Monday, September 24, 2018
Travelled 4.90 miles from east end of Relief Lake to Jackpine Rapids Heading out from Relief Lake, you leave behind any possibility of bailing out on this trip until the end, more or less. A plane can feasibly pick you up from the lakes, but there is no way out once you leave them behind, save bushwhacking many miles to a network of logging roads. The woods up here would be dreadfully difficult to bushwhack through, and I wouldn’t dare try it unless out of the worst of needs.
I had to slow down my downriver progress for a few days to stretch my trip out into Saturday, when John from Twin Lakes Lodge was scheduled to pick me up. This was fine by me as I wanted to take time to fish and explore along the way. When Bobs and I did the Steel River loop we had some really high mileage days, but in the end I had wished that we took 2 more days or so on the trip and did more exploring. Most of the places I paddle I will likely never return to, as there is simply too much new water to canoe in one lifetime. For some reason I didn’t turn tracking on my Earthmate while travelling this day, but I reach Jackpine Rapids at 2:25. At the top of the hill on the Jackpine Rapids portage is a beautiful stand of large Jackpines (naturally) and an awesome campsite. Being a rather rainy and gloomy day, it was nice to have an open campsite to let a little light in. Since I had left my Helinox chair at home, the log chairs by the firepit were a bonus. As with a few other campsites on this route (and the Steel Rive loop) there was a grate left at the campsite which would be useful for cooling over a fire. With that in mind, I began to raise some dough for making a calzone later.
As the dough rose, I setup my hammock and tarp in the misty weather. I’ve been hammocking for a while, but this year I decided to take a hard-look at my setup and make some improvements. I started by purchasing a Dutchwear Chameleon hammock with a top cover. Bugs certainly weren’t going to be an issue on this trip (in general I am not bothered by them anyhow) but the top cover on the hammock does add a few degrees of comfort by trapping a bit of body heat. The hammock has a ridgeline underneath the top-cover, which keeps a little ‘sag’ in it, and prevents the hammock from getting taught. This makes for much more comfortable sleeping. I hang my hammock with homemade amsteel rope whoopee slings and some lightweight, Kevlar straps around the trees.
Next I add an underquilt to the bottom of the hammock. I sleep in a Sierra Nevada sleeping bag that has a keyhole shaped entry, rather than a zipper. Using a bag with a zipper is rather difficult in a hammock. Another problem with a sleeping bag in a hammock is that the insulation under your body gets very compressed, robbing you of warmth on your under-body. The underquilt helps address this problem. The yellow rope in the picture above is a ridgeline to assist with hanging my tarp. The tarp is attached to the ridgeline with sliding prussic knots, which are highly adjustable but hold strong once in position. I use a cuben fiber tarp, which is extremely light. I saved a little over a pound off my packing weight by switching over to this tarp. There are no seams in it to worry about sealing either. The ends of the tarp can be closed up in foul weather, to preventing rain from entering on the sides. The tarp’s tieouts are connected to ground stakes using Dutchware Hookworms with amsteel rope and a small piece of elastic. The elastic provides the tarp a little ‘give’ in the wind without causing it to sag or come loose. Before using this setup I sort of just randomly tied my tarp off to various stakes, branches, etc… It worked but it was cumbersome to adjust if I needed to, and was frankly a bit sloppy.
With my hammock setup, I decided to fish the rapids near camp, and caught an assortment of fish. Fish were not on the menu tonight so the fish were safe.
Back at camp my dough was rising very slowly, due to the cold temperatures no doubt. It was time to start a campfire to get a bed of coals started to bake my calzone on, but all the wood was soaked after several days of rain and snow. I’ve always thought that a fire can be started in pretty much any condition in a boreal forest however, so I set out to prove it. I found a downed birch tree and harvested a bit of birch bark by peeling away the outer, wet layer, and grabbing the dry layer underneath. Being in a jackpine forest, I was able to find balls of pine resin to add to the bark and tinder, which burns very hot. On top of this I added increasingly larger jackpine branches, which although wet were able to dry off from the heat of the other burning material. As the fire burned I kept a stash of wood around the perimeter of the fire to dry off from the heat. In an hour or so I had a good bed of coals and proceeded to make a calzone with smoked string cheese, tomato paste, salami, and various spices. It turned out to be one of the better meals that I’ve made camping.
The rain let up for a couple of hours, so I sat up late by the campfire, absolutely stuffed from dinner. At about 11PM, it started to rain again, so I turned in for the night. For some reason I was overheated while sleeping, and tossed aside my sleeping bag and most of my clothes by morning. It was probably in the 30s outside, so I figured that over-eating a bit before bed helped keep me warm.