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Bailing Out

Joined
Nov 7, 2013
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Location
south of Winnipeg
We were out on a short excursion this last weekend, had been plagued by low water and overgrown portages and we decided to bail out prematurely.

Unfortunately when selling the route I had let the others know that potentially we could paddle to a resource road and maybe hike to the cars, drive in and retrieve gear and canoes. Come 3pm on Monday faced by a mud and rough portages this is what we did, though it was touch and go with the road. There were a couple of really steep washed out sections that were only passable by four wheel drive vehicles, so it took two trips by two SUVs to bring four boats and eight paddlers the 3km out to the highway. On the plus side I was very impressed by how my Subaru handled the steep loose surface.but I would rather have finished our trip in the planed way.

Anyone else ever had to bale from a trip in a similar fashion?
 
Yup, last autumn. Kinda. There is a popular well travelled forest road 6 hours north of us which leads to a summer camp and beyond. It was the beyond section that was trouble for us in our minivan. Never having driven it before I wasn't sure exactly how far down to the end and lower parking lot and subsequent put-in I was. Up near the top where we began there was a widening of muddy track. It either was the upper parking lot or just a widening of muddy track. I couldn't be sure. Between my wife losing her nerve in the seat beside me and I coming to my senses we both decided to bail on that particular put-in and trip. Bummer. I eased our van back up the track the 100 yards, steering my wheels on either side of the precipitous ruts until we were safe and clear. Oh well, better luck next year. We drove to an easier put-in on a much smaller lake far from the madding crowd, and salvaged our canoe holiday. We felt happily spoiled to have an easy Crown Land plan B available so near at hand and all to ourselves. Maybe we were in the wrong place at the right time? Sure worked out that way.
 
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My brother and I hit a river for a nice relaxing fishing trip. We have run this river before and caught some nice fish and had a great time. But this time the water was low, to low, and I didn't realize it until a couple of miles down stream. After dragging the loaded canoe over 3/4 of the way, we decided to throw in the towel. Map showed 2 miles back to the vehicle, and 4 miles down stream where there was a road. This was his first time in a canoe, and he was killing me with all the awkward movements he was making, and not to mention he already flipped us twice. So our plan was for him to hike the couple of miles back to the truck and meet me down stream where we could get everything out. We weren't sure about the take out, but we were desperate. The going was more productive with out him in the canoe. I had to drag a little and work a few narrow class? something rapids, I went down one backward by accident, that was a rush. We went to the lake that the river fed and stayed down there the couple of days. But yeah, it sucked. Ruined our trip.
 
Great to hear I'm not the only one who makes mistakes. I felt really bad for the other folk on the trip though everyone said it was great adventure. One of them had a six hour drive once we were back to the cars so she must have got home after midnight.

One of the prices of heading somewhere a new I guess and better than just heading to the same place as every other paddler. The usual routes would have been packed that weekend but we had the place pretty much to ourselves and camped in sites that hadn't seen people in years.
 
Yup... McDonald creek in Algonquin park.... I had been planning to see the features upstream on the top map for a year in advance, set off with great anticipation and then stopped by low water.

This remains a mystery area to this day and others have had their problems, like Uppa's failed Clover lake trip report and then the do-or-die second try the next year which that time was successful.

My failure was during the days before hi-rez satellite photos became available so at least now there's a little more to go on. Still a lot of anticipation at what might be seen in there, even with the recent trip reports which also help with planning.
 
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Anyone else ever had to bale from a trip in a similar fashion?

Yes, in similar and other fashions.

River Trip. My hunting partner and I ran the pre-dawn shuttle and left his car at the downstream end. A little rim ice around the edge of the river, but no worries. Drove to the upstream end, a little rim ice around the edge of the river, but no worries. Paddled a couple miles downriver, solid ice from bank to bank for miles downstream.

We pulled, dragged and carried the canoes back upriver to my truck, reran the shuttle and I was back home in bed before my wife woke up.

Another trip on the same river. Met some friends for a group trip there. It was pouring rain and the river was approaching flood stage. We stood around under a bridge overpass at the launch kinda hemming and hawing. No one wanted to be the first guy to bail out, but it was the unspoken elephant under the bridge. As we were waiting each other out for someone to state the obvious a huge tree rolled sideways downriver, with large leafy branches rising windmill like from the depths.

There was a group utterance of Oh heck no! and we all drove home.

Lake Trip. The worst lake trip ever. I was on a meandering roadtrip through New England and decided to stop at the Green River Reservoir in Vermont to paddle in and camp for a day or two. It was, admittedly, a beautiful fall weather Saturday. I did not appreciate what that really meant.

I got the last available parking spot, and when I went to get a permit, the only open camping site. That last available site has been an omen of bad things to come in the past, and I should have noped the heck out right then.

I packed up and paddled in. It is not an especially large reservoir, so I paddled around some of the perimeter first, and there were some very nice looking sites. There were also an increasing number of boats, of all kinds, canoes and kayaks, SOTS and paddle boards, out on the water, which seemed curious since I got the last parking spot. I did not know that the local outfitters drop off trailer loads of paddlers throughout the day as a limited parking work around.

I got to my site to discover that it had a horribly difficult landing, full of fallen trees and muck. The only way to get ashore was to exit the canoe 10 feet from the bank and balance on slippery fallen logs. Getting gear out of the boat was going to be a challenge, but I took one pack with me to start.

The site was the size of a twin bed and had, I kid you not, a literal freshet of water running directly through the fire pit. The rest of the site was shoe sucking mud. I found one teeny area back in the woods where I might squeeze in my tent if I sawed off a few branches.

I actually thought about staying. For a good 60 seconds. Fortunately I had only unloaded the one pack.

Screw this nonsense, back to the launch. I saw hundreds of boats on the short trip back. The launch was a complete zoo, with dozens of boats waiting to put on, gear strewn everywhere, kids swimming directly in front of the launch and more boats arriving by the minute. I had to wait 20 minutes for an opportunity to come ashore.

Packed my truck and drove away. I was on the road again by noon. That trip was a fine meander through New England; I got to paddle in the Adirondacks, New Hampshire and Maine (and see DougD) but one of the happiest moments was driving the heck away from Green River Reservoir. I did not even know where I was headed next*, and did not even stop to contemplate a map until I had some distance and regained my composure.

*Pillsbury State Park NH, great little pocket park with a couple small lakes. I got a site where the open end of the tripping truck was 20 feet from the lake, and the previous occupants had left a pile of split hardwood. Yin/yang.

A completely different trip than planned. We were fully packed up for a multi-day downriver family camper in western Maryland/WVA. Four tripping canoes on the van, paddles, tents, and tripping gear all well selected and dry bagged. We always packed at least the night before so we could make a predawn getaway.

I had been watching the weather and the gauges. It had been wet, was forecast to continue wet and the gauges had been slowly rising. Nothing we can not handle, and we should have good water.

I checked the weather and gauge one last time the morning before we left. Good Lord, it is pouring buckets throughout the drainage area, and the gauge shot straight up overnight near flood stage and rising. We did not have a Plan B, but decided to head east instead to the DelMarVa peninsula to car camp and day paddle at a riverside State Park we had never seen.

That proved to be a beautiful, empty (one other camper during our stay) park, and we paddled day trips on three different rivers and creeks.

The switch from mountain river tripping to coastal plain car camping meant different everything, different boats and paddles, different tents and gear. I usually spend the better part of a week packing, an hour here and an hour there. I learned that I could unpack and repack boats and gear for four people in an hours time. I did not enjoy it, but I can do it.

One last trip, where we did not bail but should have. Group trip on my local dam fed homeriver. I had been watching the gauge and it had stayed just above canoe zero for most of the week. Routine changes to the dam release (usually) occur on Friday mornings. I checked the gauge Friday night and again on Saturday morning before I left the house, still low but good to go.

When we got to the put in the river looked suspiciously low, but not much different than canoe zero. That launch is on a shallow gravel bar and always looks low. While we were putting on a trout fisherman mentioned The river is mighty low boys, you sure you got enough water? I agreed it was low, but thought Hey, I know my stuff, I checked the gauge just an hour ago.

100 yards downstream from the cars we started walking. And we kept walking, wading, pulling and dragging the canoes downstream, largely on my assurances It will get deeper.

It did not, if anything it got lower and lower as whatever residual bubble drained away. We had a nice long 6 mile It will get deeper walk down the river. I looked at the gauge when we got home from our wet foot hiking trip. They had, for the first time ever, cut the dam release back to a trickle on a Saturday morning. I use 2.8 feet on that gauge as canoe zero. By the time we ran the shuttle and launched it was well below canoe zero and falling fast. It hit 0.85 feet before we finished
 
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