I woke up to the hot clammy stale sleep air which was locked in the car with me just north of Ely on a road less traveled. I gathered myself, crawled into the front seat and went into town for breakfast. At least the first night's sleep was out of the way, the next had to be better.

After filling my stomach with a ham and cheese omelet, I filled up my car with gas and headed west for Snowbank Lake. I found The Lorax, Cow Patty, Griz, Mountainrunner and Clayton all waiting for me with their packs ready to go. I introduced myself to the three folks that I had not yet met and finished putting my gear into my pack. I put my pack on my Rapala scale and was happy to see it reading a between 29 and 30 pounds including water, food and fuel. Next time I will pack some more lunch food.

We hit the trail about 10:00am. The trail was very dry, all of the brown vegetation crumbled under each foot fall. The observed temp on Wednesday was 84. Mountainrunner's watch assisted guess was one degree off. The first six miles offers a couple good vistas of Snowbank Lake. The air was dead calm as was the water, a rare thing on such a big lake. After finding a bunch of wood ticks, we ate a quick lunch at a canoe site along the way. We eventually made it up to Wooden Leg Lake. We were beginning to wondering how far the next campsite was. The heat had taken its toll on most of the group. We were also a little short on water. We had about a mile and a half to go, so after filtering some water out of the stagnant lake we headed down towards NewFound Bay and setup camp. The Lorax, Moutainrunner and I had all been to the same site two years before and I remembered it very well. My feet were blistered already so I soaked them in the refreshing Snowbank Lake- my boots were only a week or two old.

The first night's campsite was in NewFound Bay. This is a pretty nice site with a well protected bay. Nice pines, nice tent pads- terrible campfire area. We couldn't have a fire so it wasn't an issue. Most of the group had solo tents, I had a hammock. After a dinner we listened to many loons after the sunset and went to bed. Those loons called most of the night. The night time low was 45 and calm.