Sat, Jul 23 2011, Sun, Jul 24 2011 - Gary's Survival Series #7 (View Original Event Details)
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It was a hot and sticky weekend. The challange on this survival adventure was traverse the Queen Elizabeth Wildlands in the Ragged Rapids (Black river) area.
The route involved crossing the Black river in various locations, bush whacking and following the Ganaraska Trail. The river crossings we're nice and refreshing and gave us a break from the bugs and the heat.
We spent our lunch break swimming and play around downstream of Ragged Rapids in a deep pool.
A few K's of trail and some bush whacking we got "LOST" in pairs around a beaver pond. The plan was for each pair to build their shelter, collect wood and get a fire going (to keep the bugs under control) and spend the night. Then in the morning get "UN-LOST"
So the big challange at night was to survive the Mosquito's. It was like an OFF commercial. I wore my rain gear, ball cap, bug jacket, covered my hands with my spair socks and covered my feet and body with my space blanket and climbed into my shelter at 9:30pm ish. I must have been tired because I woke up at 4:30 am due to an exploding bladder. It was surprizing cold. My thermometer was around 10C. For the next 2 hours, I laid beside the fire until the Herons in the pond starting squawking.
When around and collected the pairs to hear their stories of what worked and what did not work. The general theme was the bugs.
We gather back at my camp and we all had some good stories to tell as we had breakfast around the firepit. The morning was great with no bugs and the sun coming out.
Back on the trail we picked up about 100 Deer flies each as we hike thru Black Fly Junction on the Ganaraska Trail. There was about 5-6 large beer poo piles that the flies were attracted to, until of course we came along. Then they were on us. Following some moose trails back to the river I think we lost about 80 of the flies in the bush. Once we crossed the river I think we only had a handful of flies circling us.
We made it back to the cars and changed into dry clothes and started to counting bug bites. I think we all learned that hungry bugs need a good clothing / shelter plan.
See you all soon! Gary
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