Today's wind forecast was "light and variable" and it was supposed to be partly sunny with temps around 70 degrees. Perfect weather for paddling Little Tupper Lake. It isn't often that you see Little Tupper this calm.
And this time we were determined to get into Rock Pond. We were able to get past what is normally a huge beaver dam, because the water was somewhat high and the beavers haven't had a chance to rebuild it yet this year. So we made it to the portage around some rapids.
The short walk was lined with beautiful lady slipper orchids and lots of bunchberry (Cornus canadensis).
We didn't go as far into Rock Pond as we would have liked because we had a long paddle back and were taking very few breaks due to the bugs - more on that later. Here is the view going back into Little Tupper from Rock Pond.
About those bugs - what we didn't take into account was that light winds meant the bugs wouldn't be blown away, and the black flies were awful. I wore a headnet much of the time and I don't like it because it restricts my vision too much. To keep away from most of the bugs we had to paddle in the middle of the lake instead of exploring the shoreline and didn't see any point in going to the island on Rock Pond because we didn't want to get out and be bug bait. We were pretty tired by the time we got back from the 13.5 mile paddle. It would have been better if we had been able to stop and rest more. Definitely a tradeoff - more bugs but fewer beaver dams. I think we'll choose to deal with the beaver dams next time we go. Plus, the pickerel weed is not nearly ready to bloom yet, and the brook to Rock Pond is beautiful when they are flowering.
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