Thursday, August 16, 2012

We were up and showered by 7:30 only to find wind and rain waiting for us. It turns out that the wind and rain would really dictate the rest of our day and in turn the rest of our trip. We were off to Trail Center in time to be their first customers of the day at 8am sharp. I highly recommend their bread pudding French toast with the pumpkin syrup.

After breakfast we loaded up the canoe and shoved off from Rockwood into a 20-25 mph head wind with intermittent rain, mist and higher wind gusts. The conditions weren’t dangerous but they were very unpleasant. By the time we crossed Poplar Lake to the 315 rod portage to skipper we were pretty wet and already sick of the wind.
We made relatively short work of the first leg of the portage, me carrying the canoe and PFD’s and my wife carrying our large granite gear portage pack that we bought for the trip. My agreement with my wife is that if she carries the heavy pack then she can single portage. So when I set the canoe down at the end of the portage I was headed right back to get our last load as my wife rested with the dog.
Just as I was starting to make my way back to the start of the portage I came across a large group who was right behind us. I chatted with them briefly and found out we were both targeting the first and only site on Skipper lake which was the nearest campsite. Initially I was hoping to make it to Rush or Banadad that day but we just weren't up for fighting the wind and rain all day. Once finding out we were in a race I double timed it back over the 315 rods jogging most of the way. Normally I take my time and soak up the forest but given the crappy conditions I wanted to make sure to get the site on Skipper. On my way back I passed all 7 members of the group each of them fully loaded with gear. As soon as I got back to the start of the portage I broke out laughing as I knew the race was over and I had already won. Sitting at the start of the portage was enough gear to last an army of people a full month. I didn’t even bother to count the packs as they were piled everywhere including on top of my 2 small packs. It was clear that they were at least going to be triple portaging. I can’t even imagine triple portaging a 315 rod portage. As soon as I finished up the last leg of the portage I was treated to yet another piece of amusement from this large group. One member of their group talked about looking forward to lunch as he opened a big back pack full of 10 foot long subs from Subway that they purchased on the way to the EP. Not only did their lunch require an entire medium sized pack of its own it also created enough garbage that they still needed a small pack to carrying the garbage with them for the next week.
Being done with the portage we shoved off and left the group to finish up their triple portage and headed off to make camp on Skipper Lake. The site turned out to be a nice site with a nice rock face for sunning yourself (when there is sun) and great views to the west. Only down side is that the sitting logs by the fire left a lot to be desired.
We made camp and completed all the chores including me building my standard pile of fire wood and were relaxing for quite awhile when finally the large group behind us paddled by, at least a good 2 hours behind us. I hope they stopped to eat those subs somewhere in that time.
We spent the rest of the day lounging around and doing a little fishing and generally trying to avoid the intermittent rain that was still hanging around. Steaks and potatoes for dinner followed by an early bed time. Day one was complete.