I arrived at the EP around 6:30. The weather was cloudy, and very muggy, with an off and on sprinkle. I think I knew before I left home that there was no way I was going to single portage anything, despite my overconfident feeling in a post about that in June, I believe. Remembering my adventure last year with dehydration, I had plenty of fresh water in squeeze bottles. I grabbed the canoe that Ryan had left, hoisted it up and started down the trail. Not a bad one, though the long bridge was interesting. About 6 or 7 muddy spots that were easily avoided. I encountered a grouse, who thought it was funny to launch about 10 feet from me and darn near made me drop the canoe. After about 15 or 20 minutes I made it to the lake. When I got back to the parking lot (I should add that the parking lot had about 7 vehicles in it, along with 2 that had trailers on them) I unloaded some stuff from the pack that I thought I could do without, strapped it on, and took off. This was different than the canoe, which was very easy. Now, I had been training for this, 2 months of hiking with the pack with about 30 or so pounds of gear in it. This portage kicked my butt. Every time I would stop to rest, my glasses fogged up, sometimes even on the trail they would fog up. By the time I got to the canoe I was drenched. The landing was muddy, not too bad, and I loaded up and headed out through the marsh. I saw a beaver poke up ahead of me, and then parallel me for a bit underwater. He popped up again, then did a dive with a healthy slap of its tail, giving me a bit of a splash. It started to sprinkle a bit when I got out to the main lake. I passed the first 2 campsites, the one on the right being occupied. I continued up to the narrows, passed another site which looked occupied, and headed towards the Hula portage. I never got there, since the rain picked up a bit. By now, I was in no mood for rain, so I turned around and headed to site opposite of the one I passed earlier. It has a nice little landing on the side of the point. Got the pack out, and hauled it up to a dry patch until the rain stopped. It was about 10:30 when I was able to set the tent up. I didn't like the look of the sky, so I figured on staying the night. Between breaks in the weather I made some lunch and explored the area. Did a little fishing from shore, caught a couple of hammer handles, ate some dinner, and decided to call it a day.