Wind, Waves, and Friends: Our Camping Comeback After a Hiatus

We're back for season three of the podcast with stories from our summer camping adventures and misadventures. Despite numerous weather challenges and trip cancellations, we managed to create memorable experiences with good friends in beautiful Georgian Bay.

• Our planned Algonquin Park canoe loop with Thomas was cancelled due to illness
• Our Georgian Bay expedition faced extreme winds up to 100 km/h and constant rain
• We were joined by friends from Beauty of the Backcountry and Tents and Timber which made the challenging conditions more fun
• Review of Bear Vaults as an alternative to traditional food barrel hangs for backcountry camping
• Upcoming adventures include whitewater paddling courses and a trip down the Spanish River
• Future podcast topics will include conservation areas, invasive species, and boating safety

If you have ideas for episodes or questions you'd like us to cover, please reach out to us at hi@supergoodcamping.com or find us on social media.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Season Three

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and good day. Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

Speaker 2: 0:04

I'm Tim.

Speaker 1: 0:04

And we are from supergoodcampingcom. We are on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and enjoy camping adventures such as we have as a family. Welcome to season three, episode one. It's been, it seems, like longer than three seasons.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1: 0:19

November will be five years. So anyways, we didn't really divide up the seasons the first time. I was new nobody taught me what to do there you go, uh.

Speaker 2: 0:30

so we thought we'd just sort of catch up, uh, with what we've been doing, while we've been not putting out podcasts and uh, a bit, a bit of our plan for the future and, uh, we're going to do a bit of a review on our bear vaults, our food storage. So, yeah, we didn't do a lot this summer. I mean not in a camping sense. Thomas and I were supposed to do a loop around the Barren Canyon in Algonquin Park. We were supposed to do it last year as well. I seem to think we ran into scheduling issues.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Last year the kid probably got busy and wasn't able to go, or something I can't remember. Now. This year, two days before he was even home, we were ready-ish, and two days before we were supposed to go he came down with the flu. So I tried to re-jig it, reschedule everything, and there was no rejigging we could. We could just take the trip as it was, uh, which means by the time he would be back on his feet, you know, three or four days into the trip and on his feet he was pretty big bag of poo.

Speaker 2: 1:37

So, um, on his feet's a bit, uh, a bit wishful thinking, but we would have had to have done. You, you know, 15 or 16 or 17 hours worth of driving and paddling and portaging and setting up, and I'm just not into that kind of abuse. I mean all you know. Thumbs up for, for all the folks that are out there adventuring, but not this guy, uh. So that didn't play out and, uh, we did go, we did do a five or six day. Um, we were trying to get out to Phillip Edward Island in Georgian Bay, just do a base camp sort of deal and and meet up with some friends, them for a long weekend. We paddled about 20 minutes with a wicked side waves and three quarter winds. That was right at the edge of my certainly my paddling abilities.

Speaker 1: 2:31

And way over the edge of mine, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:33

Pamela was not having a particularly fun. I was freaking out, yeah, and it was our first time with Dolly, our rescue dog, our baby. So, so yeah, we literally paddled across to the first piece of land we could find and plunked ourselves down.

Speaker 2: 2:49

That's it, we're done uh, the the next time the wind was low enough to really actually get out and battle, certainly again for our abilities, uh was the day we left. We looked at, we were watching the wind and and rain and whatnot for the entirety of it, and it's like, oh, tomorrow morning it's going to be okay, we're leaving tomorrow morning, that's, that's how that's, we have a window of an hour, that's, it gotta get out.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Uh, on wednesday when we drove up to killarney we ended up staying in killarney provincial park just because it was they're predicting rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. So we thought, okay, well, it just did. It did so we, we camped overnight in killarney Provincial Park and then we decided to make our way over Thursday morning, and then Thursday morning was fine, we got it packed up and everything on its short drive over to where we were putting in. But by that time the wind had picked up and then the waves were going and yeah, it was way outside my ability. And then we got over there and actually before we left Killarney clarny provincial park, there was a severe weather warning coming for friday, which was um, wind gusts up to 100 kilometers an hour. So that's what we got on friday. While we were there was wind gusts up to 100 kilometers an hour.

Speaker 2: 3:57

It rained every day, except for the morning the morning we paddled we got more sun. From the time we got up on what was that monday morning, monday on the monday morning until we paddled out, we got more sun from the time we got up on.

Speaker 1: 4:05

what was that Monday morning Monday?

Speaker 2: 4:05

On the Monday morning until we got home More sun than we had in the previous five days, it was pretty nuts.

Speaker 1: 4:12

And it was windy. Almost every day it was cold, Nighttimes went down to about seven degrees and then daytimes were up to 12, 13 maybe, and because it was windy it felt colder to me. But the redeeming thing of the whole thing was on Saturday friends joined us, and so that made it so much better to have Misery. They actually showed up on Friday but they couldn't.

Speaker 2: 4:40

The wind was just flattening. For those of you who haven't seen, my setups, I tend to do the tent and then over the tent, do a tarp. I don't feel a need for the sun and rain to cook the tent and beat the crap out of it which I had set up. Then, friday, it was getting so crazy that I took the tarp down and put it on some trees beside us upwind so that it would be a windbreak, because it was flattening the tent, not quite to the ground, but I was worried we were going to break some poles and stuff.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Well, we were in a little tiny circle of trees and one of them was very dead looking and I thought, OK, that one's going to be coming down.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Widowmaker man, that one's coming down. It didn't, thankfully so. Yes, so so that that couple came up and they still stayed at Killarney Lodge, wasn't it? Yeah, killarney Lodge, with a bunch of 14 year old hockey players that were up for a tournament. It's good fun there yeah, yeah. So they came out on Saturday. When did Alex and Jess? Did they come out Sunday or did they both come out Saturday?

Speaker 1: 5:51

I think they both came out Saturday.

Speaker 2: 5:52

But Jay and.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Sherry came early in the day and then Alex and Jess came later in the day. But yes, we were so happy to see other people.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Yeah, and it didn't stop the wind or the rain, but it but it did make it a lot more fun. We, I, everybody has a great sense of humor. Uh, we all are. Uh, that that like-minded group of folks. So it was a ride. We just we, we just we had a blast. Nothing, nothing difficult make some food, drink a little bit of wine, uh, and just just clown around.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Yeah, so Jay and Sherry from beauty of the back country and Alex and Jess from 10th and Timber. So yeah, shout out to them. And Alex and Jess were seeing longer and they got the beautiful weather they did.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Yes, lucky, lucky. Oh, although uh and well-deserved though, because it was Alex's birthday. So the day after, I think the day after we left.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Happy birthday, Alex there you go. Yeah, so it was actually beautiful, so beautiful granite rock that we were camping on some of that beautiful Muskoka pine and then looking out over Georgian Bay was beautiful, except Georgian Bay is not very calm very often, other than that window that we paddled it what's?

Speaker 2: 7:05

it's a relatively huge body of water, so, uh, and, and lots of that, that, that lake, your own wind business going on.

Speaker 2: 7:12

So yeah, um, but I'm glad we went because that's it's different from what we normally do and uh, yeah, crown land camping yeah, it was gorgeous yeah, weird although it didn't cost as much, less than than front country camping because we had to buy a parking uh pass in order to park at the uh, the boat put in because that's still part of Killarney Park or Killarney Provincial Park. So but it was, it was cool and and just just hanging with, like with cool folks, that was I. I would do that again, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:43

We love them.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Yeah, there you go, and that's been it for our summer. We've got Thomas and I have another whitewater paddling course coming up, depending on when we when we air this, publish it we're doing Palmer Fest with a paddler co-op up on the Mattawaska. We're home for a week and a half and then we're off to do a three or four day with organic boat shop Well and Thunderbox Diaries Bill's going to be there as well on the Spanish River, which is why we've been taking whitewater courses, courses, although I suspect our water levels would be low enough that we could just you know have no problem getting through them, but nonetheless that's been a, that's been a.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Whitewater has been a thing this year and I'm I'm was terrified and I'm glad we did it. There you go.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Our youngest and I did a little road trip and we did a little whitewater rafting, which I felt considerably safer than paddling a canoe in Georgian Bay.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Bouncing off of rocks as opposed to wrapping it over ground or rock, and moving on. So we had Grant from Bear Vaults on an episode back in the spring.

Speaker 1: 9:08

Which was an excellent episode, by the way. Go back and listen to it.

Speaker 2: 9:10

Super, yeah, like really fun guy, Really knows his business, really cares about the environment and, in particular, bears. But animals and stuff Thomas and again Thomas and I do the majority of the backcountry camping. Pamela is, I think, just being nice to me and occasionally coming out for a bit. We have typically done a barrel of some type and we do a barrel hang so that the bears can't get at our stuff. I cook quite a pan in the butt and I hear stories about people you know them learning to to chew the rope at the bottom of the tree so that the bear, the bear will fall and they get.

Speaker 1: 9:51

You know all that sort of Sending the cubs out on the limb to go get them, Sending the cubs?

Speaker 2: 9:55

which we've seen with raccoons. So, anyhow, our friend camper, christina, it has a bear vault and I thought you know that's interesting. So we went and we ran into a couple other people who said, yeah, no, you should go check them out. So we did. We went and talked to Grant at Hamilton Was it the Hamilton show, I think? So, okay, he agreed to be on the podcast. We really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: 10:23

So I wanted to try a bear vault, so I ordered one. Grant was an absolute sweetheart, sent us another one Because that's two of their biggest ones is about how much food we need to pack for Thomas when we're doing a backcountry, an eight-day backcountry trip. He consumes a lot of calories Anyhow. So those of you on youtube watching us on youtube, this this is their largest beer vault, which I want to say is three gallons. Um, I'm trying to think what that works out to. It's about 12 ish liters, something like that, I think. So I want to say they're about gallons, about four liters. Uh, it has it's. Go back and listen to the episode because I'm going to get a whole bunch of things wrong here, but it's a polycarbonate, uh. So it's theoretically. Uh, smash proof, break proof. It's designed with the, the diameter and the curvature, so that it doesn't work for bear bear's mouth.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Can't get it out the round.

Speaker 2: 11:23

Yep. And then it has again. Those of you watching on camera, I don't know if you can see. There's a tab on the side here and then there's two matching stoppers. I guess that when you come around on that first thread they hit up against it. So even if the bear could figure out how to do two paws and try to unscrew the lid, it can't because they hit and it turns it into like cough syrup or medicine.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Childproof, childproof, yeah, which is actually.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Tim-proof because I always have so much trouble with those, but same idea, so wonderful On the trip. Like review-wise, I would say we can't give it a fair review because we didn't have any bears, which I'm okay with.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Maybe that's because we had bear vaults and they just didn't even try. They went oh, those darn things, again Not even going to try.

Speaker 2: 12:21

I don't know, but they certainly pack. We pack more than enough for us. They pack small, so it's nice to be able to break up the weight, as opposed to one pack with all of that weight.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Yeah, I could carry like one under each arm, yep Easily.

Speaker 2: 12:37

And then easier at night. You don't have to go stumbling around with your flashlight on looking for your. Where did you put that hanging for my barrel? Um, we, just, we just walked you know a ways away and and put them at the base of a tree. Uh, easy peasy.

Speaker 2: 12:53

The only thing I would say, the only I'm not even sure downside, because if I'd been paying attention I could have just moved it. Um, I was not very bright and left it's clear and I left it in the sun, and Pamela brought little bits of chocolate to snack on, so she had gooey chocolate at one point from from the you know the, the whole magnifying glass effect of the sun. But I could have just put it in the shade and it would have been fine. Otherwise, all good man, I'm a, I'm pretty impressed.

Speaker 2: 13:25

I'm looking forward to taking it, like you know, more hardcore backcountry uh, and see how that plays out. I've also just just throwing it out there. I've also heard people say that they took it and they they tied a rope around it, uh, to to a tree. That tied it to a tree so that a bear can't just swat it and watch it roll away yes, ours were perched kind of on top of a granite rock and I thought, well, all it takes is something tries to get into it and it's going to roll down into Georgian Bay.

Speaker 2: 13:54

But again not very bright, although it would float. I think it didn't feel like it was heavy enough as long as the lid was screwed in tight enough. I think it would float, at least for a while. And that is it for us today, I think that's it for us for today Upcoming.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Did you want to mention some of what we've got?

Speaker 2: 14:13

We have some cool guests Always. I actually had a note. You know what. If you guys have any ideas for, for things you'd like to hear, shoot us. Shoot us an email, you know. Make a comment on the on the YouTube video. Throw a thing in on on Spotify or Apple.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Questions, comments, episodes. Do you like to hear?

Speaker 2: 14:34

anything. I know some of the things I'm planning to get into is because we haven't really done anything about camping and conservation areas here here in Ontario, so we're going to talk about that. Some invasive species, you know, plants, what have you and how to deal with them, how to remove them. I read a very painful article on boating death stats, so that'll be a thing that comes up and I'm hoping to get some questions together for Ontario Parks and follow up. Get some questions together for uh, for ontario parks, uh, and follow up. I lost the thread about a year ago trying to trying to get them on to uh to have a yak, because I, I think I I would like to pick their brains about some stuff, just because there's as much as I camp in ontario parks, I absolutely don't know everything.

Speaker 1: 15:23

so yeah all right, that's it for us for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please do tune in again and if you would like to reach out to us, you know that we are always available at any time at hi at supergoodcampingcom. That's hi at supergoodcampingcom, and we're on all the social media like share, comment and let us know what you think. We'll talk to you again soon, bye, bye.