Manigotagan River Trip 3: Elbow Rapids to Sand River Falls

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I got up at 5:30 to broad daylight and enjoyed the early morning hour with a good cup of Dunn Bros. coffee. Bringing my Bialetti coffee maker may seem like an extravagance but for a one-cup-a-day guy like me it makes sense to make that cup count. The coffee maker takes even less room than my 1 l French press. After a breakfast of oatmeal, we broke camp and portaged instead of attempting a run of Elbow Rapids. We decided to get used to paddling a little more.

The Wendigo seems angry...

The next set was Wendigo Rapids, it was also the longest portage of the trip, about 450 m. Overall, portaging seemed much easier during this trip when compared to any of our BWCA trips. This was mostly due to the relatively short length of the portages. Even Turtle Falls, noted as a "difficult" portage seemed easy to us. One odd thing was that here, like with many other portage put-ins, potential staging areas were flooded and the canoe would be sitting amongst some trees rather than at river's edge.

Below Wendigo Rapids

On the quiet stretch between Turtle Falls and Kettle Rapids we saw a family of mergansers. Birds were the primary wildlife in evidence. Besides mergansers we saw wood ducks, green mallards, a few Canada geese, turkey buzzards and many bald eagles. Many song birds as well, but they were more difficult to identify. Other than birds we only saw traces of wildlife, like scat, tracks and game trails. The odd splah of a beaver's tail.

Kettle Rapids looked fairly tame

Kettle Rapids was to be the first documented and named rapid with a portage that we decided to run. We scouted the ideal route, made sure that our gear was secured and hopped in for the fun. Due to his position in the stern of the canoe, James was splashed, but that was the extent of the damage. Great fun and we were definitely ready for more.

A few minutes after passing Kettle Rapids we came on a bald eagle having a shore lunch on top of a beaver lodge. We could not quite make out what he was eating but it must have been something good, a turkey vulture was waiting for the leftovers. When the eagle flew off as we floated by, he took the remains of whatever he was eating along.

Next were portages around two major obstacles, Charles and Pillow Falls. The thunder of either could be heard while still well upstream and we made sure to see and head for the portage take-outs. At Charles Falls we hit the wrong side of the stream, an inviting looking campsite where we had our lunch. After looking for a way down in vain, we ferried back to the correct take-out point, river right.

Hurrying around Pillow Falls

Pillow Falls was awesome with its masses of water flowing over the edge unobstructed by any boulders.

Many of the other documented rapids, like e.g. Perry Davis Rapids were barely more than swifts due to the high water level.

We certainly did not have to work hard to keep moving. We passed Charlie Simard's cabin, an inviting looking place. Marilyn had told us to feel free to visit and that many a party had used the cabin to dry out after rain or after capsizing. But we kept moving along.

Campsite at Sand River Falls

By 15:30, just after the sun began breaking through the clouds we were at Sand River Falls and decided to call it a day. We pitched our tent had a snack of Ramen noodles and a nice siesta. I took a bath above the rapids, washing off the sweat and grime of the day. Wonderfully refreshing! For dinner we had chicken alfredo with gnocci. Excellent! The only thing lacking was a nice glass of red wine. Lemonade had to do the job and s'mores for dessert.

Fixing s'mores at Sand River Falls

After some good s'mores James turned in for the night, it wasn't much later than 20:00. I am guessing rap withdrawal, caffeine withdrawal and friend withdrawal topped off by a good dose of fresh air. I cleaned up the campsite, making sure that everything was stored in waterproof bags. I noticed some quite innocent looking smallish cumulonimbus. However small and however innocent looking, it made me take another look at the campsite. A thunderstorm was definitely possible. Canoe well above the river, everything packed away, tent in a location with decent drainage, I thought we'd be in decent shape for a possible storm. I went to bed at around 22:00, the air inside and out of the tent heavy and very warm and eerily still.