I awoke with the light of morning hitting the side of the tent - a light that was far too bright to be possible under a heavy overcast. Unzipping the tent and looking out, it was indeed not overcast. In fact, it was totally clear. And very cold. There was no question a cold front had passed through during the night. Stepping out onto the rock bluff over Clydegale Lake, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Unlike the day before, however, the lake was not glassy smooth. A very chill breeze blew down from the north - a complete 180-degree shift from yesterday.
Wearing nearly all of our clothing layers, we hurried to and fro, gathering and splitting wood for the morning campfire - a campfire to whose heat we very much looked forward. During our forays into the woods, we noticed a thin dusting of new snow here and there, confirming what we had heard through the tent walls the night before. Things were still pretty damp, so the fire required lots of extra starting material and careful tending, but eventually a very robust, very heat-intense fire was roaring before us. We gathered 'round close to ward off the morning chill.
The position of our campsite wasn't favourable for direct morning sunlight, which made it harder for us to dry out our still-wet tents. Elsewhere on the subject of drying, Dave managed to melt a bit of Emma's hiking shoes on the fire, despite warnings from Arn.
After doing our best to finish eating all of our camp food (I very much enjoy pancakes and bacon and maple syrup, but there is only so much I can fit into my stomach), we completed our pack-up and made ready to head off. With the perfectly-timed passing of the cold front, we realized that we were not going to get a return on our headwind paddling investment from yesterday. Instead, we would still be paddling for much of the morning (and early afternoon) into a headwind. Not much we could do about it except put our heads down and dig in.
The first bit of paddling - the short one kilometre stretch north to the portage out of Clydgale Lake, was pretty tame. The sheltering effect of being at the the north end of the lake with a north wind meant there wasn't much to fight against. We knew, though, that the bigger challenge would be on Pen Lake, with its very long north-south orientation - and we were starting from the very southern tip. It was likely that there would be a significantly bigger wind effect.
Putting in at the southern tip of Pen Lake, we began our paddle north. Initially sheltered by a bit of curving lakeshore, the paddling was ok. Ahead, however, we could see a distinct line where the fairly smooth water suddenly changed texture - the line marking the exposure to the wind.
Rounding the corner, we turned into the full force of today's wind. The water immediately became pretty choppy, and there were times were there were more than a few whitecaps. It seemed to me like a 15+ knot headwind.
Tough Slogging
We knew that staying close to the shoreline could help mitigate the conditions for us, at least somewhat. So, we took to a coast-hugging course, paddling hard around little headlands and taking breaks hard up against leeward hollows. It was slow and tough going, requiring constantly powerful strokes when battling against the full force of the wind. Our pace was probably only about 3 or 4 km/hr (2 knots) against this wind, and our progress was fairly slow by canoeing standards.
Through the chop
The one silver lining of our scenario was our route - we didn't have to paddle the full length of Pen Lake - instead, we only needed paddle a little over halfway along the lake's length before branching off on a long overland portage to the east. It took us a strenous hour and a half to cover the five-ish kilometres to the portage point - a portage point we were all very glad to see, despite the fact that it was going to be our longest portage of the trip.
Happy to see portage
The portage leading east, to a small body of water called Night Lake, was over 1.5km long (1650m, to be precise). The terrain was fairly flat and the portage trail in very good condition, and included many nice, long boardwalked sections. I took a few shoulder breaks along the way, using the handy canoe stands provided by the park service.
Sections of nice boardwalk
I was happy to see the marshy shore of Night Lake after the long portage. On this bright but cool day, it did appear to be a deep shade of night blue. Owing to its small size and ringed by forest, the lake's surface was only slightly riffled. No more hard paddling through whitecaps and chop - at least for now.
Much calmer on Night
It only took us a few minutes to paddle across Night Lake, before a tiny 80-metre portage brought us down to the next body of water. This one we had been on before; it was Forest Bay, a southwestern arm of Galeairy Lake (Aubrey section), the very lake that we had started out on a couple of days before. This meant that there were no more portages; from here it was a continuous paddle back to the cars.
Back to Aubrey
First, though, we decided to attend to lunch, which we had been pushing forward into the afternoon in our quest to battle the headwinds and make some decent progress. We pulled up onto a steeply-sloping campsite and had a nice long (if somewhat cool, as it was still fresh and breezy out) lunch stop amidst tall pines.
Finished with lunch, we set out on the final leg back to the boat ramp at Whitney. At first we feared the stretch of north-south water through Forest Bay, but as we paddled up it, we found that it wasn't nearly as bad as Pen Lake had been. Perhaps the wind had died down, or perhaps the shape and orientation of the lake somehow lessened its effect. And, as an enticement, we knew that we were likely to get an actual tailwind as we bent eastward through the main body of Galeairy Lake. I was very much looking forward to that.
The guessed-for tailwind did in fact kick in as we turned east and east-south-east along Galeairy Lake. Most enjoyable, being able to lightly paddle and still maintain a 6-7 km/hr effective speed. Kai enjoyed passing the time by realeasing periodic fusillades of pine cones towards his parents' canoe.
We caught sight of the houses of Whitney many kilometres before arriving. They slowly grew in stature as we casually paddled eastward, and we arrived back at the boat ramp right around 4:30pm. It had been a fairly long and somewhat strenuous six hours of paddling and portaging, and we were glad to be done.
Despite the effort, it had been fun. A bit of challenge and hardship is part of what makes this sort of thing fulfilling.
The Cheshire Cat
We convoyed back to the Ottawa area, stopping by at a pub in the small town of Carp, where we had a final dinner together. Thanks once again to everyone for letting us come along, and especially for the fire and tarp construction services so ably provided by Dave, Arn, Kai, Nel, and Emma.
Interactive trackmap with photo points - Whitney-Clydegale-Whitney semi-loop - click map to view
Start-to-finish, Whitney Semi-Loop
Distance:
44.53 km
(27.67 mi)
Average Speed:
0.9 km/hr
(0.6 mph)
Time:
47h24m
Start Elevation:
1258ft
(383m)
*
Max Elevation:
1376ft
(419m)
*
Min Elevation:
1201ft
(366m)
*
End Elevation:
1274ft
(388m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
269ft
(82m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
264ft
(80m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
