2020 Brant to Missing Link Solo Loop
by petzval
When I went to bed the night before, I wasn't really sure what I was going to be doing on this day. I had three basic plans for this trip: 1) Stay at one campsite on Gillis and head out the way I came on the final night (I know many wouldn't like this plan, but I could be quite happy with it). 2) Stay on Gillis for a night or two and then make my way toward a campsite on Crooked, Tuscarora, or even Missing Link lake before heading out. 3) Move the second day (which was today) to Little Saganaga, spend a few days there, and then find one more campsite near Tuscarora before heading out.
The choice I made would be based mostly on how I felt when I awoke and the general conditions on this morning. I got up fairly early after an amazing night's sleep. I felt good (I had some knee issues the year prior that did not seem to appear this year), and the weather was kind of crappy. I liked the campsite and could have easily been very happy there for three or four nights, but it was still hazy, and the wind was blowing from the south again. I decided pretty quickly that this would be a better day to travel than to sit in camp. So I had a quick cold breakfast while I broke camp and packed up. I forgot to start the tracking on the inReach device I had rented from Tuscarora, but I think I shoved off at around 8 AM. I remembered to turn the tracking on once I was on the French Lake side of the Gillis to French Portage (mainly to let my wife know back home that I was on the move – she puts up with me doing this, so I think it's fair to keep her in the loop of my well-being). The trail between Gillis and French was easy and unmemorable – my favorite!
From the put-in at French, I set off to the portage trail in to Powell. As you can tell from the tacking map below, I had a bugger of a time finding this trail. My landmarks were the portage trail in to Fern Lake and the campsite on the south-west end of Powell – both of which I found with ease. The trail even looked close to the campsite, so I got out and explored the area and campsite to no avail. The site didn't look fantastic, by the way – I didn't see a single level tent pad. I paddled around the shore and even ended up just walking the portage trail to Fern just to verify where I was on the map. I eventually found the portage trail right where it should have been according to the map. There was a downed tree in the water that was completely obscuring the portage trail which I could tell once on it, is rarely used.
By the time I got everything to Powell Lake, the wind was really whipping in my face. It wasn't as bad as the previous afternoon on Gillis, but it was pretty bad, and I was going to be paddling into it for the rest of the morning. There's an island just to the west of the put-in from the French Lake portage, and I went to the south of it to protect myself as much as possible from the wind. It worked out just fine, but there is really on room for one canoe to between the island and the other shore that way (I imagine it's water-level dependent) due to some fallen trees. Once past the island, I took a bearing to the next portage trail as the previous experience on French had me a little gun-shy with regard to finding portages. The bearing worked perfectly, and I landed right where I needed to.
The portage trail from Powell to West Fern was actually pretty short and sweet. I could tell that in different water conditions, this could be a real bear, so I was happy to get through it with minimal trouble. The put-in to West Fern wasn't great, and the wind was really whipping like crazy in my face, so I had some hard paddling across West Fern. I made my way to the little channel on the west side of West Fern, but I was a little sloppy on looking at the map which shows the portage trail on the north side of the channel. I got out on what looked like a portage trail on the south side, unloaded the canoe, and happily marched my canoe and pack about 20 rods down a path that got worse and worse until I realized that this wasn't the portage trail. I had to reload and paddle about 30 feet to the real portage trail. Kind of a bummer, but that's what you get when you don't pay attention to the map.
I have no memory or notes of the portage between West Fern and Virgin, so it must have been just fine. The paddle on Virgin was a bit more south than west, so the paddling was a bit easier at this point. I just kind of followed the eastern shore of Virgin lake to lead me to the portage trail, but I did have another false start (though I didn't unload the canoe). I realized upon closer comparison later that the McKenzie map (that I was using for my primary navigation) has the portage from Virgin to Little Saganaga miss-marked by a bit. The Fisher map (my backup) has this portage marked a bit more-accurately – just a tad farther west than the McKenzie. You can even see on the inReach tracking map below that the portage trail is mis-marked.
So I found the portage trail, but I wish I hadn't. Just kidding. But I won't repeat the word I used to describe this portage trail in my notes (two hyphenated words, actually). Though it is, admittedly, a very pretty trail. Without gear, this would be a lovely little walk in the woods. This portage trail has a bit of a climb from Virgin, but then it has a MAJOR, MAJOR downhill over bare granite with some tricky footwork down to little Saganaga. I wouldn't want to do this (in this direction at least) if the rocks were wet or slippery. The landing at Little Saganaga is a lovely little sandy beach, so that was nice.
With my extra adventures searching for the French to Powell portage trail, it was after noon by the time I got everything to Little Saganaga. I hadn't packed a lunch toward the top of my pack, and I was actually really feeling like a hot meal after being slapped around by the wind all morning. So I set out to the site that is basically on the very north side of the lake, and I found it unoccupied with ease in just a few minutes. I got out to explore a bit before unloading the canoe, but I determined pretty quickly that this would be more than sufficient. In fact, it was quite amazing.
This was campsite #819. It seems to be right on the threshold of a burn area, but there are still many trees that serve as a wind-break from the west (which was needed on this day). The trail up to the latrine is steep, but there are many trails that branch off to offer amazing vista views of the surrounding area. I measured the field of view of the sky from the central granite outcropping of the site, and it's 200 degrees basically centered on the southern sky.
I had a hot lunch of raman noodles (which really warmed me up) and made camp. I took the time to rig my tarp because I knew that it would rain if I didn't. It was hazy and windy all day, but the wind finally died down at around 6 PM or so. I was too bushed, and it was still too hazy to do any stargazing this evening, and I knew I still had two additional nights at this site.
Lakes traveled: Gillis, French, Powell, West Fern, Virgin, and Little Saganaga 5 portages, 212 rods (x3 = 2 miles), 3.8 miles of paddling
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