We started out Day 4 with scrambled eggs, grits, and bacon seasoned with red pepper and a little Parmesan cheese. It was delicious! We got an early start to the morning and began traveling across Haven. We came into the burn area on the southwest end of the lake. We spotted a person camping at one of the burned campsites. He was the first person we had seen in two days and we politely waved as we paddled by. It turned out to be Karl who had flown into Mexican Hat through our outfitter the same day we had flown out. He flagged us down to talk about pictographs, his adventures, and warned us about the black ooze at the upcoming portages. We continued to the end of Haven and began searching for the portage. Before we entered the creek between Gulch and Haven we noticed an orange piece of tape on a burnt tree, but the map indicated the portage was considerably up the creek. We paddled quite a ways up the creek until we ran out of water and then we began pulling the canoe through the bog until that became impossible. At that point, we bushwhacked through the bog, into the burn, and this is where we finally found the portage and BLUEBERRIES! Jenny picked blueberries while Chris carried most of the gear to the end of the now found portage. Lesson learned: orange tape=portage and the map is “approximate.” 

We paddled through Gulch to the very steep portage in a burn area. The 525m portage was difficult to follow in places, but thank goodness for the orange tape and rock cairns to keep us on track. It was uphill and we easily found the slippery black ooze Karl had warned us about. The view from the top was amazing. The portage ended in a floating bog on Jigsaw lake. 

Navigating Jigsaw was somewhat of an adventure. Directly off the portage we beached on a rock that we couldn’t see! It was huge! We managed to get off of the rock and back on track. Jenny had to keep asking if Chris knew where he was and he commonly responded, “the GPS does.” As we paddled along, we started to hear a strange noise. At first, we thought it was a moose, but after sitting in silence realized it was a chain saw. After lunch, we paddled to the portage from Jigsaw to Wrist and were greeted by the friendly portage crew. The landing was an impressive floating mat of vegetation. The portage had been fully cleared and was much easier to follow. We paddled across Wrist to the sand beach take out on the south end. The portage was very short and wide into Streak Lake. We followed Streak into Aegean Creek over the two short portages. We were able to skip the first portage and the second portage was very short. Once on Aegean we saw a tent at the campsite with the boat cache, but paddled on and settled for a campsite on an island midway down the lake. Upon reaching our campsite we saw a lone canoeist with his dog fishing. We quickly set up camp, took a swim, and made spaghetti with garlic biscuits for supper. It was delicious! The swimming ledge was great for diving and the water was only slightly numbing. That night the wind picked up and the clouds came out. People count: 4.