Day 3 - Hobart Lake to Helen Falls
(15 km)
Maps provided courtesy of Toporama which contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. I have marked my route in blue and portages in red.
Day 3 - Hobart Lake to Helen Falls (15 km)
We awoke to the calm after the storm. The sun was out and the lake was like glass.
Again, we enjoyed the morning and had the last of our fresh breakfast food of sausages and eggs. All meals for the remainder of the trip would be of the instant or dehydrated variety.
We were on the water by mid-morning and were enjoying the fantastic paddling conditions. We needed to head back through Willow Island Creek, Betty's Hole and paddle to the south end of Sucker Gut. Our goal was to be firmly into the Lady Evelyn River system and be as close to Katherine Lake as our energy would take us by the end of the day.
We stopped for a bit near the south end of Willow Island Creek to do a bit of fishing. I hooked into a small pike on my first cast. I must have got lucky on that one because we tried for another 10 minutes or so but weren't able to reel in anything else. Just as we were exiting the creek and back into Betty's Hole, we passed a couple paddling toward Hobart Lake. They stopped to ask us how difficult the hike up to Maple Mountain was. When I told them that it was quite a steep walk that got the heart going, the man, who had a striking resemblance to Jeffrey Lebowski, exclaimed with exuberance, "Lactic Acid!", and gave the air a fist pump for good measure. Now, I'm not sure if the man was a biology professor or just a dude that's really into anaerobic respiration, but we certainly enjoyed his reaction. Needless to say, for the remainder of the trip, Dad and I gave a cry of "Lactic Acid!" on every difficult portage.
To reach the North Channel of the Lady Evelyn River, the most direct route would have been to go through Chris Willis Lake, but this included travelling through a narrow creek that gets notoriously shallow and would have by-passed the picturesque Frank Falls. So, we opted for the longer paddle through Sucker Gut. It was a pleasant paddle, though Sucker Gut Lake seemed longer than the map would indicate. The islands and cliffs on the south end of the lake leading to the falls were beautiful.
We arrived at Frank Falls to discover a motorboat at the take-out. A couple and their dog were having a picnic lunch and a swim at the base of the falls. We watched them jump into a spot at the base of the falls and let the current take them out. It looked fun, so we did the same after they had finished. After a few runs of this, we made some wraps for lunch and then tried a few casts, but weren't able to hook into anything. It was a nice spot to break up the day.
The portage around Frank Falls was short and would be the easiest one for the next three days. Above the falls, the river opened up somewhat.
As we moved upriver, there was a distinct feeling of heading deeper into the wilderness. From there on in, we would not encounter any motorized watercraft, resort guests or cottagers until we worked our way back from the river system.
It did not take long to reach the base of Centre Falls. The portage there is a challenging one and, thus, has been given the title of "The Golden Staircase". Upon reaching the point of the impasse at the base of the falls, the drop didn't seem that formidable as seen in the photo below.
However, after the first 200 meters or so, it registered that there were a series of chutes that needed to be traversed. The trail came to a large rise where there was an amazing campsite overlooking the main drop of the falls. A family was camped there with three small children. It looked like they had been there for at least a few days.
It was a beautiful spot though the roar of the falls would have been a challenge after a while. At the campsite, one had to yell to be heard. On the return trip of our double-carry, Dad and I took a selfie together in front of the falls.
To portage over the rise of the falls, there was a five-foot ledge that we had to hurl our canoe and gear over. Lactic Acid! From there, the trail cut back into the forest and followed a narrow, damp path that was slippery in spots. From that point forward, the portages along the Lady Evelyn can be quite treacherous in wet conditions. We were very lucky to have only sunshine during our three days on the river.
The put-in was about 300m past the falls. All told, this portage seemed to be closer to 700m in length rather than the listed 420m on our map.
We had only paddled for about five minutes before we were getting out of the canoe again. We came upon a series of rapids that had no real portage other than a scramble over rocks and boulders on the north bank of the river.
There, we tried to line our canoe upstream, but this proved difficult since we had trouble getting the canoe out into the centre of the river. The current kept pushing the canoe toward us on the bank where it got caught up on rocks. Finally, I ended up simply getting into the river and wading (swam!) the canoe to a point where we could re-enter and paddle. In retrospect, it would have been easier to portage over the boulders.
After that, the river widened into a large, swampy pool, and then veered north to the base of Helen Falls, which could be heard from quite a distance downstream. The portage was on the west bank and appeared to be quite a steep incline to the top of the falls. We paddled to the base of the falls to get a gander and photo of this beautiful chute.
Across the narrows from the portage was a vacant campsite that looked nice. It was getting late in the afternoon and knowing the portage over this falls was a steep one, we decided to make the site our home for the evening. We also wanted some time to play around at the falls. It had a large fire pit built into a boulder, a nice flat slab of granite to lay out our gear on, and a lovely little pool in which to swim.
After setting up camp, we paddled across the river and hiked up to the top of the falls to investigate the series of chutes and pools. All told, it seemed like there were at least 4 or 5 drops in the river. What a beautiful and spectacular place!
Back at camp, we went for a swim to clean off and fished for a bit. Having no luck, we got into a dehydrated pasta meal that was quite yummy. We spent a fantastic evening next to a roaring fire, sipping whiskey and letting the sound of Helen Falls provide a soothing lullaby to fill the silence of the north woods on this cool August night.
