Planning a trip and need some advise.

Hindsight

Hindsight

Moderator
Joined
Dec 8, 2011
Messages
5,350
Well I have decided that i need to get away for a little R and R. I am planning on heading up to Canada for a week sometime in August. This will be a trip that I have been longing to take for a few years. The plan is to drive up to the Little Missinaibi lake in Canada. A few of us will unload our Kayaks and spend the week fishing and camping. The goal is to take only the essential gear that we need so that we do not weight down the Kayaks. I have a few months to get my gear around and fine tune what I am actually going to take. I would like to keep the weight of the gear to around 70 lbs max.
Also for anyone that lives in Canada, any of the rules and regulations that I need to be aware of would be helpful. I would love to hear what you guys think would be "MUST HAVE" items. I know that many of you are way more experienced in this kinda of stuff then I am, so any suggestions would be helpful. There is a chance that we will be without any form of communication for the entire week that we are out there. Thanks in advance for al of your help.

Joshua
 
10 essentials, warm clothes, spare clothes, wet weather gear, food/snacks, water filter or way to disinfect, extra paddle and boat repair kit, some fishing gear, decent med. kit, booze and.....that should do it! Make sure to leave your trip itinerary with a loved/trusted one with instructions to call for help after "drop dead" day/time!

Enjoy your trip! Sounds awesome!
 
A Chop Mastiff and INFI RMD and your Rat Trap should cover you for cutting tasks. That leaves you with what, 67 lbs for booze and fishing gear :p
 
I would add bear spray. You're going to be in black bear country. And remember to have either a plastic food barrel or dry bag to hold all your food, trash, and other scented goods such as toothpaste. Along with this you will need enough throw line to hang your food well out of reach of bears and well away from your campsite.

Have a great trip.

Hope this helps,
- Martin
 
TP, we camped near Whistler for 4 days and no one brought any. Swamp arse is no fun when hiking.
 
PineMartyn said:
I would add bear spray. You're going to be in black bear country. And remember to have either a plastic food barrel or dry bag to hold all your food, trash, and other scented goods such as toothpaste. Along with this you will need enough throw line to hang your food well out of reach of bears and well away from your campsite.

Have a great trip.

Hope this helps,
- Martin
Click to expand...

I will have plenty of 550 cord with me and dry bags. I have been around this area a few times. The bears don't seem to bother us to much, unless you run across mom and her cubs. That was a day I would love to forget. Luckily I have a friend that can drive a truck while hanging upside down from the back seat. :eek:
 
I always bring a good solid axe when I'm heading into the back county. If you don't like bear spray those disposable air horns sure get the bears running, not as fun as bangers but less risk of exploding behind the Bear and having it running straight at you pissed off and scared. Always hang your food!
 
It has worked for me and if it goes off by accident you don't look like a pumpkin for 3 days. Do you have any topo maps of the area?
 
Not yet. I have been Google Earthing the area trying to find some places that look like they could be fun to explore.
 
Bring sunblock, the days are longer here being further north. They won't let handguns across the boader, so get a can a bear spray. Warm sleeping bags are a must as nights can get cold at times in August. A good camcorder or camera for catching the scenery. Bring some deet insect repellant, bugs are not so bad in August, but its better to be prepared, as they can be bad if the summer turns out wetter than normal.
 
Thanks guys. Will def be checking out the maps. Are there any good brands of Bear spray that I should look for. I want to make sure that I taste as bad as possible so they leave me alone. :p
 
So what knives you gonna take Josh? I keep a air born at my camp to s are bears out of my yard. Works good. They make teloscopic paddles so I would get one of them as your spare to help with space.
 
Nothing says here is the lost guy better than a green L.A.S.E.R. pointer. Try not to blind the rescue helicopter.
 
3f8 that is a great idea. I am not sure what knives will be making the trip yet. I have a few to choose from. Probably a B-11 Sniper hawk Vex War Dog and R6. But that may change. ;)
 
Well I decided that I better start getting prepared for my big trip so I went on a little kayak trip yesterday. I grabbed one of my buddies that is going with me and off we went. I figured 6 miles would be a nice starter. Well in the past a 6 mile trip would take around two hours. I am not in any kind of hurry. This trip however was on a near by creek that had very high water and a fast current. It took just over four hours. There were three portages and well over 60 log crossings. I managed to only flip the kayak twice. One of those times being a little on the scary side (Creek was about 50ft wide and I was in the middle not able to touch bottom.). I am scraped up, bruised and sore but made it out. To me that is a good trip. I can't wait to go back out. I learned a lot on this trip.
 
You are probably doing this but I find a gear checklist to be absolutely essential. I create one on my computer, sometimes with one borrowed off the internet, then add my own particulars. If I don't have a checklist, I often find myself forgetting things. I can't see how somebody could remember all the little things (like extra batteries) without one.

If you all made your checklists on the computers, you could email amongst your buddies and talk about gear which is always fun. When you throw your gear in the car, also throw a print out of your gear checklist in with you gear bags. Maybe even multiple copies.

Another suggestion is to make sure your dry bags of gear will fit in your kayak before you leave. Generally I don't do this because that means I have to pack my boat twice (once at home, and once in the field) but it seems like it would avoid hassles. Since you are doing a long trip it might be worthwhile.
 
Roll of Gorilla duct tape. We have made puncture repairs with iron canoe trips with the scouts. It has lots of other uses as well. Tent repair, etc, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top