The tricky thing about carrying
everything you need on such a trip like this is simply, carrying everything
that you need. Unlike camping Dan who
came prepared for comfort, we choose to carry the various accoutrements of adventure
to a minimum. Regardless, even with the basics, our canoe is weighted down. We
estimate with all our clothes, food, camping equipment and fresh water, we push
close to 200 hundred pounds, which includes the 350 pounds of men in the front
and rear, most of that being in the rear.
Various boxes of cereal and bagels
greeted us in the morning, our gracious hosts leaving for church while slept
in. As I munched leisurely on our breakfast we contemplated the portages we had
ahead of us. Within a span of 60 miles we have at least four dams to portage
around. We weren’t looking forward to
them, but it’s not like we had choice. New Orleans is behind these dams, so
around them we have to go. We drove the
car our hosts had lent us to get back to our canoe and began to pack. After
taking inventory of our stocks of food, we set off our journey, our first
portage being Little Falls Dam.
As we pulled up to the beginning of
the portage, a woman was sitting on the concrete platform, one foot in the
water, one foot up, I think she was cleaning her toes. I didn’t dwell for too
long on the odd nature of cleaning your toes in the river, we had a lot of
equipment to move, as well as a canoe. This was a 300 yard portage. Walking that
distance can be fun, like a calm stroll in the park, but a enjoyable stroll doesn’t
include large, awkwardly shaped, and heavy objects. We made two trips each
carrying the supplies in the canoe, me being tempted to open the tap on our
fresh water tank to lighten the load, but prudent thinking prevailed. Although we were around 300 yards from the
water crashing down from the river above the dam, we still had to fight hard to
even get are canoe moving forward, the backwash pushing us backward while waves
threated to tip us. We eventually made it into passive waters and pushed toward
the next dam around 9 miles downstream.
We had thought we left the wind
and waves when we left Lake Winnie but as we are learning, as mentioned before,
the Mississippi does not lend itself to predictability. The wind began to blow directing into our bow,
and larges waves began to foment around us. These waves were far larger than
any waves encountered on the lakes. However, because it was warm and shore was
within swimming distance, we endured them without too much stress. We moved slower than a lazy glob of molasses.
Seeing the hands on my watch move faster than what we can canoe. We arrived at Blanchard
dam, already tired far past hungry, and not looking forward to this second
portage. I made bacon and summer sausage sandwiches while toby scouted the
portage. He was taking too much time so I ate my sandwich as I waited. I was just
chewing the last bite when toby walked over the bank, using colorful language
to describe the trouble we were about to get into with this portage.
We had approximating half a mile before
we could get back on the river. Not a half mile on a road, or decently straight
path, but up multiple steep banks, a dirt path through the woods, a small wooden
bridge over a creek and finally down a hill onto beach too close to the raging
waters beneath the dam. Our first trip
taking equipment over had us sweating and tired, negating whatever good the
shower and laundry did the day before. Our second trip had us saying more words we shouldn’t
say around grandma, however in my opinion, such language was justified. We portaged the canoe last, taking a shortcut
by having Toby riding it down one of the steep grassy banks. With everything on the sandy shore, we took a rest by
cleaning out the muddy bottom of the canoe, using a cut out milk jug whose uses
include, river water fetcher, bailing bucket, and last but not least, river
urinal. We set of again, watching the
water fall over the top creating a raging tower of water 30 feet high, which
fell and rushed out pushing us quickly down the river. We were entirely glad to get these first two
portages finished and made our way to the campsite 10 more miles downriver.
A nice park sprawled into the
woods over the bank, a sign reading “Camp 300 yards” was posted by a landing,
but the park looked nice so we stopped here.
Another sign says no camping in the park, but the fact that the
designated campsite is next to a mosquito infested swamp makes us feel like
breaking this law and camping in the park.
We have found around 4 tics on each of us, with more crawling around our
stuff. Why we are plagued by such vermin I don’t know, but I feel good every
time I crush one with the tip of my pocket knife. We have another day of portaging tomorrow and
might hit some small rapids. Wish us luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment