Wednesday, June 16, 2010 Day Four: Again, slow day to get up and going. But again, it was not going to be a long travel day. We are heading to Ogish, a popular lake. It was only two portages away. The first was about 100 rods and it took us into Mueller Lake. After getting the gear across the portage and no one coming from either direction, we decided to hike back to where the Kek trail crosses the portage and hike down to the river where a trail bridge crosses over a gorge with a waterfall. It was a pretty cool view from the bridge, plenty sturdy but I would not want to lean on the railings, and the view from the river bank back up to the falls and bridge was also worth the little extra hike. Just before getting to the bridge, the trail also took us through a hiking campsite, one just like a lake one without the water. After arriving in Ogish, I noticed the wind had shifted. As we began to head north, the easterly wind we were used to now was at our backs again and pushing us north. Paddling north in Ogish, we began looking for sites. One after another was full. There was one that was unoccupied. It had a nice landing, several tent pads, we found the latrine, but where we expected the fire grate to be, there was only some skeletons of filleted walleyes, so we moved on. The last site on the north end of the lake appeared to be open, so we headed toward it. It was surrounded by burned out areas of forest, but the site appeared to have been sheltered from the fire, something we noticed about several of the lakes we went through on the trip. Upon landing, Greg said this site was the one our group had stayed at three years ago when we last came through this area. That was one month before the Ham Lake fire and I had read that the last people evacuated out of the area by the Forest Service during the fire had been staying at this site. It was a huge site with several tent pads and hammock trees potential. Eventually we would get four hammocks set up in one area, two for Wylie and I for sleeping. Our immediate plan was to stay here for two days, and head from here out to Seagull, where we would meet up with the other two groups. After setting up camp and getting comfortable, I looked at the map again and thought it would be pushing it to get across Seagull by noon on Friday, not knowing what the weather, winds, crowds, and portages might bring, so reluctantly we decided that it could only be a one night stay and that we would try to go to Alpine or Seagull to camp our last night. Supper that night was spaghetti with beans (rehydrated), and smores for dessert. Everyone was stuffed. The boys tried fishing from shore, but were not as successful as at Gillis or Agamok. It probably didn’t help the fishing much when I decided to take a dip for the first time on the trip here either.