One Day Bear Loop
In short:
55 miles
29 portages
21 hours
In long:
Allen Lowenstein and I had a day off together and that could only mean one thing, another adventure. We did a one day Horse Loop the year prior and knew doing a one day Bear Loop was achievable. It would be harder. Not only would it be more miles, but it would require many more portages. Another challenge we faced, was that the only canoe we managed to get permission to borrow was an old Grumman canoe, weighing close to 100 pounds. The real kicker was that the portages pads for the canoe, if you could call them that, were only 2x4’s covered in cloth. Regardless of the increased challenges, we collected supplies and recruited Will Olson to join us.
We left at 12:14am and in 45 minutes, we had paddled the six miles to birch lake. We got to Thunder Point at 5:15am and ate breakfast. The sun had risen while we ate breakfast. When we got to Eddy Falls, we hustled to take a photo and got right back to paddling. At this point only a few hours in, we were all very tired. We did some cliff jumping on Kekekabic Lake. This was refreshing, but nonetheless, as we paddled down Kek, Will and I were both falling asleep. From then on, Will hossed the canoe across virtually every portage. For paddling, Will sat duff while Allen and I paddled. Finishing the route across Snowbank Lake took ages. As we got to the last portage we left the canoe, for bug-thirty had come, and briskly walked back to base. We got back at 9:10pm and fell asleep to get crews the next day.
