Starting in May, Ryan and I started acquiring more gear for our first interior camping trip together; we were heading to Algonquin Park. We purchased packs (I never expected it to take me so long to find a pack that fit me well, visit an old blog post for more on the pack hunt) and several miscellaneous items (stove, fuel, dehydrated food, etc) at MEC and Adventure Guide. We were well prepared for our trip.
We headed out on our adventure after work with a plan to stay the night in Barrie so that we could get up to Pog Lake relatively early in the day to start our trip. Unfortunately, it took about 3 times as long as usual and we did not arrive at the hotel until late night.
In the morning, we headed up the highway, stopped at the Muskoka Store and picked up some rain gear that was on sale, thinking “you never know.”
Next stop: picking up our rental canoe from Algonquin Outfitters. I had made arrangements ahead of time, so the process was nice and smooth. While in the store, we picked up a large 1.5 L Nalgene bottle (to use for pumping/filtering lake water) and also some GSI mugs.
Now we were ready to start our camping trip. We checked in at Pog Lake (where we were to be meeting my family later in the week) and set up our site. We spent the first night here and then we were off for our 4-day 3-night canoe trip.
We put in at Cache Lake and when we were about half way across the lake, the rain started. Good thing we bought rain gear. We put it on as quickly as possible at our first portage and pretty much lived in the rain gear for the remainder of our interior trip. We did have a few clear breaks, but the rain won.
We stayed at a site on a different lake each night. When we’d arrive, if it wasn’t raining, we’d take put out or Keens to dry on a rock and make our yummy dehydrated dinners.
We did get a bit of dry weather at our final site on Tanamakoon Lake. We actually got to spend some time outdoors at the fire for the evening and I got up early in the morning to take some photos at dawn.
When we arrived back at Pog Lake, we made ourselves a “gourmet meal” on the Coleman stove, ate it by the light of a propane lantern, while sitting under a dining shelter (it was still raining), wearing dry clothes. It was a good feeling.
As much as the rain put a damper on things (groan), the trip was a good adventure. Of course, it would have been more enjoyable if we could’ve had some nice weather, but since this was our first interior trip, our next one will likely be a better experience. I’m definitely looking forward to another Algonquin Adventure.
Here are a couple more photos from the trip, for more, click on a photo and check out the Flickr set.
