Next day, my goal was to reach the north site on Mesaba close to Leah Lake. I decided then to put on another deerfly patch. The paddle up the Kelso River was a really pretty one under blue skies and a bit of a head wind. Lots of lily pad areas, pitcher plants and twists and turns. Here’s the landing going into Kelso and the paddle:

and two other scenes:

Upon reaching the Lujineda end of the 460 rod portage, I saw a USFS canoe:

I unloaded and began looking for my permit as I know they would be asking for it. I stashed it in my brand new REI daypack and for the life of me I couldn’t find it! Here comes the ranger. Permit asked for. Frantically looking. Spill a whole bag of M&Ms on the trail. Can’t find it!!! Is he going to fine me? Send me back to Sawbill to get another permit? The ranger was great. Earlier I had asked for (and got) a trash bag at the ranger station in GM and they put my permit # on it. The ranger took the # and paddled away. After he was long gone, I of course found the permit in a back pocket of my new pack.

The portage, while not bad, was loooooooonnnnnnng! I decided to leap frog, taking my canoe and food barrel pack first for about 70 or so rods, then returning and picking up my gear pack and day pack for the second round. Paddles and pfd were bdb’d to the canoe. The portage is a bit overgrown in places and once I tripped on a big rock and found myself face down on the trail with a barrel and canoe over me. That was fun to get out of!

Finally reaching Zenith L, I crossed over and portaged into Duck Lake. I not only hit a strong headwind (especially for a solo in an SR17), but Duck is almost entirely covered in lily pads and it took a lot of power stroking on my knees in the center of the canoe to get thru. I gave Duck another similar sounding name that eerily rhymed with it, but again, this is a G rated report.

Even more headwind on Bug and the portage landing at Mesaba greeted me with near whitecaps. I rested a bit, took in some trail mix and when the wind died ever so slightly, I took off. Man, was I burning some calories. I made it to the north end of Mesaba and found NO campsite! What’s the deal? Okay, after passing by it 3 times, I finally saw a hint of a sitting log and there it was. Used very little and just ok. That nite I watched a beaver swim around the lake.

The winds had calmed, the temps were perfect. I sat on a granite slab and had a margarita “on the rocks” – literally.

It was a 6 fly day.