In two days on Saturday I put in at Lake One with the goal of getting to Seagull by the next Saturday to meet up with a friend who'll be camping at Trail's End and will then shuttle me and my gear back to my car. It's the first point-to-point trip I'll do but not my first solo, so while I'm a small percent anxious about the implied deadline to meet if I want a ride, I also know that I can turn back if I'm not making good time, or detour and come out through Snowbank, and I can ping him with the garmin to tell him not to wait up for me if necessary.

Plus, the weather forecast looks amazing starting on Saturday with near-zero wind all weekend; I should be able to eat up some miles those first two days and then coast, so to speak, to the finish line.

It'll also be the longest solo I've done at 8 days, so we'll see if I see the space coyote and have a profound mystical understanding or if I just eat too many merciless peppers of Quetzalacatenango, grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum. In my favor, though, I am not packing any insanity peppers, so it should be a, dare I say, good trip.

*rimshot*

Sounds like a really amazing adventure, with 8 days you should be able to casually paddle this and have plenty of time to relax along the way in an area of your choosing. PP shows the route at 47 miles if you're heading up through Thomas and into Kek.

I'm envious because I would love to do a point to point like this but I really have no options for shuttle without forking out a lot of money to an outfitter, even there even is such a thing for those two entry points.

I think you could get into Kek in 2 days if you made good time and then go play around on Knife or even take the Ottertrack border route back down through Red Rock and Alpine before jumping out on Seagull. You have so many options with the trip and that kind of time. I would be trying to hit as many lakes as I could!

Either way, have fun! Do a trip report when time allows. Would love to hear about what you ended up doing so I can plan for some day when I do the same route.

Enjoy your trip - do you have a route planned out . . . ? It should be doable in
7 days even if you have a day or so of weather delays.

Right now the planned route is the most direct. Number lakes, Insula, Thomas, Fraser, Kek, Ogish, Jasper, Alpine, Seagull. A short detour to see Eddy Falls, maybe a detour off Insula to see the Fishdance pictos, maybe lazy afternoons to dip a paddle into every adjoining lake. Also, round that PP route up to some 52 miles; I'll be double-portaging. :)

And, to be fair, it's more like seven days; next Saturday my friend has about a 7 hour drive home on top of dropping me off back at EP30, so I want to do right by him and show up at Trail's End by 8am that day (and to buy him lunch and a tank of gas in Ely). Google Maps says it's nearly 4 hours of driving to get back to Lake One, oof. But even so, seven days is generous, and I agree I should be able to make it to Kek in 2 with the good weather forecast.

If this works out, and next year I'm motivated to do more portaging and less paddling, I'd go from Insula to Alice and Fishdance and then up that southern route to Little Sag and end it with that 409 rod portage from Paulson to Seagull.

Hey Noodle,

Have a great trip! Sounds like an amazing opportunity. Looks like the weather will cooperate too. I look forward to reading your trip report when you return. Safe travels!