Cinder Lake isn’t a particularly difficult canoe trip, nor is it as scenic as some of some of the trips in the big parks like Algonquin or Killarney. But it is a lovely beginner trip, and it holds a special place in my heart because it was where I started my adventure with backcountry camping. I’d done some car camping before, but I didn’t know that backcountry camping was even a thing. Then one wintery day I found a truly dismal geocache on the side of the highway because someone in the car needed to ‘up their numbers’. I was wondering if there were any caches worth finding in the area, and I read the description for the nearest cache, “Surviving Cinder Lake”. One of the logs for the cache described an overnight camping trip and referenced Kevin Callan’s “A Paddler’s Guide To Canoe Country”. I was immediately enthralled by the idea.
It took me almost two years to make this trip happen. I booked some camping sites for a trip in 2009, only to have my plans dashed when my wife broke her leg. In 2010 attempts to fix the canoe, the car and other mundane considerations were threatening to push the trip even later in the season when my wife put her foot down and insisted that we use A-Dawg’s canoe and do it immediately. In the years since I’ve read many of Mr Callan’s books, dreamed about many of the trips within, and pursued many of those dreams. Backcountry camping has become a large part of my life, and it all started here.
I planned this trip by combining two of the trips from Kevin’s book. Partly because I wanted a bigger challenge, but also because I was planning the trip around the local geocaches and I wanted to find as many as I could. I still include geocaches in my backcountry trips, but I rarely make them the focus these days.
Apparently most people start out with tons of gear and slowly pare down what they bring as they get more experienced, but I went the opposite route. I had very little money at the time, and almost no camping gear. The only new item I purchased was a Hennessey Hammock. I didn’t even bring a sleeping bag. We had no stove and tried to boil our water and cook our food over the fire. Even though most of our gear wasn’t very ‘technical’ we had so little of it that our only real burden was the crushing weight of our fibreglass canoe. We were too inexperienced to do a solo carry and so we had to struggle with much more awkward two person carries.
Day 1: Cinder Lake
We headed out late in the day Friday, and made our way up to Cinder Lake from the highway access point. The portages were all pretty short, but we soon got tired of carrying our gear and the canoe at the same time so after the first two we started doing them in multiple trips. We took our time, enjoying the views and exploring. I was quite surprised by Ooze lake which was much prettier than its name would suggest. The curved beaver dam by the portage and the trees in the water were particularly nice. We climbed the lookout on Quirt lake, and searched for the sunken logging boat in the North West corner of Cinder Lake that Kevin Callan mentions in his book. We couldn’t find the boat, which is a shame.
By the time we started to head to the east end of Cinder Lake the wind had picked up. Our canoe was trimmed nose heavy (big guy in the front) so the wind would literally spin us around any time we let the bow dig in too much. We carved a crooked path towards our campsite, #65 at the far East end of the lake. We only saw one other group of campers on Cinder Lake, on the small island opposite our campsite. They watched us weave our way towards them while their dogs greeted us with enthusiastic barks.
The geocache description had made me a little worried about the bug situation, so I was quite surprised that we encountered almost none on the way in. Even on the portages there were almost no bugs. Site 65 has the fire pit on a point, so we were protected by the wind and smoke, but while we were eating dinner we could hear an ominous hum coming from the trees. There were no bugs at the fire, but the woods sounded like they were made of mosquitoes! Once I got in my hammock for the night I was literally surrounded by bugs.
This wasn’t my first time sleeping in the hammock, I’d done a few trials at home, but it was my first night ever in the backcountry. I’d pitched the hammock with my feet low, and I kept sliding down towards the far end. I needed to adjust the hammock, but the bugs were so bad I didn’t dare leave it. Sleep is never my friend, but this was a particularly bad night. My hammock was so tilted that I was almost standing, and my ankles were itchy from the bites I sustained as I dashed into the hammock. At one point I slid down so far that I pushed the bottom of the hammock open and a mosquito bit me on the butt. There’s not much room in a hammock, and I had nothing to do, so I was pretty miserably just lying there trapped all night. Ever since that first night I’ve always ensured that I bring a book when camping. I don’t always get a good nights sleep, but at least I’m not bored!
Day 2: Big East Lake
The next morning I made the worlds worst pancakes and we watched our neighbours paddle away before we headed over to find the “Surviving Cinder Lake” geocache. I was shocked when I opened the log book and saw that it had been signed by ‘Merlot And Shiraz‘ the day before! Our neighbours were also geocachers! This cache only gets found a few times a year, and here we both went out to find it on the same day and camped within a kilometre of each other. We kept expecting to encounter them on our trip out and then down to our next camp site on Big East Lake, but they were far ahead of us.
After finding “Surviving Cinder Lake” near our morning campsite we paddled down to the parking lot to resupply, and then to our campsite on Big East Lake. After the remote serenity of Cinder Lake and the many portages Big East felt like the Club Med of backcountry camping. There were large groups of people partying with multiple canoes full of gear. They had lawn chairs, music and big dinning tents to go with their small sleepers. Big East is a very scenic lake, and despite the packed campsites it never felt crowded.
Even though there were no portages, Big East had it’s own challenges. The large open stretches of water would really pick up the wind, and we had to work to stay on course, first heading West in the North section, and then heading South. There was a brief interlude of calm in the narrows, but other than that it was a tough paddle to get to the island where we were going to camp. When we did get to the island I decided to push on to find the “South End Of Big East” geocache because I was worried about the weather on Sunday morning – there had been threats of rain, and I didn’t want to have to dash out without finding the cache.
As we rounded the South corner of the island the wind became truly fierce and the waves turned to small whitecaps. It was very difficult to cross the bay, and I barely had a chance to glance at the GPSr. We landed on the wrong side of the peninsula and hugged the shore as we went around. Out of the wind it was incredible weather, bright sunny sky and warm without being uncomfortably hot.
There was a young couple sunning themselves on the rocks near the hunt camp, and at first I thought that they were residents, but when I saw their canoe I realized that they were campers like us. We followed the needle on the GPSr right past them and into the channel with the beaver dams. The cache was very easy to find, and in a beautiful spot.
We turned around and headed back to our campsite with the wind at our back. Site #24 is right at the intersection of two islands, and there’s another campsite nearby (I believe that they share a thunder box). There was another group at the other site, but we never saw them, so there is a reasonable amount of privacy.
We found our third cache of the day “Big E”, right next to our campsite. We actually visited the cache location about three times while gathering firewood before changing our priorities and finding the cache. It was a fairly easy find in a lovely area of the island that just happened to afford a view of the privy for our campsite . We had a very nice night. It did get a bit cold, particularly since I had no sleeping bag, but I was tired enough that I slept better than the night before.
Day 3: Home
Xander woke up in the night and had a snack from the ‘bear bag’. We’d made an embarrassing newb mistake. Since we were camping on an island we figured bears wouldn’t be a problem (new flash — bears can swim) and so we hung our bag at ground level not far from our site. Our hang the first night wasn’t much better though, as we made another mistake then. We hung the bear bag right next to the trunk of a tree that was right in our campsite. There was nothing to stop a bear from climbing up and grabbing it. I’ve hung many bear bags since those first two, and my technique has improved, but I’d say only about half of them have been truly bear proof. It’s always a humbling experience to try to do what seems like such a simple task and realize how difficult it is to do properly.
I woke up early and spent some time alone lounging on the rocks and taking photos while I waited for Xander to wake up. I had worried before this trip that I wouldn’t have enough to do. One thing that I’ve learned is that there’s always something to do on a trip, and I seem to have an endless capacity for contemplating the world while sitting on a sunny rock after a night in the hammock. I’m usually not much of a morning person, but I really enjoy them when I’m ‘out there’. I was enjoying myself so much that I had to force myself to start the day’s chores.
After we made breakfast and struck camp we decided to try a trip to Moose Track Lake (recommended by our guide map) since the day was still young and beautiful. It didn’t take us much time at all to reach the North end of the lake, and we made it quite a distance into the bog at the eastern end, before we were thwarted by a beaver dam and decided to turn back. We had just put the canoe down next to the car when a light sprinkling of rain began.
Tips:
The Haliburton Highlands Water Trails are a managed camping area and require a reservation for overnight camping. They have an excellent website for online reservations. Campsites are booked individually rather than by the lake so you know that your site will be available if you arrive late.
Difficulty
- The portages on the north loop to Cinder Lake are all short and none are particularly difficult but there are quite a few of them which can make progress slow. Overall the north loop is still quite short and easy.
- The south loop has no portages, just the carry down from the parking lot.
- While Big East Lake isn’t particularly big, it can act as a funnel for the wind making travel a bit more difficult at times.
Comfort
- Cinder Lake was particularly buggy at night. In the daytime the bugs were quite normal.
- The island campsites on Big East Lake weren’t very bad at all for bugs.
Remoteness
- There are two cottages on Big East Lake and there’s what looks like an abandoned ranger cabin on Cinder Lake. Other than that there’s no infrastructure in the area.
- The further you get from the highway the fewer people you’ll meet. Cinder Lake doesn’t seem to get much traffic at all, but Bentshoe Lake and Big East Lake are quire crowded due to the easy access. If you want an easy trip head south to Big East, if you don’t want crowds head north.
- When I first did this trip the road to Cinder Lake was closed so the only access was by portage. The last time I visited the road had re-opened and there was actually someone car camping on Cinder Lake.