Monday, July 06, 2009

Since is was still windy, we decided to break the trip back into 2 days. We broke camp and headed back to stay at either Alpine or west Seagull. It was clear and warm but there was a strong, steady breeze. The wind was from the northwest so the paddle back to Kingfisher was long and rough.

Kingfisher was a fairly easy paddle, but Alpine was very rough. There were white-caps and the wind was very hard to handle between the islands. It took at least twice as long to get back as it took to get through the first time.
Seagull didn't look too bad, we would be going mostly with the wind so we set a course roughly straight east from the portage for a couple of islands with campsites. It wasn't too bad at first, but the wind shifted from the west to the northwest and the waves got rougher as we progressed. My son in the other canoe had an especially rough time with the high waves.
We got the the first campsite on a large island and found a beautiful spot. It was a sloping campsite with unburned trees and had burned trees all around it. The tent sites had a few nasty rocks, but it was adequate. There was a nice rock point that gave a great view to the north and west.
The "box" was a little overgrown but decent. We didn't bother setting up the rain fly since the weather was clear. The wind died down as the day progressed.
The trip took a lot of energy and boys were starved. We had 3 meals left and I cooked up all of them and the kids were still hungry. Oh well, less to carry back tomorrow.
The boys stayed up late talking...it was their last night and they wanted to get every drop out of the experience. It was a cool evening - good sleeping weather.