Trip Log: Haliburton Water Trails - Red Pine Lake, October 6-7, 2018

After the noise and crowds we experienced last year for our Thanksgiving trip to Algonquin, we decided we were not going to stay in a campground this year.  We still wanted to do Algonquin, but we planned to avoid anything on the Highway 60 corridor.  The last several years we saw the insane line up of cars waiting to get into the West Gate and wanted nothing to do with it.  Also, after our earlier trip to Opeongo this summer, we wanted a smaller lake where we could go out for a paddle and not have to worry about wind.

So I had my sights set on the Rain Lake Access.  It was a smaller lake, with a few other lakes we could get to with short portages, also, we could access the Western Uplands Backpacking Trail if we wanted to go for a bit of a hike.  Since the weather for Thanksgiving weekends in the past have ranged from so hot you want to swim all day, to cold and rainy where we hid in the heated trailer most of the time, I didn't book the trip, decided to hold off and see how the weather would play out.

Then, a week before Thanksgiving, I was showing Mum some sites in the Frost Centre and we decided to stay on Red Pine Lake, then do a day trip to Nunikani Lake.  This little change wasn't too upsetting, in fact I thought it would be pretty cool to check out an area of the Frost Centre we hadn't been to before.  Mum had been through Red Pine Lake during a trip in High School where they stayed on Nunikani and wanted to see it again.

The more annoying change to our original plan involved the school board.  For some reason, they decided not to have a PA day on the Friday of the Thanksgiving weekend, and so we had to shorten the trip to two nights, go in Saturday and come home Monday.

I booked a site on Wednesday because the weather report said it would be 21 degrees during the day and 15 at night with minimal chances of rain on the Monday.  The next day when I checked the weather again, it had changed to 10-15mm of rain all three days, and not quite so warm.  I held out hope the forecast would change again (and it did, but not too much) since I knew Dad wouldn't want to go if it was going to be raining and cold.

As we left the house on Saturday, it was still calling for rain, but we didn't really get any.  Mum and Dad decided to come up the next day for Thanksgiving Dinner, and then see if they wanted to stay. (Spoiler alert, they didn't stay.)

Exploring around Red Pine Lake

It's a short paddle of about 2 km from the Kennisis Lake Dam, and the current is going with you.  It took about half an hour.   The river is very shallow in spots but very pretty to paddle down.  There are cottages along the way, and a handful on Red Pine Lake itself, but from our campsite we couldn't see any because of the island in front of us.  After paddling to the island and getting out at the wrong campsite, we got our bearings and found our home for the night.

The site we had chosen has a nice sandy beach, not that we would be swimming, it was far too cold for that.  The plan had been that it would be easier for my parents dog to get down to get a drink.  When we went to Opeongo, our site had a pretty good hill to climb up from the water, which was hard on him.  It was also kinda annoying for those of us sent to fetch water.

We spent a few minutes exploring the site, found the thunder box (which was in good shape, not disgusting, and even had a toilet seat!) and to make sure there weren't hidden caches of garbage people had left behind.  We did find several pairs of underwear, as well as a partially burned cross made out of branches and rope.  The kids were a little freaked out that the site was haunted and people had made it to ward off demons, but I assured them it wasn't likely.  They were still a little gun shy after Opeongo where they swore the site was haunted.

Since they felt like we'd given them the worst tent spot on our last trip, we let the kids choose where they would set up this time.  We put a tarp up over the kitchen area first (there was a table of sorts attached between two trees) and then went about setting up the tents.  The kids set their chairs up and Chris went to try and find fire wood while I got dinner started.  Dinner was spaghetti, already cooked, in the sauce, and dehydrated.  It had turned out well on our last trip, so we had it again.  I had made a HUGE batch, but since Mum and Dad weren't going to be there for the first night, I left half of it at home.

It began to drizzle as we waited for the spaghetti to rehydrate.  It looked like fog on the lake, and was quite pretty.  Thankfully there was no wind to speak of, or we would have all been chilled.

We ate dinner but since all the wood nearby was sopping wet from all the rain we'd had the past week, Chris couldn't get a fire going.  This meant we couldn't cook the garlic bread, but since there was so much spaghetti, it wasn't a big deal.  We cleaned up and went to bed since it was now dark and still drizzling.  It was 7:30.

At around 11:30 the wind picked up.  I tried to check my phone to see if there was a storm coming but there wasn't enough signal.  The waves began to lap at the shore so fast it sounded like a motor boat had gone by a bunch of times to stir them up. I kept hearing odd popping sounds that sounded like large branches breaking, but I think it was just the waves hitting logs and clumps of rocks.  Still it was unnerving because it sounded like a large animal was close by.

Squatch was the first person up, which was unusual.  I got up with him and we went to explore.  The forecast had said it would be sporadically sunny but chilly.  We didn't end up seeing any sun all day, but for the most part it wasn't too cold.  We walked around on the beach for a bit, and Squatch slipped off a log and soaked one of his shoes.  The water was pretty cold and none of us had brought extra shoes, so this was kind of a bummer.  He ended up sitting at the fire, in a pair of my socks while his shoes dried.  I made coffee, oatmeal and hot chocolate while Chris hunted for more firewood.  We didn't end up having a decent fire until later, when Mum and Dad got there since we had asked them to pick up a bag of wood on their way.

I don't like instant oatmeal so I brought the reflector oven and a store bought muffin mix, along with ground flax to replace the egg required.  I was so excited and I never got to eat it.  Because the fire never really got going very well, it ended up cooking for three hours and was still mushy inside.  Also, it is really hard to use a reflector oven with the steel fire pit rings.  You can't really fit it inside, and the fire has to be really big to make it work by setting it up at the ring's edge.  Since that was my breakfast, I was seriously bummed out.

Mum and Dad arrived at the put in fairly early, and we kept watch for them to paddle into the mouth of the river.  Squatch and I went down to the beach and walked out on the now mostly dry marsh, and eventually saw them, but they headed behind an island and went the wrong way.  I tried calling out, waving and even texted them, but they didn't turn back.  I ended up phoning them, which wasn't ideal as there was one bar and even that was intermittent.  I gave them directions but because their perspective was different from, they went back into the river and headed back almost out of sight.  All of us were waving whatever bright clothes we could find but it was still hard to see us.  I tried calling again, and couldn't get through.  Just when I thought Chris and Squatch would have to go out in the canoe, they saw us and came around to camp.

Thanksgiving dinner at Red Pine Lake

We got a better fire going with the dry wood they brought and sat around visiting, then got down to the business of preparing for thanksgiving dinner.  We had potatoes, carrots, turnip, brussels sprouts, stuffing, creamed corn, rolls and apple crisp.  It was super filling and yummy.  During the process of making the food, I fell in the lake and soaked both my shoes while trying to wash potatoes.  Squatches shoes were still wet, and Chris and Bubbie's shoes were damp from tromping around all day.  We were all a little chilled, and the temperature was dropping as the wind picked up.




We ended up deciding to pack up and leave a day early.  Mum and Dad helped pack up the tents and gear, then we all headed out.

Battling the current and wind, the paddle back to the put in took a bit longer, but it wasn't too bad.  We got loaded up and headed out.  It ended up raining a lot that night so nobody felt bad that we'd left.  Since it pretty much rained every day for a few weeks after that, we wouldn't have been able to set up the tents to dry them out for quite a while either.

All in all, it was a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving, much better than being squeezed in on all sides by big trailers and listening to other campers get gradually louder as the night and their alcohol consumption increases.