9/22/24 –
Day one started at 9 am when my dad arrived. Four months had passed since the last time I saw him. It felt great to give him a hug. We spent the next couple hours figuring out what we wanted to eat and packing all of our gear into the car. We hit the water around noon with the wind in our face. About a half mile into the paddle, the lake suddenly gets fairly shallow. Both our paddles kept hitting rocks under the surface, but the canoe didn’t slide across any. The first two campsites on Homer are outside the wilderness. It was interesting to see the amenities that National Forest campsites get. Picnic tables! After about an hour and a half on Homer, we portaged quickly into Whack Lake. It had been a bit since I had paddled a new area so figuring out the scale on the map to the 3-D image that was around us took some time getting used to it. I may or may not have steered us into the wrong cove at first. The portage out of Whack starts off a bit steep but is short.
Vern Lake has two sites, one by the portage and one on the other shore about ⅓ of a mile north. The one by the portage was taken so we went to the other. It’s a nice site. There are about 4 tent pads that vary in quality. We followed a path into the trees that led to one that could fit our 3 person tent. We had camp set up by 3 pm. I took a quick swim before hanging up my hammock to read while my dad headed to the rocks along the shore with his book. Dinner was a pouch of freeze-dried Indian Korma from Good-to-Go. I really enjoyed it! It took a bit longer for the chickpeas to rehydrate than the directions on the back of the pack claimed. No problem, we just chatted for another few minutes, still updating each other on the going-ons of our lives. We cleaned up our dinner and wandered off to find a place to tie up our bear vault. Evening entertainment that night was a small sparrow or warbler flying around catching bugs out of the air and on the branches of a near-by birch. From where we were sitting we could see the other campsite and remarked how the folks over there didn’t seem to be utilizing the west facing site to its full advantage. We barely saw them out on the rock slope that made up the majority of the shoreline and from what we at our east facing campsite could tell, it seemed to be a nice sunset. I’m sure they had their reasons. Our day ended around 9 pm after a little more book reading by headlamp light.
Day two started somewhere between 7 and 7:30 am. The call for nourishment became too strong to ignore so we braved the slight chill to make breakfast. Nothing like a hot warm bowl of oatmeal to start the day! Dad and I decided to day trip down to Pipe Lake and check out the campsites. We hit the water around 8:30 heading south. Vern is a rather long, narrow lake. I was too busy looking around and almost steered us right past our first portage! We pulled up to the landing and after letting my dad get out of the canoe, I found myself a relatively solid mass of land to try to exit the canoe. I slipped in the mud and stepped down into the not-so-solid part. I hadn’t had the chance to tighten my sandals at this point and the mud quickly claimed one of them. Fearing it would be lost for good, I plunged my hand down to wrangle it out. I made sure to tighten my sandals before every portage from then on. The next paddling section led us through a narrower, reedy area that due to the time of year, had a noticeably lower water level. As long as one is watching for rocks, there’s still plenty of water though. Over another short portage and we were into East Pipe Lake. The far side of the portage looked like the old corduroy roads, but we assumed it was a beaver dam that washed out. There aren’t any sites on East Pipe so we didn’t linger.
On our McKenzie map, there are two very short portages between East Pipe and Pipe, but we only encountered one that climbed up next to a beaver dam. My dad and I wondered how long the beaver dam had been there. A large number of dead husks of trees lined the bay the portage put us in. Old, tangled roots of cedars stick out of the water along the shore on either side. By now, the wind has picked up. We were aware of the wind before, but until we got to Pipe Lake it hadn’t been an issue. Unfortunately, all the sites were on the far north side and the wind was coming out of the southwest. If I had been smarter and not lazy, I would have steered us along the southern shore then cut across to the first site. I didn’t not.
We paddled pretty hard to the first site and found the landing around a small point. Both the site and the landing were on the smaller side. We found the tent pads and checked out the latrine. The pads are on the smaller side, but I doubt there are many ideal tent pads anywhere in the wilderness. That’s just the nature of the game. There wasn’t much protection from the wind, but it was better than out on the water. After a quick snack, we pushed off towards the next site.
The middle site is small and closed in. There is a large rock in the middle of the campsite, almost right next to the fire grate. It seems like a nice place for winter camping, but during peak bug season? It doesn’t seem like there would be any reprieve. After finding the latrine again, we headed to the third and final site.
This site is located on the farthest shore from the portage. Site number 3 was pretty unique compared to the other two. The tent pad was large enough for a good sized tent, probably 4 or 5 people. It was situated above the main clearing. It was back away from the fire grate and benches approximately 10 feet (look, I’m not very good at estimating distance, but it wasn’t too close to the grate to be a cause for concern). The placement of the tent pad gave the site a sunken living room vibe. The main downside to this site was that it only had the one pad. We discovered the latrine one more time and hit the water back to Vern. To be honest, all three latrines are pretty full, but if the large spider webs going across the opening are an indication of anything, it’s clear they don’t get a lot of use. If anyone heads to Pipe Lake during the summer, I recommend the farthest east or west sites. Both have better tent pad options.
We made record time back now that the wind was to our backs. Once we got to the end of the portage back into Vern, we set off. Very quickly we ran into trouble. There were rocks everywhere just under the surface of the water and mud. We tried to find a way forward, but got stuck on a rock. I ended up getting out, sinking up to my calves in the mud, and pulled my dad and the canoe backwards to some deeper water that was located past the portage the other way. After I was able to get back into the canoe, we tried to figure out where all those rocks had come from. We didn’t have any problem getting to the portage at the start of our day trip, had Vern Lake suddenly become tidal locked while we were gallivanting across Pipe and now the tide had gone out? No. I remembered after a while that on our way out, I had accidentally steered us past the portage and that by doing so, had inadvertently missed all the rocks that had just given us trouble. How silly. We made it back to camp between 12 pm and 1 pm.
We had a lunch of PB&J on tortillas and went our separate ways to read for a while. I took a quick dip to wash off any mud and read in my hammock again. Eventually I finished my book and wandered off to explore the campsite. I followed a spur trail back behind the site up to a small aspen or birch grove. The leaves had already started to turn colors at this point. I found an exposed rock and stood listening to the wind rustle the leaves for a while. Dear reader, please do as I say, not as I do. Wear some sort of footwear in camp, especially if you plan on exploring. As I was working my way back to the camp proper, I stepped down off a rock and onto what I can only assume was a stick (truthfully, I don’t actually know, there was a layer of leaves and plant material covering whatever it was). I immediately knew that I had been wounded. Upon closer inspection, I saw that I had a small hole in the bottom of my foot, between my big toe and the next one. Luckily, it was not very deep. It is fully healed as I type this out now. I carefully made my way back to camp and took care of it. I was glad I didn’t forget to pack a first aid kit this trip!
My dad and I decided to explore the campsite in a different direction this time. We picked our way along a different spur trail that took us north along the shore. There was a large, sloping rock face we were able to walk up, and looked out across the lake. We wandered around the top of the hill for a bit as well theorizing about the geology of the area. Eventually we got hungry and headed back to get cooking. Tonight’s dinner was another package from Good-to-Go. This time it was Thai Curry. We split the pieces of pita we had and used them to soak up all the broth left. Our evening entertainment warbler didn’t show up, so we contented ourselves with watching the dragonflies zip around above the trees for a while. Soon it got dark and we hit the hay.
Day three started the same way day two did, with a breakfast of oatmeal. We took our time packing up and were on the way back to the entry point by 9:30 am. Once again, the sudden shallow rock reef in the middle of the lake took us by surprise. It took about the same amount of time to get back to the start as on the way into the wilderness. We loaded up and headed back to Sawbill.
I’m glad my dad and I got to go on a trip together! Sawbill is roughly 12 to 13 hours away from where my parents live and it’s tough for my dad to get enough time off of work to make a trip up here worth it. Both he and I had a great time!
Sawyer
