We woke up early for the trip. I slept great in the hammock. I was comfortable and wasn't a bit cold. I used a Thermarest pad under me and a 35F sleeping bag.

We packed some snacks, rain gear and survival gear. We also took fishing gear.

The trip up the Horse River was nice. The first rapids were a bit interesting but we made it through. My wife and her crew portaged around that set of rapids. After that, we paddled the small rapids and portaged the three official portages.

After the third portage, we stopped to fish. Our outfitter said it was a good spot. We were not disappointed! As we got there, baitfish were breaking the surface and being snapped up by hungry fish. My oldest daughter quickly hooked a decent bass and was enjoying the fight. Then, her bass was t-boned by a large pike. It was quite a circus: 2 canoes, 2 adults, 4 girls, 2 dogs, a decent bass, and a very large pike. Eventually, the pike lost interest and let go. Emily reeled in the bass. It had pretty serious teeth marks on its sides. We caught a few more bass. One of the bass had a big cut on his side. I assume the pike got him too.

We finally left and continued to the falls. We were a bit concerned about being swept over so we approached the portage carefully. We carried the canoes over the portage and checked out the falls. They were worth the trip. The flow and drop were very impressive. I can't imagine what they look like in early spring.

As we were sitting by the falls, Emily had her camera slip from her lap and fall in the water. She was heartbroken. My wife, Angie, could see the camera in about 1 foot of water. She jumped in and quickly rescued the camera. We were pretty sure that both the camera and the pictures were gone. But we figured that we’d dry it out and see.

(Note: The disk worked as soon as we got home and we recovered all our pictures. The camera itself dried out a few days later and seems to be working fine.)

We were all a bit tired but we decided to push on to the Indian pictographs. It turned out to be a good decision. It wasn't far to the pictographs and they were pretty cool.

When we got back to the falls, it was a circus: People were going in both directions, several large groups of kids were swimming in the fast water below the falls, a few fishermen were trying their luck. We had seen enough people and left the falls.

We stopped at the fishing spot again. We caught a few more nice smallmouth bass. I tried a topwater bait and quickly caught a nice 20-21” smallie. I cast again and caught a much bigger fish. He turned out to be 35-40” pike. Since I didn't have a steel leader, I eventually lost the pike.

We paddled back to camp. We had to walk a few of the rapids but made it home. It was raining pretty hard when we got back to camp but we were all so hot and tired that it felt good. A few of us swam and showered in the rain. It felt great.

The trip took 9 hours. It was quite an adventure. I would definitely do it all again (except the dropping of the camera)