Woodland Caribou Portage 20405 (Unnamed to Wrist)

*2024 Update*: Yup....still a mess. I was paddling south this time and was able to find the north entrance and added some orange flagging, so easy to find. I followed the trail south for about 100m and then lost it and simply went cross country following my compass/GPS. I found the south entrance and also marked it with orange flagging, so at least you can find both ends of the trail. Hopefully with time a proper, easy to find trail is worn into the ground. Don't count on the campsites at the south end. Now an open field with no shelter. 2022: The 2021 fire burned out the underbrush but left many standing dead trees. I gave up trying to find the south end start of this portage on Wrist Lake and simply walked north following my GPS and the path of least resistance. Easy to do in 2022 but might be difficult in the next few years once the underbrush grows back. I could not find the start of the portage on the north side. There is a bit of drop off down to the lake. The Park staff will have to re-build/mark this portage or someone with more time.

Vern & Matt are right - this area was a very hard burn - even the soil burned away - it is now like the surface of Mars. For the time being, losing the trail is really not a very big deal - you can make your own path. As what vegetation that can grow in ash, does grow in the coming years...this will get harder. But it's not growing up nearly as fast as some of the areas with a lighter burn, where the new growth is already impenetrable.

This is certainly no longer a "lovely portage trail" as it was in 2014! It's a bit (lot) of a disaster now. We added to the many flags and cairns that were already there but the route is very difficult to follow in the complete burn without a GPS track.