Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Day 4: Gillis Lake to Little Saganaga Lake (5 miles, 5 portages, 200 rods; low=36 high=54)
Got up about 6:30 and a thick fog covered the lake.

Fog covers the lake

Started breakfast and began breaking camp. It was a cool morning, but with no wind, wasn’t bad. After breakfast, the sun was high enough to burn-off some of the fog. I took some photos as we continued breaking camp.

Fog begins to burn off

Looking southwest as fog clears

All clear by the time we leave our camp

We departed about 9:30, a little later than usual due to my photo taking as we broke camp. It was a perfect morning for paddling. The calm waters this morning made for much nicer traveling then yesterday would have.

John’s ready to go

Craig & John head out on a beautiful morning

The small lakes we traveled through today were hit hard by the Cavity Lake fire. Campsites on French, Powell, West Fern, & Virgin were closed because of the fire. The west one on French and south one on Powell looked like they could still be used. By the time we got to Virgin Lake it was completely overcast, after such a beautiful start to the day.

French Lake shoreline

Portage into Powell Lake

Canoes ready to launch – Powell Lake

Virgin Lake

The 90-rod portage into Little Sag was burned out. Because of this, we had a spectacular view of Little Sag as we cleared the ridge along the portage from Virgin Lake.

View of Little Saganaga Lake from the ridge

Craig & John along the portage (upper right)

As we started out on Little Sag, it looked like rain from some of the clouds to our west, even though there had been no mention of rain on the weather radio the previous night. We stopped at the point, before leaving the bay, to put on our rain gear. Just as we stopped it started to rain. A few passing showers continued until we reached our campsite along the east shore of Little Sag. It was now about 12:40, so just 3 hours of travel today.
As we pulled into camp we saw an eagle take off from a tree just above and behind our site. John & Craig saw another one still sitting in the tree. They went up to find the latrine and said the eagle was still there. I went up hoping to get a shot of it. I was able to get a couple before it took off and a couple of it in flight.

Eagle looking over the lake

Decided I was too close

We then had lunch and setup camp. There was no sunshine, but the rain stopped long enough for the tents and rain flies to dry out. After setting up camp, I hiked up to the top of the rocks behind our site for some great views of Little Sag. Even with the low overcast, I took some shots of the nice aerial view of the lake.

Little Sag looking southwest

Little Sag looking northwest

Supper was sweet & sour chicken, not bad. We had our Barons as we waited and hoped for a sunset. There were just enough breaks in the clouds for a passing shower and clouds to catch a little pink. Finished our Barons and turned in shortly before 8:00. Passing showers continued until about midnight. Got up shortly after midnight and the sky was full of stars, giving us hope for a clear day tomorrow.

The clouds and a passing shower catch some color from the setting sun