Algonquin Park: Camping Trip Logs: 011 - Meanest Link Part One

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Day 2

July 11, 2011 - near Williamsport Bridge to below Distress Dam

In what was to become the daily grind schedule, we were woken up to a hot coffee prepared by John to help get things going. The process was as follows: John would call out “Coffee water is on!” just before 6 AM, maybe ten minutes later he would yell “Coffee’s ready!” and if you weren’t there for your cup by then you would hear “Coffee’s getting cold!” If you were Jim you would then hear “Jim! Do you want coffee?” This little refrain would be our morning wakeup call for the next 14 days and we grew very fond of it.

I was in charge of our first breakfast and offered up what I call “Laurie Loves Mike Egg Patties”, spinach and egg patties with ham on an English muffin. They were quite filling and hopefully would prepare us for another long day.

Today we entered a rockier, shallower section of the Big East River. There would be sections of paddling followed by a stretch where there wasn’t enough water and we would have to get out wading and pulling the canoes. We also started to encounter riffs and rapids where we would lift and push the canoes over.

The wading begins.

Rocky, meandering Big East River.

Mark S is still having fun.

More rocks than water.

A helping hand over a ledge.

We stopped for lunch at a bend in the river with a view of a nice cliff face, the one Hap Wilson calls “Cliffscape” in his book. As we finished lunch and prepared to leave again we had a brief rain shower. No more than ten minutes and barely enough to cool us off.

McArthur Chute was our next encounter, an impressive channel that works its way through a particularly rocky spot. The portage wasn’t much of a portage, but it had rained briefly just before we arrived and it involved climbing up several large slippery rock faces. There was a huge chance of injuries and we all made an extra effort to try and avoid that happening, there were still a few slips and falls but we made it through safely with a bit of luck.

Hap Wilson's Cliffscape.

Slippery rock face portage at McArthur Chute.

McArthur Chute.

McArthur Chute.

A few more small rapids, some wading and getting over “Lucifer’s Ledge” and we arrived at the start of the Distress Rapids at about 5 PM. This very long stretch of rapids below the Distress Lake dam are remarkable, almost half a kilometer of near continuous chutes and falls. We spent a good hour or more checking the area out before finally starting to set camp.

Start of Distress Rapids.

Exploring the strech of rapids.

Double falls.

Hammocks strung next to rapids.

After getting tents and hammocks setup and gear squared away it was time to relax and have a cocktail. The fire was started and while waiting for the coals to develop we were able to take it easy, recall the events of the day and enjoy the roar of the rapids.

I was on supper duty and it was steak, again! We were eating like kings, an unexpected treat on the Meanest Link. After dinner and tidying up I thought it was worth going for a swim, not likely to get to this spot again and playing in the rapids looked like it would be fun. Plus it would be nice to wash the sweat of the day off. Markus tried his luck at fishing, unsuccessfully.

Some of us sat around the fire for a short while, but again the mosquitoes were driving us into our tents. After ten hours of up-river canoe travel we didn’t need much persuasion to call it a night. It had been another great day.

Sure there where some sore feet and ankles and you knew you had put in a full day, but that’s what this adventure was all about. I’ve always been partial to river travel and the Big East is a beautiful river, I’d recommend going downstream though. Again not much in the way of wildlife, the heat keeping most animals hiding wherever they could find a cool spot I would think. A couple of snakes was about it.

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