Algonquin Park Brent Run

Hi Folks,

Next month I will be setting out for my second Algonquin Park Brent Run. For those of you who are not aware of the Brent Run it is a canoe trip, completed without stopping, from Canoe Lake to the town of Brent on Cedar Lake. The total trip exceeds 160kms. My last trip took 41 hours and the record for this trip sits at 23 hours.

My friend Mark Highfield and I will be doing this trip and documenting the experience. We will be doing this through the use of video and photos and everything will be located here: http://brentrun.wordpress.com/

I am tossing this out to anyone that has completed The Brent Run and wishes to provide any feedback, suggestions or encouragement.

Thanks folks and I look forward to reporting back on the experience.

Darren

Best of luck!

Darren, is this the famous """Meanest Link""" if your not already on www.algonquinadventures.com I would suggest you go there as there is a lot of info on those trips.

Good luck, hope you have a good bug jacket...........cheers.

Hi Big Mac,
This is a different route / challenge than The Meanest Link. The Meanest Link was created a few years back in memory of Bill Swift Sr (if memory serves).

The Brent Run was made famous in the mid 1930s when two of the Stringer Brothers from Canoe Lake were rumoured to have travelled from Canoe Lake to the town of Brent and back in 24 hours. As rumours of this feat spread it became popular to try and beat this unconfirmed time. The current record was set in 1990 by Chuck Beamish and Bob Anglin. The length of the total trip is 162km and the aim is to pack light and just get out and back as fast as possible.

The Meanest Link requires a lot more planning and time because the average trip likely takes between 10 to 14 days and there are a set list of things to do when completing it. And yes...this trip is also on my "TO DO" list, but one thing at a time!

Darren

good for you for taking it on. maybe if I was 40 years younger might consider it ......:)

Good luck!!! that sounds like a hell of challenge. I love watching youtube video's of guys completing these types of challenges. Report back once complete.

FishFrenzy

Good luck and be safe, in reality if you wanna get close to the record you will not be able to sleep at all. You and your buddy will be canoeing and portaging in the dark and yeah if I was a younger lad I likely would try it.

Thanks for the support on this folks. It will come in VERY handy at many points during the trip. Hunter John we are not trying to break the record although it would be a pretty cool achievement. Ideally the plan is to finish this safely.

I should have also this earlier. It is our first kick at a video that outlines what we will experiences during our Brent Run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV5YxH1IwBw

Thanks again folks,

Darren

Good luck to the both of you. Have fun, enjoy the experience, and by all means, be safe...

Well on July 7th at 5:30am Mark Highfield and I set out for our Brent Run. We survived :) and it only took us 39 hours to complete the 162km route (only!). We have about 10hours of video footage that we are working through, but if anyone is interested in The Brent Run or in following our story, we are documenting it at www.brentrun.me

Darren

Update: We are still working through the footage from our Algonquin Brent Runt trip back in July. Given the amount of footage we have it is taking much longer than we had hoped.

As a result we threw together a rather quick video as a bit of a teaser for the actual video.

Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fi1...7WHYPXxIw#t=39

Check out some of the other details about the trip at www.brentrun.me

Darren

I'm looking forward to the full video!

Thanks for posting :)

FishFrenzy

It took some time, but we finally have our video documenting our Algonquin Park Brent Run from this past July.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlVhCUYgtfY

To see some more about this wild adventure check out www.brentrun.me

Darren

Great video! Congrats on completing 162km's so quickly! The editing was great!

FishFrenzy

nice!!!! Great job on the vid. and great job on the trip.

That's amazing. Big congrats! You guys must spend a lot of time paddling to be in that good of shape to even take on such a challenge. WTG!!

I was wondering about a few things. Any specs on that Swift canoe? How light did you guys pack?
That's a long time to go hard and not rest much. What were your main energy sources?
Are there campsites on most of those 15+ lakes you paddled? That seems like it would be a prime week long fishing vacation. Except of course that one crazy portage.
I was also wondering how long all those portages were? 11 km each way is crazy lol.

Good job on the video. Only one problem. It's too short lol. I could easily have enjoyed twice as much of that scenery. :)

Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smitty55

That's amazing. Big congrats! You guys must spend a lot of time paddling to be in that good of shape to even take on such a challenge. WTG!!

I was wondering about a few things. Any specs on that Swift canoe? How light did you guys pack?
That's a long time to go hard and not rest much. What were your main energy sources?
Are there campsites on most of those 15+ lakes you paddled? That seems like it would be a prime week long fishing vacation. Except of course that one crazy portage.
I was also wondering how long all those portages were? 11 km each way is crazy lol.

Good job on the video. Only one problem. It's too short lol. I could easily have enjoyed twice as much of that scenery. :)

Cheers

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Thanks Smitty and sorry for taking SOOOO long to get back to you.
The Brent Run is a very well known route and the great thing about it is that you can take a more leisurely approach to it if you want to. Feel free to reach out to me for more info and Kevin Callan also has some great info about the route in a couple of his books (A Paddler's Guide To Algonquin Park). He actually takes a slower approach the trip which you might find ideal.

Regarding the canoe I have a 16' Swift Algonquin. It is a fiberglass canoe with wooden gunnels and seats. She's a beaut but she also weighs in at about 65lbs.

For gear we brought only the essentials which included rain gear, water filter, first aid kit (along with some other survival stuff) and our food. The food was pretty basic and we feasted mostly on Clif Bars, beef jerky, pepperettes and trail mix. We both carried a small pack each.

There is pretty much camping on every lake that you go through so if you wanted to extend the trip. As with all of Algonquin Park they do a great job managing the sites and the greater majority of them are fantastic.

Yes the one portage is a pig to say the least but the other ones are pretty manageable. The next longest is about 750m (if memory serves) but most of them are less than 450m with very little elevation and they are well maintained.

If you want any more information please feel free to let me know. We are working on a plan to revamp the www.brentrun.me site so that it is a better resource for people wanted to complete the route, in whatever time they wish.

Darren