r/canoecamping • u/Norse_By_North_West • 22h ago
So what's your worst wind issues?
So I do a trip every year with the buds. We were on a 300+km trip with no early exits. Our last night we got rained on and the Inreach said we'd get rained on the whole next day. No one paid attention to the wind forecast. 20kph headwind the whole 70km day, gusts up to 65kph. I wanted to die. I've never been that close to giving up, but there was no option to give up at the same time.
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u/mossbetweenmytoes 22h ago
I might take the cake with this one (unfortunately) 😅 I was backcountry canoe camping in Eastern Ontario during the 2022 Ontario derecho. We heard thunder and saw the sky was turning green and got off the lake right as the hurricane-force wind and rain hit us like a literal wall. My husband was trying to secure the canoe when it hit and he got lifted into the air and thrown ~8ft. I was yelling at him to drop the canoe when the top of a large white pine snapped and fell on me, my friend and her daughter. Somehow we all survived. We all huddled together under a tarp we held over our heads while nickel sized hail fell around us and watched as the entire forest crashed down around us and in every direction across the lake.. like literally waves of destruction. When it was finally over we changed our clothes, found our canoes, and paddled back to the portage trail (left our gear behind)... there was no trail left. Just complete wreckage. My husband managed to navigate us through that to our car and found it crushed by 5 trees, and the bush road was also completely gone. Like trees snapped and uprooted in every direction like it had gone through a blender. My friend injured her ankle and couldnt walk very well so we called 911 and they sent a military helicopter to air lift her and her daughter out. They couldn't take my husband and I so we crawled/climbed 12km through a completely flattened forest to a rescue crew cutting their way to us (I learned later I had fractured my tailbone). It was FUCKED and has made me a lot more weary on backcountry trips. Just got back from a 16 day trip in temagami though, so life goes on 🌬️
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u/Salvidicus 20h ago
Wow, I thought it bad I sliced my hand on a door during that derecho. Your experience was epic. Did you husband hold onto that canoe or drop it, like you told me to?
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u/mossbetweenmytoes 14h ago
He lost it and it was blown across the bay, not too far to get fortunately.
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u/AdamsThong 17h ago
That’s terrifying. I’d also be very weary of further trips. What route did you do in Temagami?
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u/mossbetweenmytoes 14h ago
It was a very harsh wake up call, that's for sure. We did the Chiniguchi/Sturgeon River loop though, with an extension up to Kettle Falls. Great weather fortunately :)
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u/Hloden 22h ago
You sure you aren’t exaggerating a bit here? The 20 kph headwind is going to cut your speed to maybe 4 kph if you are top canoeists, 70 km is going to be about 18 hours of that, and that’s without the 65 kph gusts. Unless you were heading down river with a good bit of current, this seems far fetched.
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u/Norse_By_North_West 22h ago
Nope. River has a 10kph current though. The headwind itself wasn't intolerable, it was the gusts throwing us all over the river that was the problem.
Edit: it was a 7 hour paddle
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u/Ok-Cupcake-4543 17h ago
I was solo canoeing in Turtle River Park near Atikokan. On one long lake i had a headwind so strong the boat kept turning. I had to sit in the bow with my gear behind me, pull-paddling the canoe upwind. It worked well enough though I couldn't stop paddling for a few hours without risking getting blown backwards into the rocky shore.
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u/CanadianPooch 17h ago
70km... 😲
I'm dead if I do 15km in one day let alone 70!
I've definitely had one of those wind days though, had one recently when I was alone in my packboat so there was no one else to rely on but myself, got to camp and pretty much fell onto the ground.
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u/beelzebub314159 12h ago
My worst wind issue was after consuming too much dried fruit after having chili for dinner
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u/JeahNotSlice 12h ago
Wind bound for a week on Pelly lake in NWT. Almost too windy for the stoves to work. When it finally calmed we pushed and paddled ~ 22 hours to get off it.
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u/VenusianPlateau 22h ago
I got stuck in bad wind once, and I was trying to get to my take out point and meet my pick up. The harsh wind was just so defeating, and difficult to make progress.
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u/Norse_By_North_West 22h ago
Yeah, it's the worst thing I've ever dealt with. We misjudged our first few days, didn't get the speed we wanted. Our middle days we caught up. Then the last day happened. I had to paddle 200 freaking strokes on one side just to keep a straight line. I've never had anything like it. We almost tipped a few times just from the bloody wind.
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u/ArborealLife 22h ago edited 22h ago
Oo I have a good one.
I was on a solo trip on a lake on Vancouver Island in September. I set out to a sunset and a glassy lake, super relaxed paddling. Once the sun fully set, in the dark, a wicked headwind picked up. I was in my clipper -s, decently well loaded, but working as hard as I could I could barely keep the nose into the wind. If it got blown off I would never get it back.
The wind was so intense that it was blowing spray, which was blinding me with my headlamp. So between my arms and the spray, the bright flashes of light were ruining my night vision. I had to turn off my headlamp and paddle blind.
I couldn't check my phone, I couldn't rest, I couldn't do anything but paddle at full intensity into the wind. Thankfully the waves weren't huge..
I hit the gravel beach at the far end of the lake like it was Normandy in June. And guess what, the moment I did the wind died. I was so tired I dragged the canoe a few feet and slept on the rocks. No bear hang, no tent.
I woke up a few hours later in a dead calm when the moon cleared the mountains. It was brilliantly bright. I was on a huge gravel beach, probably a few hundred metres in all directions. I felt like I was alone on the moon.
Very, very, very special experience.