- Water Access: eroded shore line, incline to site, roots, pebbles and sand
- Tent Sites: one flat area, room for a 2nd tent
- Fire Pit - Okay, no grate
- Firewood: Ample wood, old benches
- Kybo - Old with a broken lid, but not gross
- Swimming - Could not swim, beautiful clear flowing water about a foot deep
- Scenery - A view up and down the river, very secluded and pretty
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| High Falls/Nipissing River Campsite |
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Westerly view from site
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| Looking East |
This was a day full of great accomplishments and also the worst day of the trip (speaking for myself.) We are almost half way through and some of the aches and pains have caught up to us, especially at night as we try to sleep. So tensions felt high and of course when you are in the middle of the Park there is no "bug out" -- we are stuck with each other for the next 10 days of wilderness travel. And sooner or later Norman and I have always have a "disagreement." This was the day.
We left Osler at 9:00. Originally I wanted stop on Nadine, but things didn't work out that way. The 1830 portage Osler to Nadine was a very tough way to start the day. It was unexpectedly steep, hilly, always up up up, rocky and just plain nasty. It felt long.
While crossing paths on the portage trail Norman informed me that we were going to push on, get as far as possible, go home. He had visions of Lazy Boys and Blue Jay's games dancing in his head. Well, after much "discussion" at the put-in, the can of Pam spray I hurled at him was all that (almost) glanced off his head. The spray-- never to be seen again, despite my great attempts to locate it in the woods.
---sigh---
Nadine was stunningly beautiful. The lake is smallish with clear deep water and a high ridge snaking along the south east shore. One day I will get back there.
The 1410 to the Nipissing River had a vertical calf-killing incline to start then a long steady downhill to the river. It was a pretty walk. I have just loved the crazy wildness and topography of the portages along the first half of this trip.
After we apologized and made up we paddled about 5 km. against the current (not fast water so okay) to Gauthier's Dam. The water was low and we had to repeatedly get out of the canoe to negotiate around sand bars.
Then we had our first encounter of the trip with people and a dog. They were resting on a sandbar and their dog was playing. Our dogs went crazy. I guess the early tensions had rubbed off on them and the shock of people and pets on the horizon sent them into a frenzied bark mode. Norm held Tripper and I held Misty with one hand, and we tried to paddle the canoe with the other hand. One handed paddling is geeky and ineffective. Somehow we got past the people and we were still upright in the canoe. I was quite embarrassed.
As we approached our next portage we ran out of river water. We had to carry the packs and canoe over over rocks for about 20 meters to the actual portage. (It is worth noting, the campsite at this portage is horrible. No thunder box, not much of a fire pit ring, no trees for a hammock and the only spot for a tent was overgrown. Never plan to stay here.)
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| Portage at Gauthier's Dam, Nipissing River |
The 850m around Gauthier’s Dam was just unpleasant, probably, because I was so tired. A walk through high grass, up a hill, around some downed trees and back down to the river. No dam in sight. We saw quite a few people along this portage. I could feel the times they are a-changin' as the wild remoteness of the small lakes is left behind.
Finally, our destination campsite was only a couple of km. away! The river is lovely, but again, the water so low we did a lot of walking.
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| Low water along the Nipissing, just before High Falls |
I was worried the campsite would be awful. It was getting onto 5:00, I was hungry and tired, so when we finally saw the big orange sign I was ecstatic, even more so when I saw the how cute and perfect the site was for us.
No lazy boys, but an amazing place to call home for an extra day!!!
On our day off we slept in, moved slowly, had extra coffee, did our laundry, laid out flat on the river bottom so the cool water could wash over us. At noon we went to the Falls and quickly realized we needed to go back in the morning to take photos with nice morning light. We walked the 1300 portage trail that followed an impressive roaring section of the Nipissing River. The first campsite along the river was okay -- the second as horrible, worse, than the one at Gauthier's dam. All in all we had a wonderful day.
The rest of our stay at High Falls in photos!
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Norman recovering
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Relaxing morning coffee with a view
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Wash Day
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Even though a bear walked though our site earlier all we got were photos of underwear
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Dogs were exhausted
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This guy was around for two days
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| Coming back from our walk to the falls |
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High Falls
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| High Falls |
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| I would love to see High Falls during high water |
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| The Falls as seen from the Portage Trail |
There are two campsites marked along the 1300 meter portage trail beside the river. The east site is okay with a flat tent site and a walk out to the river. The site furthest west is unusable and should be removed from the Park's map. (These are terrible point and shoot photos but they give you an idea of what they're like.)
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| East site |
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| West site |
My husband and I stayed on the same river site in '16. We came from Little Oiler and I too was exhausted. We plan on returning to our favourite site on Little Osler this summer.
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