Day 48: The Bridge To Somewhere
November 27, 2019
Kilometers: Kilometer not provided-1262.5 (32 kms paddled, 5.4kms hiked)
Mangawaiiti Campsite to Ngaporo Campsite
As Ethan stated yesterday I am also super excited to get off my feet and into a canoe for five days. Only in the last few years have I gotten into hiking and long distance hiking. Before that most of my outdoors experience while I was growing up was canoeing and canoe tripping. As I talked about in an earlier blog post, my family would go on annual summer canoe trips in the Canadian wilderness that lasted 7-10 days where we hardly saw any other people. We canoe tripped in Lake Superior Provincial Park, Temagami, Kejimkujik National Park, Algonquin Provincial Park, Mississauga Provincial Park, and The White River, among other places. These adventures definitely taught me both the Do’s and the Dont’s of canoe tripping to say the least.
Every summer before these family canoe trips I would also attend Camp Chikopi for seven weeks, which is an all boys wilderness and sports camp in Northern Ontario. Canoeing was the number one mode of transportation at the camp. If we were going anywhere- to the girls camp, to the closest town or even to buy some ice cream- it was typically traveled via canoe. At least once a day I would be in a canoe at camp and I attended the camp for nine summers.
Every year at camp everyone would go on a 5-7 day canoe trip. Some of my best memories were made on these canoe trips. Over the course of the time I went to Chikopi I canoe tripped the Magnetawan River, the French River, Algonquin Provincial Park a few times, Killarney Provincial Park and Mississauga Provincial Park.
The last year I attended Chikopi I was a counselor and led a canoe trip of 10 twelve year old boys on a five day canoe trip down the Magnetawan River. They did not pay me enough to do this.
My last year at the camp I also got into competitive canoeing with my three best friends there. Our C4 team (a four person racing canoe) actually placed at a regional regatta qualifying us for the Ontario Provincials. Unfortunately, Provincials were after the camp ended and we all went back home instead of competing. Every morning we woke up an hour before everyone else at camp to practice while the lake was still flat.
I even convinced some of my good friends from back home to go on a seven day canoe trip in Killarney Provincial Park with my pup Skylar and I a few summers ago. We had great weather and it was a blast.
There were many things that drew me towards hiking the TA as opposed to another long distance trail and this canoe section was definitely one of them. Having a five day canoe section over a course of 150+ kms as an official part of the hiking trail is totally unique; it’s not something that any other premier long distance hiking trail can boast. It’s safe to say i’m totally ready to canoe this river.
We woke up to a fog hovering over the river and surrounding mountains. From his tent Ethan read aloud the paragraph from yesterdays blog about the Belgians early issues on the river. Peter wasn’t too happy with it so he decided to start taking Ethan’s tent down with Ethan still inside.
After our 48th consecutive breakfast of breakfast bars we carried our barrels down to the river and started strapping them in. None of us know many knots so we just invent new ones every time basically. The morning was a perfect 75 degrees and sunny with zero clouds.
After a few hours of paddling we arrived at the bridge to nowhere trail. We tied up the boats and headed up the 2.7km trail to the bridge. Peter ran up ahead and we were surprised to see him hiding in a tree to scare us.
The bridge to nowhere actually lead to somewhere, which was kind of disappointing. It was used many years ago by farmers in the valley but is now part of a hiking trail. We were all expecting like a bridge that literally connected one side to just a cliff face or something. It was interesting but we all agreed it wasn’t really worth the 5.4km round trip.
After the trail we headed down river a little bit and tied up again to eat lunch. There wasn’t any shade so we just sat in our boats and ate quickly.
The afternoon paddle was only 20km but with plenty of time we weren’t too pressed to paddle fast. At one point us and the Belgians tied up our boats and went through some rapids together.
With about 12km to go we pulled off the river and walked up to a lodge that is only accessible via boat. We had a beer and looked out over the river.
At around 5:30 we pulled into our campsite for the night. It was a really large site on a peninsula with rapids all around it. After baths Ethan and I made a yellow curry with rice, coconut milk, and fried peanuts and cashews. It’s awesome being able to have much heavier things for dinner because you don’t have to carry them all day.
After dinner Ethan and I put a whopping on Charlie and Peter in euchre. Not long after that we were all off to bed. Ethan kept threatening to take down Peter and Charlie’s tent over night as retribution for the mornings incident but I don’t see that happening.
Today Peter lost a toe nail. This means that I am the only one of the four of us with all ten toe nails intact. I hope that is still the case when I arrive in Bluff.
-Alex