As the adventure grew closer, I started feeling nervous excitement inside. I’ve always felt it when I’m about to attempt something that is just on the edge of comfortable (or maybe that I know is well beyond comfortable). I felt it in the weeks leading up to our Voyageur Challenge, before each bushwhack adventure, or night-paddling excursion. It’s that deep-seated longing to be pushed outside my comfort zone within the arena of wilderness, where the unexpected hardships, unrivaled beauty, and the self-reliance forged by remote isolation are ever reliably refining the pilgriming adventurer. It’s a feeling I crave. So when the Legend moved the trip date for me, I was hooked. It’s a different type of trip than going with friends, since it was clear that I would be the sherpa this trip. We agreed that I would carry my gear, the food, and the canoe -- double packing our way across this insane route of his. 

We met up bright and early at his home and drove over to Sawbill, where our adventure would begin, hitting the water just before 9:00. Our first stop would be the Smoke Lake portage, to see a new lake. I had only been there on my trip earlier this spring. We would criss-cross my spring route a few times this trip. From there, we headed back onto Sawbill and northward. Due to the portage-heavy nature of this adventure, this trip report will be rather literary with few visual aids. The camera that I bring on EVERY wilderness adventure stayed home in the hopes that shedding some weight eased the burden on this “no-longer-quite-in-guiding-shape” pack mule. On the water, the Legend and I cruised, passing by other groups left and right. We ran into another group on the portage out of Sawbill, where the Legend shared our aspiring plans. It’s funny how out of scope the challenge routes feel for the average group: blank stares all around or the occasional “that’s nice.” Haha! We portaged through Skoot and up to Cherokee Creek. This was another moment of recollection. The last time I was here, we were pushed back by a frozen creek, forced to try another route out of the Temperances, and eventually found myself paddling bow through an after-hours whiteout on Brule. (Read the Trip Report Here) The weather was markedly more temperate this day. We stopped at a rock slope on Cherokee to enjoy lunch and some of the Legend’s stories about Sig Olson and Bud Heinselman, heroes whose lives never intersected with mine, so hearing the stories firsthand was special. We talked about the lake before us, where a singular island held old White Pines. The rest of the lake is a rusting mess of beleaguered Balsam interspersed with aging Aspen. He quoted Heinselman when he said, “Islands are a glimpse into what the lake was before.” Good words to memorize for the ecologically curious. The old fire that stripped the pine forest from this lake lost intensity as it approached Gordon, a beautiful lake that I had forgotten about from my singular previous visit. Then we headed onto Unload and Frost, and treasured memories of trips past came rushing back. It’s a decent portage out of Frost and then the familiar routine of small river travel: short paddle & short portage. We reached Chase Lake and pondered whether the singular campsite on Bologne is occupied. It was sitting open and available, though, and provided a nice respite for the evening. I do wonder why it sits in the back bay when a lovely open rock face with an expansive view of the lake sits just to the South? With clouds of mosquitoes, I spent more time on the rock than at our site. We pulled in around dinner time and went to bed early. Day two was the day with the most looming questions.~Sawbill Lake, Smoke Lake, Ada Lake, Skoop Lake, Cherokee Lake, Gordon Lake, Unload Lake, Frost Lake, Octopus Lake, Chase Lake, Bologna Lake

We exited our camp around 7:00 on Day 2, headed back for Chase and the remainder of the Frost. Plenty of rain had fallen in the previous week, but memories of grinding canoes mid-river still flashed in my memory. The Frost used to change character dramatically after Pencil through a stretch of very shallow water. That would be the test. After portaging around the small waterfall out of Pencil, I was greeted by the first big surprise of the trip: very high water. So high, in fact, that five feet of river flowed over top of the boulder field where I walked with a group four years prior! The local engineering corps had built their new aspen and earthen dam just downstream, and, just like that, the toughest stretch of the Frost had become just another paddle!

We worked our way westward, the Legend’s adventurous spirit surfacing when we would decide to run a little rapid set instead of portaging. We passed the tricky few portages around Afton, and my easiest trip down the Frost was complete. It’s a long portage south into Hub through thick clouds of mosquitoes. On Mesaba, we crossed my spring route again before turning west into Chaser. This is where we first encountered some navigational hardship. We were looking for a 125 rod portage as marked on McKenzie Maps. All we found was flowing water over a steep rock face. I portaged the canoe up to the shore of the beaver pond above. "That wasn't 125 rods!" I portaged back down and we searched the bay for a time. The Legend mentioned that it appears there's a red dot on the map before the 125, though no distance is marked. So we headed back to the face, climbed up again, paddled around the pond, and eventually found what we believed to be the portage. It turned out to be what we were looking for, but that was a trick for sure! The surprises continued once we crossed the portage. The creek to the north of Dent Lake was a sprawling mud flat: four feet of water lower than it had once been. The rain made our way just barely paddleable, though the outfitters told us after the fact that one of their staff walked through here just a week prior. We had lunch on Dent Lake before heading southward to the Louse. I had never done the Louse, but its rugged character was not overplayed in the stories I have heard. The river is wider than the Frost, feeling more like a river than a small stream. The portages are also bigger: longer, steeper, more overgrown. We spent the afternoon brush bashing, tree hopping, and mosquito swatting! In many ways, the portages on the Louse felt like the portages on the Sunday/Beartrap River to me, though those are PMA and these are, I suppose, “maintained.” Each portage had 5-20 down trees, which made for slow going. We portaged through the campsite on Boze, encountered a small black bear on Frond, and paddled through the last portage into Malberg. What a day! Similarly to the feelings of a bushwhack trip, the air felt so big on Malberg and the canoe so light. Simply being able to paddle in open water without the diligence to dodge boulders or the pry-stroked to make it around corners was a free and relaxing feeling. The Legend asked if I was up for heading to Koma. I had snacks packed in my life jacket and had been gaining energy for a few hours; I would happily go as far as he found the want to travel. We were the only group on Koma and paddled around site-shopping for a while. Later, he would remark how he had done the same thing 30 years ago and had come to the same conclusion. We reached camp just before 7 pm, a long day to be sure, but a successful one that found us on our target lake on a day filled with uncertainty. We hit bedtime early, content with our accomplishments. Despite running 5-6 rapid sets, we still managed to portage canoe-out-of-the-water 24 times this day, edging my personal best by a single portage. This incredible accomplishment was enough to boost our confidence for the following day. ~Bologna Lake, Chase Lake, Pencil Lake, Afton Lake, Fente Lake, Hub Lake, Mesaba Lake, Chase Lake, Chaser Lake, Dent Lake, Bug Lake, Trail Lake, Boze Lake, Frond Lake, Malberg Lake, Koma Lake

We awoke to a slight breeze out of the southeast, an indicator that we would have a headwind to contend with on the homeward stretch. After camping in our intended campsites on nights one and two, we were confident in our ability to exit on the third day as hoped for, but now we had to do it! We headed south to Polly before once again leaving a place I had been before to head for the Phoebe River. We struggled to find the portage for a time. Once we crossed, we talked more about the interesting forest ecology around us as we paddled our third river of the trip towards Hazel. We maintained our well-practiced routine of portaging and paddling, eventually portaging out of Hazel across a brushy, messy portage. It didn’t feel well-travelled past Hazel. As we paddled closer to Knight Lake, it felt like the portage-building crews had given up. We hit a wide open rock field that we couldn’t find a paddleable route through. I dropped the Legend off to walk the shore while I walked the canoe through the rocks.

On Phoebe, we faced the wind for the first time, with large chop bashing the shore. This would be interesting later! We had lunch on the portage out of the lake, as I heard about his winter and the places he had gone and seen. It’s a beautiful, falls-laden stretch of water on the way to Grace. At Grace, the southeastern wind was slamming directly into our faces, giving us a choice. We had originally anticipated taking the longer portage and taking a side-hike into Ella to shorten the amount of time paddling on Grace, but the wind redirected that notion. We cut across to the point, fought big chop in rounding it, and then hugged the shore up to the portage into Ella. Ella is an exceptionally beautiful lake, and a group was set up enjoying the campsite across the way. We encountered a pair of couples on the portage from Beth, where the Legend shared how many portages we had crossed. He would repeat this pattern back to Sawbill Outfitters later on, a touching feeling for me because, though he’s paddled, hiked, and climbed all over the world, it was special to know how much this trip meant to him and that I had a role in making it possible. We fought a heavy headwind on Beth, but the scenery alleviated the hardship. We had concerns about crosswinds on Alton, and that proved to be accurate. We fought our way to the eastern shore before catching a pseudo tailwind to bring us north.

The portage from Alton to Sawbill felt like the interstate after the routes we had been on. On the Sawbill side, the Legend introduced me to “his rock,” where he had once tumbled backwards and landed spine-first on this obtrusive piece of geology. I recalled that I too had a rock, over off of Missing Link Lake, though mine found my knee instead of my back, and I too pay tribute in future passings. (Read the Trip Report Here) On Sawbill, we passed a few more groups on our way to the landing, cutting through the headwind all the way. We arrived by late afternoon, shared some stories with groups nearby, and enjoyed dinner before hitting the road. It was a nice drive out to cell service to call the wives to tell them that we made it safely. All told, we portaged 59 times in three days. With the Legend being a month shy of 80 years of age, he certainly lived up to my moniker of him. We ran 5 or 6 rapid sets, so that number could have easily been 60+. Once home, I realized the most amusing statistic: that we had travelled about 56 miles total, meaning that we averaged more than a portage for every mile travelled! It was a truly marvelous adventure, and, as always, a true pleasure to enable the adventurous spirits of others while still reliably encountering the essence of challenge, beauty, and a sense of the unknown around every corner in this spectacular wild space that has ever begun to feel more and more like home. ~ Koma Lake, Polly Lake, Hazel Lake, Knight Lake, Phoebe Lake, Grace Lake, Ella Lake, Beth Lake, Alton Lake, Sawbill Lake