I assume the washout at A had been repaired.  There is a undrivable logging road between B and C.  The road makes a easy portage path. At the end of the logging road there is a moose path down over the hill to the Wawiag. I measure it on Google as 1.6 miles.  Easiest bushwhack I ever did.

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