Akumal is changing

Greg keeps telling me that when he came down here 25 years or so ago, for much of the way from Cancun the road was so narrow that the crowns of the trees from opposite sides of the road were touching. Now it's a 4 lane highway, from the looks of it soon to be a freeway. Major resorts and small towns, Akumal included, are building bridges across the expressway. Farewell sleepy Riviera Maya! On the upside, they do take recycling serious here. every building, every hotel and restaurant has recycling containers for various items. This is better than what you'll find at Florida condo complees (at least the ones I have visited) and Wisconsin or UP of Michigan recreational areas.
The sea is still quite rough today. Nevertheless James and I wen out for a little snorkle tour. Visibility was quite a bit better, alas no turtles.
Turtles galore on the other hand at Laguna Legartos. I couldn't count all the heads poking out from between the algea. Also, an interesting wading bird with gigantic feet and a relatively short beak, walking on top of the water plants, an my two cormorants diving and heartily feasting on fish. On the way there, I saw an orange oriole and a tropical mockingbird. Took a spur going W from the main trail, well marked with a little stone pyramid and found a sinkhole, partially submerged. Somebody is going through quite a bit of trouble maintaining these trails and breaking new ones, like the one to the sink hole.
Went to Yal Ku lagoon for some snorkling. Too late, already very busy and the water was quite troubled. Fortunately, the closer we got to the inlet, the clearer the water got. Like before, tons of fish, mostly Seargent majors but many others, too. Good way to spend the morning! Mac had a grea time, too.

Akumal Observations

At Laguna Legartos Little purple fish fistily defending its territory A succer-type fish I seem to recall from my aquarium Cattle egrets roosting in shrubbery and trees. A brooding colony? Several little blue herons (did not seem that little to me) mixed in with the cattle egrets, for contrast, say Two cormorans, very close A turtle, swimming under water Everywhere: great-tailed grackles A grackle-like bird with a beautiful iridescent blue plumage A type of oriole Several kingbirds At the beach Frigatbirds Brown pelicans, remind me of Sanderlings Green herons?

Akumal--Laguna Legartos

This was fun, meant to get started jogging in hot weather and explore the area a little bit.


View Akumal--Laguna Legartos Survey in a larger map
Laguna Legartos was one of my main goals and I found it! Needed a little help from the friendly folks at the Centro Ecologico Akumal. They pointed out the general location of the trail head (near the police post), not without warning me of the apparently omnipresent crocodiles. I had a sense that they did not want me back there, more because they wanted it to be quiet and peaceful for the animals. There was no trail behind the police post, so I started checking out each one of the little trail starts from the beach road. Most were just short spurs used by the locals to dispose of yard waste. I am sure that some of the passer-bys thought "What is this weirdo doing there." My persistence paid off: I found a trail that kept going, well defined by stones lining the sides. After a few hundert meteres I got to a trail that branched off and lo, there was the Laguna, spread out below me. It is surrounded by limestone walls (cliff or bluff would be too much, hey are not much higher than 2-3 meters). By now it was almost dark and I returned to the main road, fully intending to build this into my morning jog.

2008 Fall Trip Namekagon

Nobody can say it quite as well as Craig:

Hey All
Great trip guys! Missed ya, Jeff. Thought you might appreciate some post-trip, round-up chat for some sort of closure.

We met around 2:30 at Riverside landing and got on the river about 5:00 or so. Christian brought his brother, Joel, and his loving Lab dog named Nel or Mell or maybe Smell...was never sure...sorry. We missed Craig's first choice for the Fri. night camp site while scouting and concentrating on a full-fledged class I rapids near the put-in. It was an easy read and no one took on any water. It was starting to get on the darker side of dusk when we found a rare, suitable sandy-spot to pitch tents for the night. It got down to around 24 degrees according to Christiann . However, by 10:30 am we were scrambling for shorts and t-shirts. Joel made some mighty tasty wild blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and Farmland bacon. (btw-"Farmland" is, from now on, the official bacon of our trips.) Saturday we found the next "sanctioned" camp site, which we had been looking for Friday night. It was just about a quarter mile down from our camp.

Wonder what the official high was for Saturday? Temps musta ranged from a low of 24 to what, 70 degrees? Saturday was a dream with sunny skies and a nice current. Got to see dozens of 2 lb+ fish swimming up stream. By 2:30 we'd reached our "tough-guy" goal for the day and made camp. This was a well marked site and an official St Croix group campsite located on a cleared island-like piece of land. Plenty of room to soak up the sun, stretch out and enjoy the grand panoramic view of the St Croix. Christian made unforgettable Porterhouse steaks on the tripod grill. Christian's brother was easy to be around and very generous with collecting wood. Joel and I are both looking forward to learning more German so that we can talk with him the next time. We sat around the fire occasionally talking politics and just Biden our time. Some issues were hot topics while others were simply Palin in comparison. We think it only got down to 33 or something like that Saturday night.

The next morning we ate and broke camp at the crack of mid-morning. Around the first bend we had to negotiate a class I rapids right before the Thayer Landing/ Hwy 48 bridge. The clouds rolled in and we got a good drizzle for the last hour of the trip and found our take-out landing around 1:30. We saw lots of eagles. For the record, I think we covered 20 miles in less than seven hours total. I'm sure I missed a few things but that's the big picture. Couldn't get the google-earth stuff from your GPS, Christian. Must have to download something ... sounds cool though.


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Great camaraderie, wonderful trip. Mark your calendars.

Craig

2008 BWCA Trip #14 Little Indian Sioux River

Also called Four Rivers Route (See Robert Beymer, 2000. Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Western Region. Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 93)


View 2008 BWCA Entry #14 Little Indian Sioux in a larger map

Left Twin Cities on Friday, July 3 around noon, beating traffic. Convoyed to Ely with time to spare to pick up the permit for our Independence Day departure. Went to Sir G's for dinner and then to bed at the Super 8 Motel. Got an early start with motel continental breakfast. Off to Echo Trail Outfitters to pick up the canoes. #14, Little Indian Sioux North is quite a ways up, about an hour. We make it in due course and while Jim and Dave set up the exit shuttle from Moose River N, I organize the boys bringing the gear to river's edge, about 40 rods from the parking lot. James neck got hammered by some deer flies, he regretted refusing DEET.

Portage Hustler Lake to Oyster Lake

Portage Hustler Lake (48.228121, -92.140546) to Oyster Lake (48.224811, -92.123453)
Nearest entry points: #14, #16
Length: 240 rods, 0.75 mile, 1207 meters
Profile: gentle climb and descent
Obstacles: 100 yards of submerged trail
We did this portage on 7/5/2008. Outfitter and guide book listed this as a "good ... well drained trail ... easy but long." True, until we hit that spot. About 100-200 yards of submerged trail. Fortunately the water wasn't as deep as depicted in the photo posted June 2009 on Boundary Waters Blogger. Our boys were wondering how they could make it across without getting their feet wet. I arrived with a canoe and a pack, stepped right into the water and dumped the canoe. Within five seconds the boys and their packs were in the canoe, not quite sinking it but mooring it in the murk.

Slogging through the northern jungle ...

They ended up getting wet feet after all. I mentioned the flooded trail to a NF ranger who checked our permit. He was as surprised as Scott Bunney of Echo Trail Outfitters when he heard about the flooded portage. I suspect a recent beaver dam, and judging from the picture referenced above, the beavers are still hard at work.

One of the best campsites in the BWCA, on Oyster Lake

Fly Fishing 2008

This year we did not draw a turkey hunting license. Oh well, all the more time for fly fishing. While the month of March had been rather balmy, April into may was raw, our weekend being no exception.

Jim lands a nice trout while fisihing the South Branch of the Root River near Preston, MN.
 For the Department of Natural Resources map, see here.