I’ve done many trips in the last two years, but this will be the first that I am documenting.
This trip will be the famous Nunikani Lake Loop in the Haliburton Highlands. I am going to co-solo this trip with good friend. There will be very little shared gear. In fact, the shared gear will be Beer batter fish crisp, an iron skillet and half a litre of vegetable oil along with a Eureka No Bug Zone screened tarp. The weight of the skillet matches the weight of the tarp and oil to make things fair.
I’ll create another post with a full gear list, but there are a few items I’m taking on this trip that are new.
First is a Souris River Quetico 16. I purchased it brand new, and this will be my first trip with it. It is a tandem canoe that I plan on using solo most of the time, with the occasional trip with a second person. I probably should have bought a solo pack boat, but I wanted a proper tandem boat. At 40lbs I should be able to single carry most portages.
The second is a new tent. For the last couple of years I’ve used a Kelty Salida 2p. It’s a free standing double wall tent and is just under 5lbs. It works great, but is a little short, I’ve only got 3 or 4 inches clearance from my head/feet to the tent. I’ve had several mornings where my feet are touching the tent, and are wet. The new tent is a River Country Products Trekker 1A. It’s very inexpensive and requires trekking poles, or a ridge line to stand up. It only weights 2.5lbs and unlike like Kelty, and I can set it up in the rain without getting the inside wet. I can add a lightweight tarp over the ridge line for nasty weather too. It’s 7.5 feet long which means lots of head/foot room. My only complaint is that it’s not quite tall enough to sit up in, but I’ll take that over wet feet any day.
Since this is my first documented trip, I’ll be bringing a camera, batteries, and a solar panel for charging. This trip is only 3 days, so battery packs would work, but I’d like to test the panel for extended trips. The camera is waterproof, so hopefully the water is warm enough for some underwater footage.
I’m not a videographer or a famous YouTube star, so the footage is going barely watchable… unless something fun/cool/horrible/catastrophic happens. Let’s hope for the first two.
The posts over the next couple of days will document the route and some of the other gear I like to bring. Most of my gear is tested and I’m comfortable with it. Hopefully you get something out of this. Feel free to add your comments or email me.