Joe River to Fox Lake Route

[Amazon Bill]

On the weekend of Feb 1 and 2, 2014 several adventures seekers established routes to Fox Lake and to East Cape from Bear Lake. Refer to these two threads:

Inland Route - Flamingo / Cape Sable  and Fox Lake Expedition

Having established a route to Fox Lake from the south, now suggest finding a route from Joe River to Fox Lake. That is the purpose of this thread. 

[Amazon Bill]

These exploration ideas are not field tested and do require some ability to be open minded or be able to hallucinate to see the actual route in GE photos :-).

 

[Terry]

Bill!   I haven't even started to process data from Saturday and you start this.

Okay, but this is it, gimme a chance to think, IF we start any of this the route to

study is between Phantom Lake and Fox.

[Amazon Bill]

I get stir crazy when stuck in the house all weekend. Where is Phantom Lake? There must be a Phantom Pass...somewhere.

[yakmaster]

Let me guess...

Phantom Lake is the one that comes of South Joe to the south?

[Terry]

Yes, and I did not make that up it's on charts.   I took a casual stab at

Phantom Loop (Coot Bay Pond - Fox Lakes - Bear Lake - Coot Bay Pond) back

in the 1980's.   This would be an out-of-the-boat, throwing-it-over-the-mangroves trip.

Now that there's a chickee in there it would be the perfect base camp, as all the time would be

spent between Phantom Lake and Fox.   Bill, at first glance I see the same thing, gator

crawls down to the southwest corner of Little Fox, however, coming out of Phantom Lake

would be murderous.   I don't know the color of GE for that area where the gator crawls are

obvious, it's not mangroves and I don't think that area is fresh enough for grass.   Just have

to jump in to find out.

[Esther Luft]

For Old Joe and the Foxes, I would love to head back to Middle Fox the way we came.  Head over to Little Fox and noodle in through mangrove wall.  I'll do a little tide comparison vs. onsite observations from Saturday.  Maybe we can get a better picture of what is moving water into that area. 

Starting from Fox means hitting the hard part first.  I doubt we can make it all the way through but...  My boots are ready and so is by beater canoe.  I can sleep aboard if needed.

[Terry]

Base camp at South Joe, it would take a full day to find the best of the worst between Phantom Lake

and Little Fox.  After the best route is located then, depending on how bad it is, a one day loop could be planned.

But having already looked at the south side of Phantom Lake back in the 1980's expect a wall of mangroves.

[yakmaster]

After Saturday, I vote for a motorized mothership run over to the south Joe Chickee.

Set up camp, launch there and do our probe!

Saves humping and gives more time for exploring vs transporting.

[Esther Luft]

There's high ground in there.  Perhaps we can request special permission.

Of course, the mangrove wall will be an issue on the South Joe side. 

We can always aim to meet in the middle. I am not as confident as Terry that access between Middle Fox and Little Fox is readily accessible.

[Terry]

Powerboat is best way, especially since it's a chickee only a few can fit.   I'll stay in my cabin on the

boat.  That way there's no wasting time paddling to the work.

However, the reason I brought up Smuggler's Run was if I'm putting my powerboat in the water at

Flamingo I'm not wasting it on Phantom Loop.   I'll go straight to Willy Willy and for less effort

document a paddleable route from Mitchell Landing to the WW.   There's no question what's

the best bang for the buck.  Smuggler's Run would be a greater addition to the paddling network

than the Lost Portage.     

[toofaraway]

Straight to Willy Willy, love it.  One of these days we'll have to meet up Terry.

Terry said:

Powerboat is best way, especially since it's a chickee only a few can fit.   I'll stay in my cabin on the

boat.  That way there's no wasting time paddling to the work.

However, the reason I brought up Smuggler's Run was if I'm putting my powerboat in the water at

Flamingo I'm not wasting it on Phantom Loop.   I'll go straight to Willy Willy and for less effort

document a paddleable route from Mitchell Landing to the WW.   There's no question what's

the best bang for the buck.  Smuggler's Run would be a greater addition to the paddling network

than the Lost Portage.