Forecast: Sunny, high of 71° Low of 49°

Lakes: Jordan, Cattyman, Gibson, Ashigan, and Ensign

Total Miles Traveled: 6.7

Wake up at 6:30 and help myself to 2 breakfast bars, can’t bring myself to eat another Mountain House breakfast. We pack up and are on the water by 9:20. Paul and I draw sticks to see who gets the rear seat today and I win. So in the middle goes Paul!

It’s our last full day in and we have a tow pick-up on Splash Lake tomorrow at 1pm. We decide to find a spot on Ensign to set up to be close in case the weather goes bad on us. I’m not too trusting of the 10 day forecast we got before we left.

As soon as we hit the Jordan to Cattyman portage I know it’s going to be a lot of congestion. We run into the first group of a Boy Scout Troop from upstate NY near the Vermont border in 3 canoes. And boy do they have a lot of gear. They see us, know we are fast movers and courteously allow us ahead. They tell us they are trying to catch up with the second part of their group and we may run into them. Sure enough by the time we get to Gibson we catch up with the second part of their troop and wow, I think the outfitter set them up with everything they could get their hands on. It hurt to see how much gear they had. Coolers and everything! Then I remember my first trip in ’03 and realize I can’t criticize too much. But I never brought a cooler! Then again they probably didn’t have to eat Mountain House as much as I did! We hit the Ashigan to Ensign portage and boy is it full. There is a Girl Scout troop of 3 canoes and 6 girls and 2 leaders coming in. Kudos to those 2 leaders, the oldest of those girls looked to be 12. This meant they had to portage those aluminum canoes themselves. Hope they didn’t travel too far! Oh well we hit Ensign and it seems like we are leading the 7th fleet. I count 11 canoes from various groups behind us heading out. I think we saw another 5 going in.

Some of those going had some young kids with them and brings my thoughts back to my son who is 4 now. He was just as excited as I was about the trip and he knew he wasn’t going. 2 more years I tell myself and I will get to bring him to this exciting wilderness.

Anyway we scout a couple of camp sites on Ensign and can tell they are overused. We finally settle on one on the far western shore in a cove near Perdu Lake. It’s adequate but not too much shade or places to hang the tarp from.

We set up, Paul and Bill pull out their books, and I take a 2 hour nap. After I get up Paul and I toss the Frisbee around for a few minutes, then hang out. I take out my journal and begin to document the past 2 days. At 6:15 Bill prepares dinner and to my surprise it’s Mountain House! What a Treat! Anyway it’s the beef stroganoff so I can’t complain much. As we are eating we start to hear thunder in the distance. Paul and I debate about which way the storm is going and he is right for the moment, it’s to our west, but then I remind him of how we got rained on by the same storm 3 times in ’05 when the wind kept shifting. He agrees with me and we string up the rain tarp. Again Bill reminds us we should have kept the first stick form Alice but oh well. I find a decent one, but it is too short so I lash it to a paddle. That was interesting. For the first time in my BWCAW experience we decide not to hang the food pack. Mainly because there isn’t much left, and I figure the Bears wouldn’t be in this area due to us being about 1 mile from the portage. So we toss the bag under the overturned canoe.

About 8:30 it starts to drizzle and we sit under the tarp for about an hour and then decide to head to bed. At 9:45 my tent is lit up by lightning really kind of cool to watch. Then the rain really starts to come down and doesn’t stop for about 3 hours. The whole time I am enjoying the sounds and then the wind starts to get going and I see the top of my tent shift about 6 inches with each gust.

I try to call to Bill and Paul but they can’t hear me through the rain. I have my windbreaker/ rain coat in my tent, but quickly realize my rain pants are in my bag outside under the tarp. Luckily there was no need for me to leave my tent. The storm lets up and I drift to sleep.