Fox Lake Expedition
Folks, it's a long one so pour yourself a cup of coffee or your adult beverage of choice & sit down & enjoy (or doze off as the case may be).
Kim, I'm fresh off the water, So I don't want to hear that the locals are homecooking and hoarding the good spots. Gary, don't worry, no fish were found in the new places discussed below!
So on with the story...
Three groups converged on Bear Lake and points beyond today.
One Group starting from little coot and going to the cape.
One Group starting from little coot and going to the interior.
One Group starting from Bear Lake trailhead and going to the interior.
This is the story of the last two groups, Terry's misfits (we never seem to fit in the spaces we try to get through). We didn't go as far as the other group, but we went MUCH deeper.
From the pictures coming from the Cape ladies, they look cleaner & fresher than Terry's misfits do.
After an early brunch around 11, the cape folks bid us farewell and continued west. We decided to try and find a good route into Fox lakes and in a perfect world, find a route from there to south Joe (ain't looking good, but beyond the scope of this expedition).
All the maps out there show one or two creeks, depending on the map, from just east of the western opening of the Homestead Canal, heading north into the lake, looks easy right?
http://www.mytopo.com/maps/?lat=25.1794&lon=-81.00309&z=15 Check it out for yourself.
Well, first we tried to go east on the Homestead. Bad Idea. Very Bad Idea. It cost me a rudder and a paddle, along with a swim in nasty bottomless muck (and apparently my spot signal). We got to within 500' of where the creeks and/or canals are supposed to be and we couldn't go any further east. When I say we couldn't go any further, I don't mean it got tight, I mean it was solid blocked. We had limboed under, scooted between and dragged over dozens of deadfalls up to that point, but what was in front of us was NASTY. It was a ongoing carpet/wall of downed trees. It was impenetrable.
Tom Rahill, if you are out there, you are a special man. That place (& the places you tend to work) is nasty and twisted. You can clear this area if you want, but this trip (and the affiliated cruise to the cape) shows that alternatives (that look and smell better than the canal) are quite usable to get to the cape or the Foxes.
Once we gave up on and escaped the tunnel of doom, we headed north into the pond west of east fox.
Though no clear path showed on GE, we decided to probe & see. we had some candidate points that looked interesting from the air, but didn't pan out on the ground. So we set to wandering and found Wandering Creek, so named because it was found by wandering and because it wanders about so much that several times, we almost abandoned it.
Here's the image, the route is not as clean as desired:
Here's a zoomed in version:
In the interest of full transparency, I have attached the actual track, for those who like to play with these things (in both Garmin and KMZ formats).
After we found our way in (by the way, spectacular creek, picture a cathedral like canopy like the one in Halfway Creek, but with a twisty creek less than 3' wide and lined with barnacles!), I and others took a break (hence, the end of the track) but several others patrolled east fox to answer two questions.
1. are there really creeks on the south side going over to Homestead canal? No such passage was found. It may have been there once, but it ain't there no more.
2. How do you get from East Fox to Middle Fox? They tell me the route is easy, beautiful and wide open and that Middle Fox is even prettier. I will leave that exploration for another day, along with finding a route from Middle Fox to West Fox, and from there, dare we hope to the pond south of the South Joe Cove. Now that would be an incredible loop route! Not only would it open South Joe to folks that want to avoid Whitewater Bay, But you could go from the east end of Whitewater to the Cape on the inside.
To be honest, it doesn't look good from the topos & Google Earth, but then again, before we paddled it, the Homestead canal looked promising and the lake we used didn't!
On the way back, tattered, torn (and rudderless), Bear lake seemed much longer than it had in the morning and the barnacle encrusted logs west of bear lake seemed sharper and the mudflats seemed stickier, but shortly after dark all were back on the road with boats loaded and ready to go home to get ready for the next one.
And looking forward to hearing of the Excellent Cape Adventure, along with Connie & Flex's pix (and yours too, Vivian & Jay)
BTW Vivian. I'm blaming you for the jinx on my rudder, you know why, I shouldn't comment on a lady's vessel of choice!
Views: 930
- Attachments:
-
-
fox lake tracks.gdb, 32 KB -
fox lakes.kmz, 17 KB
-
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Amazon Bill on
-
Rudderless, That's good news to hear ya'll made it to Fox Lake. Sounds like Homestead Canal needs power equipment to clear it. While you all were at battle with the bush, I was plotting routes to South Joe from Fox Lake....um, names...SoJo or JoFox.
-
Permalink Reply by yakmaster on
-
A Mad River Monarch without a rudder is not a good thing. She was built with plenty of rocker to let her spin on a dime and a rudder to stop her from doing so. Remove the latter and the former becomes an issue. I paddled on the right side, for 90% of the trip back to correct for the SE quartering wind. I quit at Bear Lake Trail & took the canal home!
Do you see something between West Fox and South Joe that I don't?
That network of gator crawls or creeks on the west side looks like it could be interesting, but not super promising. Looks like the North end of the portage. Other than that I don't see alot of structure that could be hiding creeks like Wandering.
-
Permalink Reply by Gary M on
-
yakmaster,
What y'all accomplished is very cool... but - no fish??? ;)
I do have a few questions:
When you spilled and your Spot went dark - did something very unusual happen? I'm beginning to wonder about the usefulness of my Spot as a safety net. What good is it if it blinks out when wet?
And about the creek to Fox... you said its 3 feet wide? Did Terry get his Grumman through it? Am I going to hafta get *another* canoe? I cant' keep up with y'all in the tubs I got now, and no matter how hard I heel my small one I still can't get through a 3' foot creek.
-
-
Gary
I was downplaying the fish for your benefit!
But I did not lie either. We didn't see a whole lot of fish in the new parts that we ran, but, the reds were THICK in the lake beyond Bear. She's a bitch to get in and out of, there's barnacle encrusted deadfall that you can't see, but boy can you hear it & feel it when you hit it! It will shred your hull good. Take it slow as you go through and you will be rewarded with Nirvanah. Jay's boat got hit,literally, not with a line in the water, by a red that was over slot. Big fat reds were rolling & running all over the place back there. I don't know if it's seasonal or if they're always there, but hell I wish I would have taken a pole!
As for the spot, I don't think it was the spot itself. I have it linking to a Delorme PN-60W. I think it was the delorme that stopped telling it to transmit points. It seems to have been rebooting itself cycling off and then back on.
On the creek issue, it was tight but doable. Terry got though OK, but tight. The folks that deserve a medal for their maneuvering were Chris & Gisa that brought a 21' tandem kayak through. Not without trouble. You should have seen their faces when we told them we had to go back out the same way!
3' may have been a bit of exaggeration (hey I'm Cuban, it's a genetic predisposition thing) but it was TIGHT and twisty, luckily the twists came with natural turning basins. Call it 4', but with 3' walls of barnacled roots. We didn't see a whole lot of waterflow, but from the looks of it, at certain times, plenty of water must flow through there.
I've never seen as much dead bleached barnacles in my life as we saw on this trip. The waterline looked like it had 6" to 1' of snow on it, everywhere we went!
Gary M said:yakmaster,
What y'all accomplished is very cool... but - no fish??? ;)
I do have a few questions:
When you spilled and your Spot went dark - did something very unusual happen? I'm beginning to wonder about the usefulness of my Spot as a safety net. What good is it if it blinks out when wet?
And about the creek to Fox... you said its 3 feet wide? Did Terry get his Grumman through it? Am I going to hafta get *another* canoe? I cant' keep up with y'all in the tubs I got now, and no matter how hard I heel my small one I still can't get through a 3' foot creek.
-
Permalink Reply by Esther Luft on
-
First, the East-West Homestead Canal Segment, from the bend east to Bear Lake Canal (EWHC). This section is very different from the section from the bend to Florida Bay. EWHC is thick and not readily passable. The East Cape teams will confirm the HC from the bend to Florida Bay (HCFB) is still open and passable.
I spoke with Rahill last night, the EWHC had been cleared to were we got blocked off. This makes sense. We encountered downed limbs followed by small open segments (emphasis on small) followed by more downed wood. There was a lack of vine growth over the downed wood. When the east end of the EWHC was cleared, there was significant vine growth over older downed wood. Clearing sessions are on the schedule for February and March. He will provide dates for those willing to lend a hand. The upside of having canal access is the assurance of access during the dry season. We have had abnormally high rain fall.
The path by the marker in the canal is the same path we took in 2010. That lead a few hundred yards southeast of where we entered the tunnel to East Fox. The area was clear in 2010, just as it was this time.
Wandering Creek? Sounds good, but there wasn't so much wandering, more like winding, and beautiful, stunning. The entrance is smack on the GE pin for target. Look at the 1999 aerials, this clearly ends in a predictable spot.
Summary from what I had marked going in and what was accomplished:
East Fox GT 1 25°10'45.88"N, 81° 0'29.65"W MISSED
This creek should connect to Wandering Creek, in the location of obstruction we encountered. No sat signal folks, sorry.
East Fox GT 2 25°10'48.25"N, 81° 0'23.78"W MISSED
Darn, I looked at three times and didn't go in.
Fox Lakes North Cut "Rahill Pass" - CONFIRMED
25°11'12.86"N, 81° 0'25.94"W (East Fox Lake)
25°11'12.67"N, 81° 0'29.02"W (Middle Fox Lake)
Fox Lakes South Cut - MISSED
Natural Creek between East Fox and HC
HC-EF Canal 1A - BLOCKED
25°10'43.60"N, 25°10'43.60"N
HC-EF Canal 1B - NOT ACCESIBLE
25°10'30.51"N, 81° 0'9.25"W
Manmade cut between East Fox and HC
HC-EF Canal 2A (HC Side) - NOT ACCESSIBLE
25°10'30.41"N, 81° 0'5.17"W
HC-EF Canal 2B (EF Side) - MISSED
25°10'30.62"N, 81° 0'5.76"W
Equipment in clearing the HC would be nice but unlikely. It can be done.
FISH - Not one sign of fish in either East Fox nor Middle Fox. There were fish in the HC though. East Fox had all the signs of what should be a lake loaded with fish; deeper water, current, places for fish to hide. Nothing, not even many birds. By the way, I keep seeing East Fox marked as Little Fox on a number of charts and maps. What's all that about. From what I understood, the order, from west to east, Little Fox, Middle Fox, East Fox.
Middle Fox had lots of birds, shallow, very few signs of current. We did not head to Little Fox. I now wonder if there is access.
-
-
The SPOT link I posted is no good. Strictly a user error. Seems I never hit the track button.
-
-
May be worth a separate collaboration thread. I've looked for a while and keep running dry. May be worth surveying during peak dry season. No joke. It's so dry it may be walkable.
Amazon Bill said:Rudderless, That's good news to hear ya'll made it to Fox Lake. Sounds like Homestead Canal needs power equipment to clear it. While you all were at battle with the bush, I was plotting routes to South Joe from Fox Lake....um, names...SoJo or JoFox.
-
-
Esther, You all solved the riddle to reach Fox Lake and East Cape, so I'll take your suggestion and start a thread for......Joe River-Fox Lake Route...The adventure continues.
-
Permalink Reply by Jay on
-
Sounds like you had an excellent trip - congrats to all for making it into Fox! The Barnacle Mangroves are my nemesis, and I try to avoid them. I am all over slime covered pullovers - but Barnacles don't do it for this boat. I am actively seeking a short, nimble beater to further that type of exploration.
It was outstanding paddling with you all on the way up to the lunch break. Esther - great to meet you. I will send you some pics and details on the OI.
Sorry about your rudder man - that make for a long day.
-
-
Most excellent adventure. Wait, wasn't that a movie?
Cut Charlie some slack. I've paddled with these guys often enough to witness endurance. We've all gone much further, and deep, and come out in much better shape than this last trip. The mud, the headwind, the equipment failures... You should have seen how tattered and torn we all looked. : ) No cocktails on the beach for us. We tried to jet back down the canal to before losing all light. And we just made it, almost.
-
Permalink Reply by Terry on
-
Fox Team, Coot Bay Pond terminus:
Sunset across Mud Lake, dark across Coot Bay and to Coot Bay Pond.
07:30 - 19:30, 23 miles for us and what a day! Couldn't have been better!
About
Welcome to
Everglades Exploration Network
© 2024 Created by Keith W.
Powered by
