Trip Log - An Early Spring Canoe Trip into the Brent Crater
On 2012 April 13 through April 16, Bob and Diana went camping in the Brent Crater. The early spring gave us the opportunity to visit this area without having to share it with bugs or other people, and we were not disappointed. This part of the park was devoid of people and the mosquitoes were minimal. Here are some photos and a synopsis of our trip.
2012 April 13
We have previously visited the Brent Crater several times, but always as day trips. This time we chose to take advantage of an early window between ice out and the onset of bugs and the fishing seaon to visit for several days. We chose to stay at the campsite on the south shore of Gilmour Lake because it appeared to be more private than the other two campsites, which are directly accessible from the portage trail. But we made that choice before we discovered that the south shore campsite is directly connected to the Brent Road by an ATV trail.
Before we could begin our trip we needed to purchase our interior camping permits. And because the Brent Road office was not yet open for the season, we needed to do this by phone. We found this to be an aggravating experience. The major problem was that the park refused to sell us our permit the the day before. We were told that we could purchase our permit after 8:30am on the day of our departure. The operative word here is after which, apparently, doesn't mean at 8:30am but rather some undefined time later. Once someone showed up to answer the phone, the process of purchasing our permit was relatively painless. But our start time was considerably delayed. I see no valid reason why permits should not be purchaseable in advance.
We finally got away from the house a little before 9:30 and reached the trailhead — the portage from Muskwa Lake/Brent Road to Tecumseh Lake — at around 11:00.
2012 April 14
2012 April 15
2012 April 16
All in all a pleasant trip and our 60+ year old bodies did not let us down! The weather was suitable but was often threatening with occasional light mistings of rain, but never sufficient to force us into our rain gear (until the thunderstorm on the way out).
We are disturbed by all of the evidence of mechanized access to this area that we encountered. The ATV trail into Gilmour Lake destroys that campsite as an emotionaly comfortable place to stay.
It also occurrs to us that the recently cleared trail that, last fall, enabled us to walk into Ghost Lake (see A Walk to Ghost Lake in Algonquin Park) also provides snowmobile and ATV access to Ghost Lake. We suspect that many or most of the small trout lakes in this area have similar access. We cannot but believe that this is bad for the future of the fishery.