On October 28, 2016 a friend of mine named Tyler and I set off on a 3 day (2 night) journey through the East side of Algonquin Provincial Park. The access point we would be launching from was a 3 hour drive from our home town of North Bay. Tyler worked until 3pm on day 1 so we got a late start, arriving at the access after dark, around 7pm. The drive in was a little nerve-racking, as we had received close to 15cm of snow less than 24 hours earlier. I drive a compact car and at points we were pushing snow with the front bumper. It was slow going but we made it! As we unloaded the canoe we discussed the fact that if it were to snow any more while we were on our trip we probably wouldn’t be able to make it back to the main road, but luckily they were predicting above zero temperatures and rain for the next 3 days.
Because we arrived so late we setup our camp at the end of the 275m portage from the access (A38 Brigham Parking Lot) to the Barron River, where we would be starting the real adventure in the morning. Lucky for us the canopy of two large pine trees gave us enough snow-free ground to setup our tents. After our camp was setup we struggled to light a small campfire and shared a few stories as well as a few snacks before bed. The sound of the river flowing right beside my tent lulled me to sleep. The temperature hovered around 2 degrees Celsius overnight making for a comfortable sleep.
When we woke up in the morning there was considerably less snow then when when arrived the night before, mainly because of the steady drizzle overnight. This is what the River looked like from our campsite just before setting off on our journey for the day.
