Tuesday, August 10, 2010
It's apples and cinnamon oatmeal with Tang for breakfast today. Then we take turns using the portable shower that I brought. I filled the bag yesterday and laid it on a rock in the sun before I hung it in the trees last night. The water is still pretty warm. With single portaging, we do not have many luxuries but this is one that I insisted upon and it is glorious.
We break camp before shoving off for Gaskin where I have heard the fishing is good. This is another lush lake with a lot of shoreline variation. I spy an island site ahead but the boys out-vote me and we take a site just east of the portage from Winchell as a man and his wife are leaving. They tell us it is a fantastic site - and they are right - and that you can catch smallmouth right from the shore - and the site was nice!
We try fishing from the shore of the site for a little bit with no luck.
Ethan and I leave Patrick and Max at the site while we go fishing hoping to pick up some lunch. We get a couple of hits but it turns out that we must eat noodles of defeat and a little beef jerky.
Leaving Gaskin, we paddle towards Hensen and as soon as we portage in, we cross paths with a beaver swimming nose up towards his dam. We slow up to give him the right of way but he still slap slap slaps the water with his tail to let us know who is boss.
Moving on, we find an open site just across from the portage into the Otto Lakes and we stop to check it out. It looks small so we continue on to towards Omega, passing a group of six girls who tell us that only one small site in a bay is left open there. We consider dropping down into the Otto Lakes - and we should have - but decide against it and continue on to take the last open site on Omega.
This is a small site, just as we were told, plus it is a little buggy and a lot rocky. It has a very nice, if small, single tent pad that we don't need but would be nice for a small group of say two to four. We quickly hang our hammocks while Max scours the shaded woodland floor for chipmunks. The unsuspecting rodents scurry from his fierce attacks until they are safely in the trees. Once there, they become sassy, chittering their taunts down on him.
I make Bear Creek vegetable beef soup for dinner - not so good but I might have rushed it a little. We do a little swimming and some fishing before we huddle around the smoky fire. It is another starless night but buried back in the trees as this site is, it probably wouldn't have mattered. Eventually, we settle into the hammocks for the night as Max patrols the camp. We continue to set up his pup tent just in case but he is happy to roam until he settles under one of the hammocks where I think he spends his whole night.