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Swanson Lake, austerity style

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Jun 3, 2015
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Location
Anchorage Alaska / Pocono Mts.
Swanson Lake in the kenai National Wildlife Refuge is the best rainbow trout fishing lake that I’ve found. I reestablished a campsite on it that was overgrown and appeared unused for maybe twenty years. That was more than thirty years ago and up until 2020 I hadn’t missed a year.

In 2020 I had a back injury that kept me away. In July of 2021 I attempted to do the trip with my wife but only made it half way in due to a combination of being packed too heavy during a record breaking heat wave.

This was the year I had to get back and I only had a short time this fall to get it done. The weather was terrible with heavy rain and wind with only one day in the ten day forecast that looked like it might be partly sunny.

My plan was to do it as an overnighter, leaving early on that partly sunny day. It’s a four hour drive and almost five hours portaging and paddling when I double carry. I was hoping to lighten my load enough to do a single carry which would cut traveling time almost in half.

First I would have to take a lighter boat, my Mohawk Solo13, and eliminate a lot of stuff from my kit. No hot tent, no chair, no frying pan, ax or saw among other things. I was down to a bare minimum but my pack still weighed 41 lbs. I was hoping it was more like 30 to 35 because I assumed the boat to be around 35lbs and I wanted to keep the total weight around 70-75.
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Things didn't look too promising on the drive down




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Great weather at the put in.

The first port on this trip is a half mile and starts with a long uphill. Right off the bat the load was too heavy and I was having a hard time getting a deep breath. I had some doubts if I was going to make it and had to come up with a plan. One idea was to ditch the tent and sleep under the tarp saving 6 pounds maybe making it doable. The other more sensible plan I came up with was to double carry the uphills and single carry the downhills and flats. This would still save time, just not as much. This worked well and it only took about 3 hours and 15 minutes shaving off at least an hour from my normal time.

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Once I got the tump adjusted right I decided it was possible to carry a pack using a tump while carrying the boat.

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First nights campsite on Swanson Lake

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I had to dig out the hatchet that I have stashed here and was surprised to see all of the wood that I had left there over three years before. I was also surprised that it was still dry, even after record rain for August and a still very wet September.

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The fishing was awesome, unfortunately the photos weren'tIMG_6042.JPG
This guy was over two feet and maybe 6 or 7 pounds. I got another big one like this one and two others around 18" in only about an hour of fishing.IMG_6055.JPG
The weather was better than predicted so I let my wife know I was staying another day via my In Reach. I packed up, stashed the hatchet and was happy to have lots of wood for next time. This wood was cut short to fit my folding wood stove, which I will bring in the spring,IMG_6056.JPG hopefully.
I used to stash some wood and the hatchet under a bench that I had built on the site. Even though it was in plain site nobody ever found or used it in all of those years. Now I have a bigger stash that holds lots of wood a little behind the site.IMG_6066.JPG
It wasn't easy leaving the best trout lake I know of, but paddling adventure trumps fishing so I moved on. This picture shows the only break I took on the .9 mile portage to Gene Lake. I was surprised to get it all done in a single carry.

Following are some pictures of Gene Lake, the campsite and some more bad fish photos.

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This is the outlet of Gene that heads toward the main branch of the Swanson River. This is where the silver salmon hang out.IMG_6074.JPG
This guy grabbed my lure when I wasn't even fishing, it must have been dangling in or near the water. I didn't know what it was at first because it was small but I think it was a "jack" silver. A jack salmon is one that returns to spawn before they mature fully.IMG_6077.JPGIMG_6096.JPG
This is my second nights site. Not pretty but utilitarian.

I packed up and took off by about 10:00, caught a nice trout and then hit the portage trail. It was good to get back to this area because I haven't been there in a long time. The ports were long and hilly but the lakes are scenic and it went quick. IMG_6102.JPG
There were some blowdowns but non were hard to get around.IMG_6109.JPGIMG_6121.JPGIMG_6141.JPGIMG_6164.JPG

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It was a great trip and I couldn't have been happier. It was the first time I have been down there since I got a gps app on my phone so now I know some of the details. Total mileage was 23.25 miles and I paddled an additional 5 miles on two side trips I took on day two. One was to the outlet for the salmon and the other was to Pepper Lake where I went to check on an old campsite I used to use, but is now grown over.

To get to my campsite on Swanson Lake was a little under 9.5 miles, then about 2.5 to get to Gene Lake. The trip out was 11.45 miles which included 1045 feet of elevation gain. Some of that gain was from double carrying the steeper sections but there were still some big hills. I also weighed my stuff this time which is a good idea to know what your limits are. I weighed the boat when I got home and with paddles it weighed 42 lbs. So now I know that the 83 lb. total is too heavy, for hills at least. The 42 lb canoe was nice by itself, so I would like to come close to that when buying a new tandem.

I always knew this was an ambitious trip but now after knowing what the actual distance is it made me really appreciate my wife, who was right there with me for most of it over the years.

In total I paddled 16 different lakes. doing 6 or 7 of them twice. There were 17 portages including the ones I did twice. The total one way distance of the portages was about 6.25 miles.
 

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Nice report, some great pics. Just curious, what kind of bears are in the area and where you packing.
 
Thanks Robin. There are lots of black bears and big coastal brown bears. Ordinarily I would have continued downstream from the outlet to look for bears, or sign of them, but not being able to stand in that little solo canoe I didn't feel I had good enough visibility to do it safely. In the past I had seen a lot of scat there, which looked like someone dumped a big bucket of fish that went through a grinder. I saw my first grizzly a few miles downstream from there on my first trip through. we made eye contact from about 20'

I didn't see much wildlife this trip. It used to be that we would see multiple moose on every trip. In the spring there used to be so many moose turds on the potage trail that if you weren't careful you would roll on them like ball bearings. This refuge was established by Teddy Roosevelt and his desire to protect the moose here, because they are the worlds biggest. I asked a fish and game guy what happened to them and he told me they ran out of browse and there needs to be a fire down there.

I saw loons and swans and had a couple low flyovers by some eagles. Other than that I had a visit by a beaver and some muskrats that must have been breeding because they were acting funny. I also saw a mink swimming across a lake that was interesting.
 
Awesome report and some great pictures! Maybe fish photography isn't your thing but some of the landscapes are worthy of Mem's photo of the day thread.

BTW: double-porting the uphills and single carrying the rest... cool solution. Not sure I'd have thought to try it...
 
Wow- what a great trip. That Trout is huge. Beautiful area!

Bob
Thanks Bob, it was a great trip, especially since I wasn't even sure I was going until an hour before I left the house. Also weather conditions were way better than expected and I stayed longer then planned and did a loop when I only expected an out and back.

Those trout were not only big but they had more energy than I ever felt before. Probably because of how late in the season it was. Because they have been gorging on salmon smolt and cool water temps and possibly higher oxygen levels from all of the rain we've had. They always fight good, except during or right after the spawn, but these fish fought spectacularly. I've never seen them swim so fast, run so hard or take to the air like these fish did.

Awesome report and some great pictures! Maybe fish photography isn't your thing but some of the landscapes are worthy of Mem's photo of the day thread.

BTW: double-porting the uphills and single carrying the rest... cool solution. Not sure I'd have thought to try it...
Thanks Gamma, if I brought a landing net and didn't mind getting fish slime on me I could have done better. I usually prefer keeping them in the water to prevent injuring them. It seems I only get good pics of the ones I'm going to eat.

Double carrying the uphills did work well and save a lot of time but I'd rather have more time and not strain myself.
 
whew, 42-lbs for a Solo 13! I expected it to be lighter.

My Northstar Polaris in Blacklite is supposed to be about that, though I’ve got a third (center) seat installed so may be a bit higher. The all-Kevlar version is lighter. Should be easy to get a lighter composite tandem.
 
I was surprised too, but it is royalex and that weight included two paddles and a removable yoke.

As far as tandems, I've been looking at Nova Craft boats. The 16' prospector or the Pal 16 in Aramid lite come close at 45 and 42lbs.

This trip reinvigorated my desire to do more portage heavy trips. All I need is a light tandem and a 6 or 7 lb. replacement for my campfire tent.
 
I was surprised too, but it is royalex and that weight included two paddles and a removable yoke.

As far as tandems, I've been looking at Nova Craft boats. The 16' prospector or the Pal 16 in Aramid lite come close at 45 and 42lbs.

This trip reinvigorated my desire to do more portage heavy trips. All I need is a light tandem and a 6 or 7 lb. replacement for my campfire tent.
Ah, well that’s maybe as much as 4 pounds there I suppose, getting the boat itself back to a weight starting with “3”. That sounds much better 😁
 
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