Catastrophic Failure

I forget to mention that just before taking my kayak off the wheels to load it on my truck, they failed catastrophically.  Since I would not have a reason to ever put them back on the kayak, I decided to see if I could figure out why they were so wobbly.  As I was moving them around to find the slack, a bolt broke and the entire system fell apart.  I had put very little pressure on the wheels.  They would never have made even one more portage before failing.  I am incredibly shocked to have the good fortune of having this failure 10 feet from my truck and not on a portage someplace.  Had this happened on a portage, I would have had great difficulty in getting back.  This reinforced my idea on having a kayak that is easier to portage on your shoulders. 

It also reinforced my instinct of leaving the NFCT until I have a better portage system.  My instinct told me that it was not safe doing a solo trip with a questionable portage system.  There are too many other potential problems that will require a functional portage system.  In the event of severe weather, injury, or illness, I would need to move quickly and with as little difficulty as possible.  I could not do this with my current portage system.

Portage system before failure

Portage system after Failure

Lessons Learned

I did my best to experiment with as many different portage systems before leaving as I could.  I'm not sure that I could have done anything differently in this regard.  This was always the one thing I had the least confidence in.  Maybe it was because this was the only major item I did not build myself.  I certainly live too far away from the NFCT to experiment directly on the trail with new gear.

My kayak weighs 66 pounds and all of my gear including food, water, life jacket, and kayak seat weigh 45 pounds.  When portaging, I put nearly all of my gear in a Duluth Pack usually leaving no more than about 15 pounds in the stern of my kayak.  The gear that I left was only the gear that would be balanced over the the portage wheels.  This apparently is too much weight for the portage system I was using.  What I don't understand is that other people seem to have been portaging similar weights without their portage system failing.

Kayak
I'll build a light weight cedar strip kayak that will give me the option of portaging it on wheels or on my shoulders when the portage trail is rough.  I did not have that option on this trip. Due to the length of the portages, my only option was to portage my kayak on wheels.  I'm going to build the kayak with a cockpit shaped and balanced to be used as a portage yoke. 

I believe kayaks are safer and faster on the water, but harder to portage.  They are less vulnerable to the wind and waves than solo canoes.  If I can get the cockpit shaped and balanced correctly, I might be able to design a kayak that is almost as easy to portage as a canoe. 

Cart
I'm likely going to build a cart with the following features:

• Fits under the middle of my kayak so that it takes less effort to hold up one end.
• Has a bracket that fits over the kayak which will help keep the kayak and cart in alignment.
• Has very large diameter wheels that can go over rocks and roots.
• Is sturdier than the commercially available carts.
• Can be folded and strapped to the back of my kayak.

I also want to experiment with pulling the cart rather than the kayak.  Maybe there is a reason the commercially available middle carts that I've seen seem to be designed to be pulled by the kayak rather than being pulled directly.  It seems like if the cart is pulled rather than the kayak, there is no way the wheels can become skewed when hitting a rock.  It also seems like it would be easier to get the cart and kayak over larger rocks and roots because you would be pulling up as well as forward.

Days 7 & 8 - Journey Home and Back Again

Since I have no car, I decided to take a bus home to get my truck instead of waiting until next weekend when Anne can pick me up.  The lady at the motel was nice enough to let me keep my kayak at her motel for the weekend.

The bus ride was a fun and crazy experience.  You always meet interesting people on the bus.  One of the tricks of bus riding is to always look at who is sitting behind you.  I forgot this basic fact when selecting a seat from Albany.  I sat in front of a young woman with her three year old son because the seat next to me was open.  To her credit, she tried to control her son.  One of the techniques she used was to threaten to have to police put her son in jail when ever he did not listen.  She would pick up her cell phone, and pretend to talk to the police.  She would descibe her son's behavior, and tell the police to come and get him.  This was actually kind of effective especially when coupled with a few smacks.

She got off in Rochester, NY.  A schizophrenic man took the seat behind me around this time.  I heard him talking to the woman he was sitting next too.  He was living in Boston, I think.  He said he lost everything and was eating out of a garbage can.  He also said he was 58 years old and never married.  He was going back to live in his home state of Indiana.  The woman next to him moved or got off the bus, but he remained talking.  Actually, it was mostly muttering.  He was mutter something about "scumbags" and would often break into laughter.  At one point, he caughed on me, and I had to yell at hm to cover his mouth.  He was very appologetic about that incident.

I arrived back in Cleveland around 3:30 AM on Saturday morning.  My sister picked me up from the bus station, and took me home.  Speaking of bus stations, the one in Cleveland was awful.  It was very dirty.  After seeing the restroom, I decided it was best not to get anything to eat there.

I slept a few hours, woke, and was back on the road by about 9:15 AM.  I had to go back and pick up my kayak and gear in Saranac Lake.  That trip was mostly uneventful.  I was listening to "Journey to the Center of the Earth".  I need to look up when that book was writen.  It was fun listening to the description of geology.  I'm going to guess that based on the description of the geologic time periods and fossils, the book was written around the middle of the 1800s.

After that book ended, I started to listen to Jack Karroac's "On the Road".  It was interesting to hear about life in the late 1940s.

I finally got home the second time around 2:00 AM after nearly driving 1,000 miles.

Day 6 - Dilemma

My current portage system is bent and wobbly.  Is my kayak too heavy for it?  I do not know.  I thought that my kayak weighs about 55 pounds, but I think it might be heavier.  I can portage a 55 pound canoe very comfortably 200 rods (~3,300 feet).  I can not portage my kayak on my shoulders for more than about a quarter mile without strain and pain where the kayak rests on my shoulders.

I talked to the outfitter in town.  He has no suggestions.  If I understood him correctly, he helped design the portage system that I am currently using.  He sells the same brand of end cart along with some middle carts like the one that I already tried.

According to the map, I might have more portages along the next 63 miles than anywhere else on the NFCT.  Unless I can scout the rapids before running them, I intend to portage the 8 to 10 miles or so of Class 2 water.  While I should have no difficulty in running them, I tend to be a conservative paddler.  I do not take any unnecessary chances.  While portaging this section will be difficult, the consequenses of mis-reading a rapid can be catestrophic.  With a good portage system and a downward sloping dirt road, I would not have a problem with this portage.

OK, so here's my problem.  Do I buy something that already has proven not to work in the long run, buy something over the internet that I have yet to try, or re-think my entire system?

I am not going to buy something that already failed.  My best guess is that it was not a defective portage system, but that my kayak and gear are too heavy for it.

I am also not going to buy something online, and then take it on the next section without trying it.  What I would do is buy it, have it shipped to the motel, and try it out on the portages around Saranac Lake.  This will take several days, and would effectively end my chances of reaching the end of the NFCT in the time I have remaining.

I decided to end my trip here, build a new light weight kayak (and possibly even a portage system), and re-start my NFCT trip in a year or two.  I enjoy building boats as much as using them.  I wanted to build a light weight cedar strip kayak for this trip, but did not have time.  I think I could build a new kayak that weighs somewhere between 40 and 45 pounds, and I have some ideas to design it to be portagable on my shoulders.  I do not have that option with this kayak.

Day 5 - Raquette River Falls to Saranac Lake Town

I just experienced a new kind of hell today, but before i get into that, let me first describe the beauty of the day.

I was up early, and on the water by a little after 7:00 AM this morning. It was a beautiful morning. Most of my stuff dried over night. The Raquette River is spectacularly beautiful. It was a quit mostly bug free morning. The bug was more interested in mating than in eating me. I could see thousands if not millions of bugs hovering over the stream. A few had mates. Most were still looking for a mate I suppose.

The current was going in my direction, which made paddling a leisurely experience.

My concern was missing Stony Creek.  Stony Creek enters Raquette River. The map says that it enters just after log cribbing. I could not keep track of my position along the stream. I had a sense of my speed and distance to Stony Creek so all I knew was an approximate time that I should be there. The map scale was too large to keep track of my position along the stream. I found Stony Creek just after the log cribbing were the map said it would be.

Stony Creek was amazing! It was a maze of stream channels. I watched for the stream flow to pick out the main channel from all of the dead ends. Following the strongest current was the only way to find the right channel. The dead ends mostly looked just like the main channel.

Stony Creek meandered wildly back and forth. With each bend, I had to completely stop and turn. I lost momentum and had to spend extra energy starting forward motion again. The beauty of this section was worth the effort.

I arrived at Indian Carry portage just before 10:00 AM. This is a 1.1 mile portage with 0.4 miles on a rough trail. The remainder follows a dirt road to the put-in. The map says this is doable with a cart, which is mostly correct. Except it was not what I was able to do. This is where the hell really began.

The wheels on my cart are loose and floppy.  I have no tools.  The cart frame is bent and maybe something with the wheel axis also bent. The wheels either point down and in toward the center of the kayak effectively reducing the distance between the wheels or they point up and inward causing the wheels to rub on the kayak sides. They also seem to become skewed in another way causing them to drag.

I met a woman on the portage with an extremely light canoe and gear. She said that the outfitter by the tennis courts in Saranac Lake are very experienced, and should be familiar with the problems people are having by this time on the NFCT.

It took nearly two hours to do this relatively easy portage. I was so exhausted when I finally reached the end that I had to rest at lease another 30 minutes before moving. What happened is that when the wheels turned inward, any bump on the trail caused my kayak to flip over. I was having this problem on the Raquette River portage too. My kayak might turn over every 5 feet or it might take 50 feet. It never took more than 50 feet even when taking it very very slow unless I put the bow under my arm and physically wrestled the kayak upright when it wanted to flop over. This was exhausting! `

I had taken my pack and all of my gear to the gravel road on the second half of the portage. I expected most of the hard part to be over once I reached this point. Instead, it became even harder. Now the wheels flopped inward rubbing against the kayak. I tried several times to get them straight, but to no avail. I ended up mostly dragging the kayak to the put-in having to take several breaks during the portage.

I don't know which direction the wheels flopped was more difficult. I also did seem to be able to control their direction of flopping..

I made it to the put-in utterly and completely exhausted. I could barely move at this point. I filtered some water, hydrated, ate some lunch, and rested for the paddle ahead. I finally moved on when some teenagers came by with big dry packs. It looked like they were out on an over night canoe trip, but I did not see their canoes.  I wanted to get out of their way.  I supposed that others were portaging them or they intended to go back for their canoes..

It was a fairly short paddle to the Bartlett Carry portage. A map with more detail would have helped with navigating this section, but it wasn't that hard to find either. With larger scale maps, many more than 14 maps would be needed to navigate the NFCT.

The Bartlett Carry portage should have been super easy. It was not. I had to drag my kayak uphill about 0.2 of a mile, and then down a portage path with it constantly wanting to either tip or lock up. Once again, I was exhausted by this portage.

The paddle after this portage was again spectacularly beautiful. It was also very fun kayaking through the locks.   I arrived in the Town of Saranac Lake around 7:00 PM.  The outfitter is closed so I got a motel room a short distance away.  The lady who ran the motel was nice enough to let me park my kayak on her lawn.  I will talk to the outfitter in the morning.

I think I paddled about 26 miles today in spite of the difficult portages.

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=8459M/44.31553N/74.12051W
Saranac Lake

Day 4 - Long Lake to Raquette River Falls

My emotions are up and down today. I started today with the despair of knowing I have some very tough portages that need a kayak yoke, which I do not have. Then, I met a woman who runs an outfitter in Long Lake who helped me figure out a good way to portage my kayak. Later, I went through the experience of dodging thunderstorms on Long Lake and standing under a rock and then later under a tree while it rained and hailed.

The thunderstorms were actually really beautiful.  There is kind of a low mist that develops on the lake, and I like the sound of rolling thunder.  The rolling thunder seems to be caused by lightning inside clouds rather than from lightening striking the ground.

I paddled about 4.5 miles into the town of Long Lake this morning. I thought that my watch said it was 9:30 AM when I woke. There were thunderstorms during the night. I decided to sleep in until they passed. I must have started early than i realized because I was in Long Lake by about 9:30 AM. There was an outfitter near the beach where I parked my kayak.

Stacie ran the outfitter. She was the first outfitter who knew anything about portaging. She just opened three days earlier and was still putting away this year's merchandise. She told me about a portage yoke made for kayaks. It was in a box, but she offered to put it together so I can try it out. She told me to do what I needed in town, and to come back in an hour.

I had breakfast at the local diner. It was fun wandering around town like I did on the AT. I love this part of travel. You meet people and see things you would never see if you were traveling by car.

When I went back to the outfitter, Stacie had the portage yoke assembled and ready to try. It was supposed to fasten onto the cockpit rim, but nothing we did made it stay on. We even tried to put it on after I had the kayak on my shoulders. It would not stay, and it was not able to fit near the kayak balance point. Then I realized that if I turn the kayak around, the cockpit was perfectly shaped as a portage yoke. It was also perfectly balanced. Stacie gave me some foam blocks to slip onto the cockpit to soften the load on my shoulders.

Several thunderstorms came up while I was out on Long Lake. I hid out on a island with no trespassing signs while the first thunderstorm passed. I hid under a very large rock. However, the wind blew the rain into the crevasse where I hid.

I tried to make it to a NFCT lean-to shown on the map before the next thunderstorm arrived. I could see it where it was shown on the map. I kept looking until the thunderstorm was getting close. Then I hid out in the woods for about a half hour as the thunderstorm passed. There was lightning and hail. I did not put my rain jacket hood up when it first started raining. When I did put it up, it was filled with rain so I got soaked in spite of the rain gear. After the thunderstorm passed, I moved on down the lake.

The headwaters of Raquette River was a maze. It was very pretty. Another thunderstorm came through while I was looking for the next lean-to. There were so many channel, and the NFCT map is a large scale map that doesn't show enough detain to pin point your location. I never found this lean-to. However, there was plenty of cover under the trees that covered the channel. I was not the high point and felt less danger than I did on the open lake. I followed the current downstream through the maze of channels. I understand that "Raquette" is French for Racket. They are pronounces the same. The river is named because this maze of channels resembles a tennis racket.

Most of the thunder at this time was rolling thunder that seemed to be limited to the clouds.

I stopped briefly at Deep Hole Lean-to for lunch.

It took two hours to portage the Raquette Falls portage. This is a 1.1 mile portage. The terrain was rough in places. There was also a broken canoe as a warning not to attempt these rapids.

I portaged the kayak on my shoulders part of the way. I carried everything else, and then went back for the kayak. I was able to wheel the kayak slowly. The wheels are kind of loose and wobbly. I think this is the design. I could keep the kayak from tipping only if I held the bow under my arm and kept wrestling it upright. This is very difficult!

I met a NY State DNR guy at the end of the portage trail. We talked about what's to come. The good camping apparently comes to an end soon. He told me a former thru paddler was camping a few miles downstream, and this guy told him the rest of the NFCT sucked. I don't know what that means except maybe it has little camping in places.  We talked about portage systems. 

I think I did about 21 miles today, which isn't bad with all of the t-storm hiding out I did, and also my stop in Long Lake. I have my tent set up under a lean-to to help dry everything out from last night.

I can't write anymore because my head lamp is going out.

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=82zwq/43.97435N/74.42349W
Town of Long Lake

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=83CkX/44.10271N/74.32068W
I think this is my camp site

Day 3 - Raquette Lake to Long Lake

Everything was going great until this last portage. My portage system is not working. I need a portage yoke for this portage. Why do none of the outfitters have portage yokes? Because no one is selling them, I believed the portages did not require them. I can get around rocky portages as long as they are short. The Buttermilk Falls portage was steep and rocky, but I had relatively little difficulty. I portaged my stuff first, and then came back for my kayak. I can pick it up and around the short rocky stuff, which wasn't too much of a problem.

The last portage was way too long for this method. I tried carrying the kayak on my shoulder, but it is too heavy to do that for long. I used the wheels when ever I could. I ended up dragging the kayak along sections without rocks. I need to figure out a different way to portage on these rough terrain portages because my kayak will never make it to the end if there are many more portages like this. I too probably could not take the beating of too many more similar portages either.

I'm going to try to call my friend Paul when I am in the town of Long Lake tomorrow. Maybe he can find a kayak yoke he can have shipped to me somewhere along the trail. I

Anne left around noon to go back home. I miss her. It will be hard to be separated the next few weeks. I'm not sure why I am driven to do trips like this. I know what I am getting myself into. I know that it will take all of my physical and mental strength to see it to the end.

I've been thinking about this trip for years. I've been trying to find someone to go on a very long Boundary Waters trip like from end to end, but I've not been able to find anyone foolish enough to do such a thing. So here I am! I've been thinking about this trip since I first heard of the NFCT a few years ago.

The paddle through Raquette Lake and Forked Lake was beautiful! These are very pretty lakes. There are fewer people out on them, and the portages are easy. My portage system worked wonderfully. I would pull up to the shore, get out, attach my kayak wheels, remove some gear, and just walk to the next put-in. How crazily easy is that??? I could not imagine such ease of portaging. 

This is my first day alone. Unlike the AT, I do not expect to meet many people along the way with whom to kayak. At best, I expect to talk to a few people along the way.

I did 18.5 miles today, which is not bad for getting such a late start. It's 9:00 PM so I better go to sleep. I want to be up at 6:00 PM and on the water no later than 7:00 PM. I expect a couple hard portages tomorrow. I will see if my kayak can take the beating. 

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=82MsJ/43.81316N/74.6564W
Today's start

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=82XtC/43.90467N/74.52783W
Very easy 1.5 mile portage

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=82fEA/43.92617N/74.4765W
Camp Site

Update on Joe

Joe is currently in the town of Saranac Lake, NY.  He has been having great difficulty with his portage wheels (despite good results on the first 2 days).  So much so that, given the amount of portaging ahead, he may decide to abort the mission at this point....if he cannot devise a better system.  He is currently evaluating options and his situation, and is staying in a motel in Saranac today.