We slept with the rain fly off the tent last night and it barely cooled down enough to tuck into our sleeping bags. We slept until 7am.

Down to business first thing. We had to get the carabiners unstuck. Motto for the day: "If you ever think you won't need that bunch of paracord and should just leave it home, think again!"

To be honest, Stew loves this kind of challenge. We have "rescued" other bear ropes abandoned at campsites by less creative people. He found some dead, straight young spruce trees off in the woods. At first, he bound 2 of them together to make a long pole. It was hard to control. The next improvement was to make a guide loop to help guide the pole up the bear rope. This resulted in being able to get the carabiner clump free from the total jam, but still unable to get it to travel down the backside. So he added a short, stiff "hook" stick to the end of the long pole. He was able to hook the biners and got it to come down 6" while I whipped the rope from the front to decrease friction. But 6" was all it would come down. The final improvement was to add a 3rd dead spruce and re-lash them in a stiffer formation. He was finally able to get decent tension on the carabiners. Success! Stew absolutely enjoyed the trouble shooting and was quite the proud "fisherman" when all was said and done. Though, it did take 45 minutes...

Lessons learned: Do not throw a rope into a tight V of branches...too much friction. And don't leave the lid off the jug of coffee! (It got kicked over while we worked).

On the water around 9:20, but the lake was like glass again with an occasional puff of a tailwind so we arrived at Upper Basswood Falls pretty quickly. Stew trolled a bit in the bay before the falls while I paddled us around. Then we parked the canoe on the shore before the portage and walked over to the falls. Stew caught a bass, but it fought like crazy and freed itself. Then he moved down to the bigger pool and caught and released a walleye. While he was enjoying the excitement of fishing, I cooled off in the water and took some pictures. We decided to partake in an early lunch and enjoy the falls.

A group of Scouts showed up, and we chatted with the guide and some of the dads while the boys explored the shore. Just as they left, a ranger showed up. He apologized for not being in uniform, but was there to inform us that the closures had been expanded today. The Upper Falls was now the eastern boundary. Therefore, we needed to move on immediately. He explained that with 7 fires burning just over the border in Quetico, there was fear that they would join together and explode into one giant fire. As we left, we saw his partner (in uniform) and they were setting up to "park" at the portage entrance for the day.

We left around 12:30 and headed east with a slight headwind at times. But the wind felt good since it was really HOT today. Supposed to be 90 and it felt like it. We paddled at training pace and arrived at site #1624 pretty quickly. This campsite has a nice beach (for those that like that), but has a lot of poison ivy. So if you bring kids there, watch out! Quiet on the lake today. I had a great swim while Stew napped. Saw an eagle's nest with 2 juveniles sitting on the rim.

Later, a mommy merganser brought her brood of 7 babes to the beach. They were hilarious to watch. They would all flap really hard and hydroplane across the top of the water. They would form an arc and cruise toward the beach really fast. We figured out they were hunting minnows by driving them up onto the beach as a team. They would gobble them down, and later we found a few dead ones they didn't quite finish consuming. I had never witnessed this behavior before, and felt thrilled to see it. This is what I love about these trips. No matter how many times I come, I always experience something new.

When we walked down the beach later, we found more fish remains thanks to some irresponsible humans. The rectangular skin from someone's fillets were left lying all over the rocky end of the beach. Ridiculous.

We made pizza for dinner which was a pain on the stove, but it didn't burn. I had planned the menus and packed all the food for our 3 different trips back in May, so the campfire ban hadn't been in place. I made the decision it wasn't worth making any changes after the ban was announced.

Distance: 10 miles Time: 9:20am-1:40pm including 2 hours of fishing/lunch

~Basswood Lake