Back From Northern Tier

[Buffalo Skipper 13]

Sandbars are cool. But the Water management district with the state park service has put together "River Camps" every 20 miles or so beginning below Big Shoals Look at some of the details here. http://www.floridastateparks.org/wilderness/rivercamps.cfm The pics show the "shelters" but each has an adjoining primitive campsite, which we will use 2 nights. Lap of luxury! For our young scouts it will be nice. 2/3 of those attending are 1st year scouts. Oh, the cost is free, by the way.

[ScoutOne 10]

Brent,

 

Unfortunately it sounds like you had a knockoff pair of Altama as the damage you describe symptom of cheap boots glued together. Its the third time I have heard about this in a year. There is a Chinese manufacturer that has been making black-market boots with a very similar branding. In ten years using Altama footwear I have never heard this happen except with knockoffs. For this reason I tend to only purchase direct from them. If the boots are not knockoffs, Altama customer service should be willing to replace them.

 

Chief Decorah-- Northern Tier does not demand jungle boots. What they advice is that the shoe should have full coverage and provide ankle support. Some had have success with low cut boot designed for water use or "fly fishing" boots available at sports shops. Not taking footwear with ankle support or full coverage (to protect you from glass, sharp rock, fishing lures) puts you at a much higher risk of injury -- thus potentially wreaking the trip for the rest of your crew.

 

Mafaking-- You can do a great trip with a group of scouts of any age. Northern Tier allows you to determine your own route. If your crew is younger you can adapt your route to your crew's abilities. For some crews this many mean you will not get as remote and will see more people. However, they will still learn and have a great time.

 

[GKlose 24]

Our troop just got back from a 6-day trip on the West Branch of the Penobscot and Chesuncook Lake in northern Maine. Unfortunately, I couldn't go. But according to my son, they didn't see a single other group person entire time up there.

 

Guy

[GernBlansten 10]

Protecting your feet is critical at NT. Jungle boots do a great job at that.

In Bissett, we flew in by float plane 40 miles north of the closest road. We never saw another crew until the final day when we paddled back to the float plane dock to get extracted.

A serious cut or punji stick through the ankle would have required an air rescue.

 

That being said, our interpreter (that's what they call Charlie Guides in Canada) wore low cut water shoes. I thought he was nuts. But he was young and tough.

 

As for the Altima knockoffs, when we arrived at base, another crew had just got extracted. They were showing off a Chinese knockoff that lost its entire sole on a nasty moose muck portage. They did what Brent did to repair it, except used zip ties. Pretty effective and resourceful. The staff was going to nail the boot to the gear shack.

[BrentAllen 10]

We tried zip ties on the first boot to separate at the heel, and it didn't last one portage - it snapped. The para cord did the job for us. We fused the ends of the para cord together once tied, and they never came loose.

 

If you flip through the photo album I linked, you can see the blue tennis shoes our interpreter was wearing on photo 265 (behind the Hudson Bay bread). No socks, either. How she kept her ankles from getting black and blue, I'll never figure out. She did pick up one leech, at the end of that 110 portage from Hansen to Cherry. The entry was pure moose muck.

 

The zippers on her pants legs also broke, so she was in shorts for most of the trip. She didn't seem to mind.

 

Equipment report:

Tru-Spec Jungle Boots - mixed report, 4 boots failed at the heel.

Fox River over-the-calf socks - worked great, still going strong.

Switchback pants, BSA - worked great, dried fairly quickly, all held up.

BSA L/S Action shirt - also worked great, becoming a favorite for me.

Wickers poly u/w - great, very comfortable.

Marmot rain jacket - worked like a champ.

Frogg Toggs rain pants - worked well the few times I wore them - my "dry clothes" pants.

Princeton Tec Impulse flashlight - great, waterproof, you don't need anything bigger than this.

XY Paddle - love it! Be warned, you can't carry these on the airlines, they must be checked.

 

Items I would suggest each crew member carry:

Butane lighter

para cord, 20 - 50'

a bandana or two

[GernBlansten 10]

Several of our boys used the BSA switchbacks for wet travel pants. Worked great. I kept mine for my dry camp pants. I used REI supplex zip offs for my wet pants. Same ones I used last time and at Philmont. But I took a punji stick through the legging on Heartbreak Portage and tore a 3 inch hole. More of a badge of honor for those pants. I ain't retiring them yet!

 

I was able to keep the leeches at bay. I stuffed my pant legs into my boots while traveling. Some guys who didn't or wore shorts found leeches enjoying themselves.

 

How were the bugs? I'm still healing.

[BrentAllen 10]

The flies were gone. The skeeters were bad in some areas. I was one of those guys the skeeters didn't like. I never wore my headnet. I did get bit a few times, but not enough to wear the headnet. Some of the boys were fresh meat - they were counting the bites on their hands, and they were into the 20's and 30's. The only time they were an absolute terror was while getting ready for that dawn paddle - they killed us. Once we got on the water, we were fine.

 

The mosquitoes up there are much different than our's here in the south. Down here, you never feel them bite, or hear them, and the bite will itch for several days. Up there, you hear them and the bite is like a pin jab, but it doesn't really itch afterwards.

 

The only real time I worried about them was when hitting the grumper. They seemed to hang out there, waiting for you to drop trousers. The broad-brimmed hat came in handy there, fanning them away.