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.

[yakmaster]

If you look on the Standard Maps (the glossys that are aerials) you can see it even mo better!

The Connection is there. Now it needs to be connected. Or has someone out there done it?

[Terry]

Outward Bound has been doing trips in the Lost Portage ( that's what they've been calling it) with
varying success since 1990. I probed it on 28 November and found a very interesting, very canoeable
deep creek to what I call the South Portal (27'44"N and 57'58"W). The South Portal is a canoe
size hole that places you right in the grass and a few inches of water. It shows well on
terraserver-usa.com. A beautiful trail heads northwest, the straightness and width of the trail
suggests it can only be an old airboat trail but I'm not aware of airboats in there since it became a
park. I walked this trail to about 27'44"N and 57'58"W.
Keith and I planned a trip to the Lost Portage for 20 December. He probed south from Broad to the
creek north of Tarpon Bay while I probed north from the creek to Broad. I continued on the trail where
I left off on 28 November but did not get very far. Shortly past that point the trail got weaker and weaker
then disappeared. I abandoned the canoe and walked to where the aerials show an intersection of
two trails at 27'49.6"N and 58'11.2"W. My son and I could not find anything to suggest an opening,
surrounded by thick grass, little water and mangroves getting thicker, we came back out.
I haven't talked to Keith, he's still canoeing back to Everglades City. I'm anxious to hear from him.
After comparing notes and a little more studing the maps, I'd like to go back and probe again.
The bigger the team the better, I would very much like to see the Lost Portage documented.

[yakmaster]

Terry

The Terraserver image is even better than the Standard because you can really drill in. It looks like if you can find a way to go SE, you run into the other creek system.

One of the things we might want to do on this site is post routes & tracks from this type of thing so those on subsequent runs can focus on what has already worked. The only problem is cross platform compatability. What kind of GPS unit do you use? I use Garmin.We may even have members that understand enough tech to bridge even that gap. If we could post some actual GPS tracks we could come up with an off the map map!


For example I saw your stuff on Still Creek. I've been looking at that trail coming up from West Lake for years (didn't know its name). I knew it had to link but couldn't find anyone that knew where to turn.

Do you have a track for still or what you've already done in the connection?

[Terry]

Update: 20 December 2008

Keith followed Broad River southeast and climbed through mangroves to 28.204' N and 58.453' W.
He found no trace of passage, however, he also probed the little spur heading southwest just before the end
of Broad River. He reported it showed signs of passage.
Alan agreed that the probable path on the north side would be from that spur.
I hope to get back in there this season although I only have weekends from now until May. I'd like
to hear from anybody wanting to work their way in there, even if it's a hard portage I'd like to have a
documented route. Knowing it can be done, but just extreme is a lot better than not knowing if you
can make it. One day probes are possible using a powerboat then canoe. Canepatch and
Camp Lonesome are close by for overnight camps and extended probes.
Maybe the gladesgodeep group can put something together.

[Keith W]

I'm still planning on being in Flamingo Feb 7-8, and I have one more vacation day left that I plan on using in March for a three-day weekend. It would be nice to get another person involved for a 3-pronged scouting probe west of the South Portal. Two groups coming in from both directions would be even better.

There were some old cuts in the mangroves along the Broad River spur, and much of that has grown back, but it is still passable with a little work. There is one dragover where you have to get out of your boat and pull it over a submerged branch of a live tree. Getting into the pond area east of the spur will be a bear of a job. The sawgrass along the spur was head high with a few game trails too narrow for boats snaking through it but no other easy access. I got stopped at the end of the spur where it runs into heavy mangrove cover but if that could be gotten through it would open up into the chain of ponds running east toward your Harney South Portal. Check out the screenshot and you'll see what I'm talking about. I wouldn't put too much stock in that trail running off to the southeast - check the date: Oct 27, 2004. That is consistent with Alan's account of the last time he was through here and the trail was fresh. I would bet a paycheck it has grown over completely by now.

[Terry]

I can take any weekend in March, however, I can not take any weekdays off until May.
A bunch of exploring could be done on a Saturday and Sunday. I have a 23' powerboat
with a rack for one canoe but we could lay more canoes on. I used the powerboat for the
last two 1-day probes and it takes a little less than an hour to be at Base (27.227' N and 57.498' W)
from Flamingo. It's about a 15 minute paddle from Base to the South Portal, which means using
powerboats we can get almost 2 full days of exploring out of a weekend.
Somebody will have to get a permit for Canepatch for Saturday night, powerboats
can shuttle people from Base to Canepatch. yakmaster was interested in doing this,
so was Tony. Hmmm...do you think the best of the best could all meet to dominate that
little one mile stretch and document the Lost Portage? What a party that would be!

[Keith W]

yakmaster says he can do a one-day. Preferably a Sunday.That doesn't work so good for me, I have to drive back to St. Pete Sunday night unless I use up my last vacation day and take a Monday off. I'd be willing to do that if that's what it takes to get a group out there.

[Terry]

Is it time to start talking superman exploration again?
Funny, we get whipped, let a year go by, then come right back to beat ourselves up again. I'll blame it on the
Bear Lake Trail this time around, after working (working?, any sane person would call it torture) with Tom and
Jim I feel more bullet proof, more like a Swamp Hulk but I know the Lost Portage could turn me into a shrinking
lily. The Homestead Canal still needs us more than ever and re-opening it is top priority but there's that
lure of exploring that pulls us back to the Lost Portage.
We have powerboats to haul canoes, plenty of water (both for drinking and cleaning up), food, supplies
and we have great base camps at either or both Canepatch and Camp Lonesome. We can even base camp
in boats at either portal, we even have the best of the best - Tony the Slough King was very interested in the
Lost Portage last year. In short we have everything, personnel and equipment even some knowledge from
last year, are we going to take on the Lost Portage again this season? Documenting the best route through
there would be a handsome trophy.

[yakmaster]

will this be better now with high water or when it dries out a bit?

In other words, you planning on paddling or dragging most of the way?

[Keith W]

Paddling some but mostly dragging - that's why it's called the Lost "Portage" :-)

When I probed the North Spur (25° 28.345'N 80° 58.669'W) last December the water was already below the level of the sawgrass along the creek, and that was following a season of near-record high water levels. There are a series of ponds connecting the North Spur with the trail coming off the Harney tributary, and these ponds may hold water throughout the year. Alan Coulter showed me aerial photos he took of the area and there was water in these ponds - how deep I don't know. Those "trails" you see in Google Earth and Terraserver I think may be gone. They were made by Outward Bound years ago and haven't been used since. Alan told me that as many as twenty kids dragging a dozen canoes made those trails which is why they're so prominent in the Google Earth images, which are nearly 5 years old. The goal should be to try as much as possible to connect those ponds and avoid as much dragging as possible. Alan did say it took them two days to make it through, sleeping in the canoes.

The day after I checked out the North Spur I tried pushing through the mangrove tunnel at the end of Broad River, and got about 1/8th mile before I quit. It took about 4 hours to get that far. The rest of the way was a mess of overgrowth with no clear channel. The photo shows the area in question, and the places where I stopped. Knowing what I know now I wouldn't have bothered with the tunnel and instead concentrated my efforts on finding a way into that pond area west of the North Spur creek.

[Keith W]

Terry, did you mark the spot where you got stopped by the sawgrass when you were trying to push NW from the Harney tributary? It would be nice to see what kind of distance we'd need to cover if we attempted this again.

[yakmaster]

The google earth pix have a cloud right in the wrong place.

I haven't been up into that grass so I don't know, but some of you grass cruisers might...

I know you can paddle right from canepatch out to the grass. Can you do the same from the broad or any of its branches?

Maybe the easier place to cross over is further up in the grass...

Also there seems to be a crossover off the wood a bit farther inland than the nightmare. Has anyone done or tied that one?