New Trip Report posted by user0317

Trip Name: Drowning River.

Entry Point: Other

Click Here to View Trip Report

Wow! Cool trip! What did the bottom of the Prism look like before the trip?

Thanks Driftless.

All of the light colored scratches that are standing out in the photo of the prism are new. I had a few that went right down to the kevlar, which is sort of scary. Needless to say I'll be doing an epoxy job on it before taking it out again!

Great trip report and photos!

Looks like a great trip...thanks for posting the report. I'm adding this to my bucket list.

If one was tent camping with a group of, say, 4 paddlers, would most of the campsites have sufficient room for a couple tents?

thistlekicker: "Looks like a great trip...thanks for posting the report. I'm adding this to my bucket list.

If one was tent camping with a group of, say, 4 paddlers, would most of the campsites have sufficient room for a couple tents?"

Jackpine, High Hill, and Bald Rock all have very large, expansive camping areas.
The site at Tincan might be a little tight, but you could make it work. I suspect that the lakes in the beginning have good camping sites, but I just paddled through them. If I were going with a larger group, I would spend my final night at the rapids at P12 (another large site) and paddle the final 2 miles out on the last day. You could make a campsite work at the end at P14, but P12 was better camping.

I highly recommend this route. My pictures do not do justice to the scenery and sense of solitude.

That is the nice thing about Kevlar!

Thanks, enjoyed the report; the pictures may not do it justice, but they bring it alive.

Thanks for the report: what a great trip! It’s a shame the weather wasn’t more agreeable, but glad you enjoyed yourself nonetheless. I use a custom DIY hammock setup (and also buy a lot of little titanium things from Dutch...) and agree that it’s one of the better ways to stay dry. How do you like the cuben/spectra composite tarp? Specifically, is it really loud in the wind and rain? I like silpoly because it doesn’t stretch when wet, but have for awhile been curious about shaving 5-6 oz on a cuben shelter.
The drowning sounds like an excellent river trip, and I imagine the fishing and solitude would be quite enjoyable.

muddyfeet: "Thanks for the report: what a great trip! It’s a shame the weather wasn’t more agreeable, but glad you enjoyed yourself nonetheless. I use a custom DIY hammock setup (and also buy a lot of little titanium things from Dutch...) and agree that it’s one of the better ways to stay dry. How do you like the cuben/spectra composite tarp? Specifically, is it really loud in the wind and rain? I like silpoly because it doesn’t stretch when wet, but have for awhile been curious about shaving 5-6 oz on a cuben shelter.
The drowning sounds like an excellent river trip, and I imagine the fishing and solitude would be quite enjoyable. "

Thanks Muddyfeet. I'd be interested in seeing pics of your custom hammock rig. Before this year I sort of just threw my hammock and tarp up without much thought, but I knew I was dragging around more weight than I needed to, and reconfiguring my hang during a storm was really cumbersome.

This is my 2nd trip with my new hammock setup, but the first one with any significant precipitation. I had read that the cuben tarps are known to be a bit louder in the rain. I don't think that it would have occurred to me that it was loud if I hadn't read about it. You are going to get a certain amount of noise from any tarp in the rain, and I'm just happy to know that the tarp is doing its job. To address the question 'is it loud?' specifically, I would say it is a tad louder than other tarps that I have owned, but not enough to keep me awake. It really does get frustrating being stuck in your hammock or under your tarp for hours before and after you are asleep, and I found it nice that the cuben tarp lets a little more light in for when you are not sleeping.

I liked having the cover on the chameleon hammock as well. One night I noticed a lot of condesation building up on the top cover, but in the morning I realized that I had slept in it backwards. The head area of the hammock has a larger panel of bug netting, which allows it to breath more than the foot area.

Awesome report, love the pictures. What a sense of adventure to go solo for 10-days on a route not well traveled, especially one that is point to point.

That was the best trip report I've read on this site. Riveting. I didn't want it to end.

Thanks for the great report! Fun to read about this area.

Nice trip report, thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed your comments and pictures .

Great report. I did the Esnagami near where you canoed many years ago. I loved the area. You caught some really nice brook trout. Did you find many spots where the brook trout fishing was really good, or did you just catch them randomly? On my trip the water was too warm for the brookies but we caught many walleyes. In any event,, your experience was fascinating to read and I hope you have many more such trips. Best, Jerry

missmolly: "That was the best trip report I've read on this site. Riveting. I didn't want it to end. "

Thanks Missmolly. What a compliment!

Moonpath,

I might need to pick your brain about the Esnagami someday. It is on my short list of rivers to run, but I'm not finding a ton of information on it. I'm particularly curious about portage conditions and overall difficulty of the river.

I think your experience of catching many walleyes, and few trout is common on the Albany river and it's moderate to large tributaries. When the water is warmer, the trout seek out cool areas fed by springs, or the colder water in small tributaries. With the paddling season already being short, and the paddlers being few, this is probably what keeps the trout populations up. If you paddle too early when the trout are likely easier to find, the rivers would be difficult to run due to high water. If you paddle too late when the rivers have cooled off, the water will likely be very low.

There were definitely places with dozens of brook trout in a small area, although they weren't necessarily where you'd expect to find them in warmer conditions (at the base of rapids). Some of the best spots were the shoreline of areas with deeper water. I'd be curious to know if they run up the smaller tributaries of the Drowning, such as the Waba River or the Singing River in the fall. These were very feisty trout and were challenging to land in the smaller areas of the river.

In 2019 or 2020 I would like to run the remaining 130 miles of the Drowning down from the Supawn access down to its merger with Kenogami. I haven't found any trip reports or information on it, so it likely hasn't been run in quite some time. Judging by the satellite imagery, It looks like there are a few waterfalls at the beginning of this section, and then just a lot of swift water. It would probably be doable with just a tandem, but I think a group of 4 would be ideal to split up the float plane extraction costs, and to make quicker work of opening up the portages (which probably would be nonexistent at this point). If anyone is interested, drop me a message.