George River Solo 2018

Day 1
Start Time: 7/15/2018 3:50 PM
Duration: 4:01
Distance / Total (km): 14.6 / 14.6

I anticipated a late start and had no specific goal in mind for the first day on the water. A minimum perhaps of 10km and then look for a camp. My maps showed the locations of the camps Philip Schubert used on his 2008 trip, the put-in had been one of these and the next one was too far away for me to reach today. The clouds continued to roll in from the west the accompanying breeze helped push me along the southern perimeter of the massive reservoir. The Smallwood was completed in 1974 and as is often the case with a “fake” lake the shoreline is quite unlike a natural lake that would develop over thousands of years. This was especially true here as the “shore” consisted of hilltops that were not flooded with massive dykes in between. Water levels appeared high with just a few feet of rocky shoreline exposed with much of this being covered in driftwood. The normal indicators for potential camps might not work here!

After a couple of hours I came to a group of islands, I decided to go between them which turned out to be a bad move as my way was blocked by an extremely shallow field of grass, oh well 3km of wasted effort! Back on track on the north side of the larger island I started to look for a camp, initially it was all boulders piled with driftwood but eventually I came to an area that had some potential, there was a very small clear bit of gravel in front of the driftwood, clearly too small for the Pod (ed: The Pod is a Sierra Designs 9’x9’ floorless shelter) but maybe big enough for my back-up 2 man Marmot tent. I started to set up the tent and found there really wasn’t quite enough space, fortunately the boulder and driftwood strip was pretty narrow here and just back of it were some areas of thick moss. I moved the tent over along with my essentials (Sleeping bag/pad etc.).

Back at the shore I heated water for tea and a meal in a bag as the mosquito swarms arrived and drove me into the tent for the night. As darkness arrived it became very still and quiet, well quiet other than the drone of mosquitos! I sent a text to SluGG0 and received a reply a few minutes later; he had safely made his way back to Labrador City.

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