Lost Portage

[Terry]

Open up NOAA Chart 11432 and it's hard for a Wilderness Waterway
canoer not stare at the north reaches of Tarpon Bay and the
south reaches of Broad River. It's tantalizing close, only
about a mile, making the trip from Canepatch to Camp Lonesome
a half day paddle in protected water instead
of two days. As if to taunt serious backcountry explorers there
is even the printed statement on the chart: "No water passage
exists between the Broad and Shark Rivers at this point. Passage
must be made via the Gulf of Mexico."
Don't get me wrong, every Wilderness Waterway traveler should go
through the Nightmare, negotiate the tides of the Harney and Broad
Rivers and enjoy traversing a freshwater to saltwater to freshwater
environment, but for those who have already taken the long way
around the Lost Portage may be for you.

I remember the evening at Camp Lonesome in 1975 thinking, there
has to be a way. A canoe can go almost anywhere, there must be
a yet to be discovered damp passage or at least a short portage.
That was my first trip on the Wilderness Waterway and I was not
prepared for exploring. There was also the first experience with
the Nightmare waiting for me the next day so exploring the
Connection would have to be a future expedition. There are also
complications with exploring that area, it takes two days just
to get to the point to explore and usually when you're halfway
between Flamingo and Everglades City it's while you're traveling
the whole Wilderness Waterway. The Lost Portage exploration
became one of those "something I wanta do someday" items.

Thirty-three years later, armed with the modern tools aerial photos
and GPS, I anchored my small cabin motorboat in the northern
reaches of Tarpon Bay on 28 November 2008.
The plan was simple: Using the motorboat as a base camp,
probe every inlet, creek, path, etc. by canoe to determine if
a passable connection could be used on Wilderness Waterway
trips.

The aerials show trails that in other parts of the glades are
airboat trails but I don't ever recall airboats operating in this
area. Sure enough, venturing up the northern most creek there's
an obvious canoe wide trail (Old Trail) heading northwest.
It's only got a few inches of water but it gets deeper as you head
northwest toward Broad River. I abandoned the canoe and walked.
There's another trail (New Trail) roughly paralleling it to
the west and they intersect about halfway between the gap. This
trail is more intriguing since it appears on Goggle but not on
Terraserver suggesting New Trail is newer. Odd. Even on
the ground they appear as airboat trails but they terminate in deep
creeks that are overgrown by decades of mangroves, down to a point
where a canoe has to push through. These are significantly established
trails apparently maintained by traffic, yet I have only come across
one other person who has, or admits to, exploring that area.
For me it's not suitable to use these trails as a Wilderness Waterway
route, at least what I've seen so far, but I have not come across
another area that begs so much for more exploration.

[Keith W]

Getting to the grass from Broad River means getting through the mangroves. The North Spur creek accomplishes that, but if water is low then it will be a dragover through the grass. My hope is that those ponds will provide a route that avoids a lot of that dragging.

Terraserver has a much clearer (and older) image of that area:
Lost Portage in Terraserver

Coming up the Wood River last December I saw no evidence of any clear channel running east north of the Nightmare.

[Terry]

You guys.....I mean us guys...are unbelievable, we are such suckers, this is not an easy
thing to do. Yakmaster has crawled through marl somewhere near the Turner River,
Keith has dragged his way through jungle mangroves on the north side of the Lost Portage
and I couldn't tell you how many times I've been in the thick of it, yet here we go again
asking, wanting, to be beat up again. I brought it up, I'm as crazy as you guys, so here
goes:

Now that we have GPS it doesn't really matter which end we start at. Keith's exploration
last year was very valuable, it determined the north portal. My exploration like wise was
valuable in finding the south portal. Like Keith's assessment on the north side, I am
confident of the south starting point. In fact, the opening on the south side is just as
it appears on the aerials with a canoe wide hole right through the mangrove lined
creek. Look at the previous posts, all the data are there. The South Portal is very
interesting, the slot is thin through the mangrove edge and you are immediately in
grass with a few inches of water. There is a cleared trail to follow, in fact, the trail
is straight as an arrow with sparse mangroves growing on the edge to about an
airboats width. It reminded me of the airboat trail cutting through just west of
Mahogany Hammock. I still believe this could be the remains of an airboat trail
from pre-1947, or for all we know NPS could have been in there with airboats in
the '50's or '60's. It is very inviting, when you pass through the South Portal you'll
swear you're home free, as I thought on my first probe during Thanksgiving last year.
Thinking this would be a piece-of-cake I continued on this trail during my second probe
which was on the same day Keith was exploring the north end. The trail just seemed
to dwindle and I lost it at about the intersection shown on the aerials. These points
are listed on my 23 December 12:13 post. I made it to that intersection:
27' 49.6" N and 58' 11.2" W. It was discouraging and I was with my son who wasn't
as gun-ho about exploring as deep as I was, he constantly was reminding how stupid
this was and how if only he could run his airboat in there we blast through the
Lost Portage in minutes.
I'll bet I just lost the trail, at that point there were more deep-enough-to-paddle ponds
and I think the trick there would be to start zig-zagging to connect ponds. As far as
water levels, I don't think it matters, that area is getting to the point where the water
is running off quickly, I'd be willing to bet it's always got about the same amount of
water.
I definitely think once the best route is established and gets used it would be a few
hour passage not a 2 day passage like Alan did. Once it's opened up so a canoe
can pass and it's marked just enough so you know where you're going, it would just
be a matter of pushing or pulling the canoe in spots.
I think all we need to wait for some cooler, lesser bug weather. We also need to plan
on a base camp so all our efforts can be directed at the project. Canepatch would be
ideal. Last year it was good enough weather by November. Remember, our mission
would be different from Alan's (the only known person to traverse it) we would be in there
to locate and document the best route. This would be multiple short probes with lots
of documentation, then connecting those probes to have the one best route.
Alan's group was always just trying to plow through, the far west path on the aerials
looks like someone dragged a safari through there then at some southern point
decided it was time to turn east, etc.

About that creek in the middle of Wood River, I looked for that creek in 1975 and 1977
from the Wood River side and never found anything.

The Lost Portage is the way to go, imagine connecting Canepatch to Camp Lonesome
with only a short day and no worries of tidal current up and down two major rivers. A
little walking pulling the canoe is a small price to pay.

Let's do it.

[Terry]

Keith, take my numbers from the previous posts and plot it on the Goggle map that
you guys do. Like you say then we can see what we have.
Actually we've already started this project, if we just push in a little deeper this
year we'll add a little more. Remember this time last year we didn't even know
what to expect.

Yakmaster, Terraserver-USA doesn't have that cloud and if I remember right
it showed the South Portal clearer.

[Keith W]

... this is not an easy thing to do.

Isn't that the whole point?

I'm up for it.

[Keith W]

Draw a straight line between the intersection where Terry and his son stopped, and the end of the North Spur where I stopped, and you get 0.75 mile. Double that to account for zig-zagging. That's how far we would need to go. Wanna bet that will probably be the longest 1.5 miles you ever traveled?

[Terry]

The aerial is just what we observed too - we were getting into less grass,
more pods of small mangroves and pools. The aerial suggests arcing
south of that start line.
Damn it, it's doing it again ...sucking me straight into this mess again.
This gives me a clearer picture of where I might have started loosing
what trail I was following. Perhaps probing a little to the left before getting to
the point I stopped at last year, I think I remember more pools to that side
too. In fact, I remember kind of being forced to that side but I fought it
trying to stay on a straight course.

Can you put lines on that Goggle aerial of where we've been as well?

Document, document, document, we're going to think our way through this,
not just force.

[yakmaster]

You guys are getting me in trouble...

my wife sees me looking @ the aerial & she tells me:

"You're worrying me, we go to sleep, you're looking @ the everglades, we wake up, you're looking at the everglades all you do is the everglades"


so what's to worry about???

[yakmaster]

Look @ the free topo program Vivian found...there's more creek detail in the area...I'm measuring .3 miles!

If it's real, it's the deal!

[Keith W]

So....do we want to start talking about a time frame to do this? I vote for Friday-Sunday following Thanksgiving. I usually head south that weekend and I can be in Flamingo on Thursday morning to reserve Canepatch for Friday and Saturday night as long as I know how many to reserve for.

Any other ideas?

[Keith W]

New imagery in Google Earth dated May 8, 2007!
Check out the Lost Portage area. All of those clouds are gone and there is an entirely new trail that runs between Terry's South Portal intersection and the North Spur. The trail runs north of the pond area.

new-imagery.jpg

[Keith W]

Ok, scratch that about the "new" trail. I found the Historical Imagery tool in Google Earth that lets you view earlier data sets, and there is a Dec 30 '04 map that shows that "new" trail. Detail is not so good on that one. I'd bet that is the actual trail that Outward Bound blazed in '04.

[Terry]

How come the "Reply To This" is not showing up on later posts in this forum?
Oh well, doesn't matter.

So you're talking the 4,5 and 6 December?

That weekend works great for me and you getting down there on Thursday is
handy. They're talking about a ribbon cutting for the Bear Lake Trail but
no body has nailed down a date yet so we'll take this weekend.
I'll bring my 23 walk-around cabin outboard. I've got a canoe rack on it but with
some old carpet we can drag more canoes/kayaks over the gunwhales.
We'll also be able to bring plenty of drinks, ice and even bath water,
all the conveniences.
It takes about a hour to get to Canepatch from Flamingo.
I'll get in touch with Tony. Yakmaster? What do ya think?
Hell, even if the Lost Portage whips us, hanging out at Canepatch for a couple
of days is always fun.