Day 9 Saturday June 4 – Day 3 of Portage Trail (a day of rest)

May 25, 2016

• Wake Up Time: 8:00 am


• Departure Time: None


• Distance Paddled: None


• Total Paddling Time: 0


• Weather Conditions: Very Good

We all slept in until about 8:00 am (4 hours later than our normal wake up time). The sun was out and it was going to be a very nice day. On this morning there was no need to rush so we got coffee going and Maria prepared a really nice breakfast of walnut hotcakes with dried fruit compote, fried salami and an egg. We just sat around chatting for a couple of hours with our coffees, talking about the challenges of the last two days and marvelled at our accomplishment. Here we were relaxing and feeling very good about ourselves. We were in no particular hurry to do anything today which was really nice for a change.

Here's a video that I took of the rapids on this day. They're quite short but the trail to get around them is much longer. A lot of the distance has to do with a strong current before and after the main rapids themselves.

Redfern Rapids

The weather station that we camped at was a very interesting spot. It was up on a hill that gave us a very nice view of Eutsuk Lake to the west and the Redfern River flowing into the rapids around the corner to the east. We couldn't see the rapids themselves from the campsite but they were so close that we could hear them. One of the things we wanted to do that day was to walk down to a little beach right near the rapids to have a bath and wash some clothes. After breakfast we did just that. Maria called it the honour bath (i.e. no peeking while we were stripped down).

I was very honourable.

After bathing we all washed some clothing and then just sat near the rapids with our feet in the ice cold water. The coolness of the water was so refreshing and therapeutic on our tired feet that we really didn't notice how cold the water actually was. We felt like royalty in the wilderness.

Beautiful camping spot. This was an incredible day overall. I can't say enough about it.

The nice thing about taking our time that day is that we could actually enjoy the beauty of this area and take in the nice scenery around the rapids, that we worked so hard to bypass. We were so busy the day before trying to work our way around these rapids that we really didn't notice how beautiful this area is. We got the cameras out and started taking some pictures and videos.

When we got back to the camp we slowly started to organize our gear and move stuff down to the launch point including our boats. Eventually we had most of our gear all ready to go for the next morning. The rest of the day was very nice and relaxing.

Although the mosquitoes were still fairly bad up at the weather station, they would have been much worse down near the launch point in the forest if we had decided to camp down there. At least up at the weather station the wind would pick up and keep the mosquitoes down periodically. Overall it was a great place to camp.

The best damned pizza ever. Dinner is ready.