A quick update from people "on the ground"

Heavy rain, wind and mild temperatures have been having their way the stubborn lake ice.

As of 9 am this morning:

Oxtongue Lake: Open. The ice seen in the "ice canoeists" photo in the previous post is gone. Water levels extremely high. I would not recommend travel on the Oxtongue River at the moment. Or any Algonquin Park river route, for that matter! It is full-on raging spring flood conditions.

Lake Opeongo: the bay in front of the store is open. The lake is ice-covered just beyond the channel marker buoys. We will try to get a further report from Opeongo later today.

Lake of Two Rivers: mostly ice free, some big pans of black ice floating around.

Smoke Lake: covered in ice fog, hard to tell. Hangar Bay still iced in with grey ice.

Cedar Lake and Brent Road: Jake checked in yesterday from the Brent Store. The road is passable by 4x4 truck with good ground clearance. Not recommended for lesser vehicles. Cedar Lake is still ice-covered though there is a big lead in the middle from the inflow of the Petawawa and Nipissing Rivers.

High winds today will make lake travel very hazardous due to cold water conditions and shifting ice.

Stay tuned to the Algonquin Park ice conditions page for more updates and more details on access point road conditions. Currently, the Rain Lake and Source Lake roads are closed due to washouts (among others). This situation will not improve soon with the heavy rain last night, and more is expected today. At this moment the backcountry permit restriction is still in effect, to be re-evaluated today.