Day 71

We continued our portage. Every couple hundred meters we’d rest our load and head back for something else, or begin a next section. bookm

The small rocks we’d climbed across the day before transitioned into larger flat boulders, and then cliffs, columns, and canyons. We lowered the boats onto a pond and Erin paddled them across. We began to add scouting legs to figure out how to best navigate the often vertical terrain. We searched out the safest descents and easiest climbs, sometimes hopping from one boulder to the next.

Finally, we could see the river ahead of us, and then after our last descent, the riverbed flattened out. We climbed across more small and medium size rocks with poor footing, water moving beneath, until, totally exhausted, five or six in the afternoon, we were able to put in and get back to the business of kayaking.

We paddled two miles of swift water to the next portage. The river poured down a large shelf to the left of an island. To the right, we portaged, climbing down a cliff to flat water below. Between the island and the mainland, the water had too many shallow rocks to paddle, but we pulled the boats along passed the island and beneath the shelf.

With our boats and gear ready to launch, we climbed back up the cliff and searched the thickly moss carpeted woods for a campsite or a stream. We were out of water and tired. We found neither.

Beneath the shelf we paddled manageable rapids, and then found a beach, with a stream. Our prayers were answered.

Oil seemed to come out of the ground. We’d seen this elsewhere, but here it was most pronounced.

We used the ample drift wood to make a campfire, and settled in comfortably for the night.

Check out pictures here!

GPS coordinates: 50.949558, -78.278364