15 mles paddled today, 5hrs 54 min moving time, 7 hrs 30 min total. 2.5 mph avg. 8 portages, 9 lakes. Ima, Jordan, Cattyman, Adventure, Jitterbug, Ahsub, Disappointment, Parent and Snowbank at Smitty's.

Slept in a little today. Woke up at 7:15am. Went and layed in the hammock. It was a grey morning with clouds, breezy and cool. Looked like rain was on the way and it did shortly after. Went back to bed in the tent waiting for the rain to end. After it let up I was out and making breakfast. Today was english muffins, blueberry granola with milk and some oj. We were very slow packing up as we knew this was our last day in the boundary waters.

The wind was picking up and we witnessed 3 other canoes crossing Ima. They looked like they were barely moving so we were in no hurry to get caught in the wind. We did not leave Ima until 1pm. It was still pretty windy crossing the open waters of Ima until we were closer to the portage to Jordan. The Jordan narrows were pretty calm. Very nice area. The sun finally comes out and the grey clouds make way for big white puffy ones with blue sky. It got up in the lower 80's again.

The wind today was coming from the NW at 10-20mph most of the day. As we backtracked from the way we came in, once we hit Cattyman lake we then went south to explore new lakes. First was Adventure lake which was pretty small but we had a nice view of Disappointment Mountain. At the portage from Adventure to Jitterbug a guy who was there noticed my Leinenkugel's Northwoods sticker on the canoe. He asked if I had any on tap. That sure would have hit the spot about then! We move on to Jitterbug which was pretty much a mucky, stinky bog. The portage was a bit tricky to find as it was hiding from us. We do find it and quickly move on to Ahsub lake. Ahsub was nice and would have camped there if we had another night to spare. It was a smaller lake but I liked it. Next was Disappointment Lake. We take a break here before paddling some bigger lakes. I have heard much about Disappointment and am happy to finally get to paddle on it. It really is a beautiful lake with islands spread about. It was a bit windy but enjoyed my time there.

We then worked our way to the double portage on the SW side. We had 2 choices, go left to Parent or right to Snowbank. We chose left to Parent. It was a rocky portage with a fallen tree in the middle of the portage we had to climb over. Not difficult though. Parent Lake was nice and round. The wind was not so bad here. We then find our last portage to mighty Snowbank. We have quite a ways to paddle to get back to Smitty's. As we see Snowbank from the portage we know it is going to be a challenge. The wind and waves were kicking. It was a far cry from the calm waters she was when we started our trip.

It was 7:38pm when we started paddling on Snowbank. We were fighting the wind the whole way back and some of the waves were coming at us in all different directions. It was by far our biggest challenge the entire trip. We also saw a couple of motorboats that are allowed on this end of the lake. None of them were close enough to worry about though. It took us 48 minutes to make the crossing in big water and waves back to Smitty's from the Parent Lake portage. It felt like 2 hours though. I am very happy how my wenonah escape handles in wind and waves.

It ended up being 2.69 miles from the parent portage to Smitty's which is shorter than if we would have not gone through Parent Lake. I think that was a wise move or else we would have had to paddle longer on a windy Snowbank. So we make it back to the landing at Smitty's at 8:26pm and as we approached the calm bay the sun was setting on a clear blue sky and could not have asked for a better sight to end our trip.

So our total distance of paddling and portaging was 65 miles, 36 lakes, 2 unnamed ponds, 37 portages over 5 days. Really enjoyed this route and hope to make it back to Kekekabic someday.

Weather was great overall. We only put the tarp up our first night. We had no bear problems. Black flies and skeeters were pretty bad I though.