Tuesday, July 22, 2014

This day began at 12:15AM for us. I felt a few drops of rain and, though they felt good, I woke Jake up and we got the rainfly on the tent. Within 20 minutes the most violent storm I've ever been in was on us. Since it came from the South I'm certain it had some time to gather steam coming up the lake toward us. The wind was unbelievably strong and deafening. We each turned on our sides and grabbed the tent poles trying to brace ourselves against the wind and hold things in place. After about 10-15 minutes of this I hear from the outside "you've got to get out of there, NOW!!!" "A huge tree is on your tent". Jake now has his headlamp on and thinks he is holding it up with his knees. Little did he know. We both turned on our bellies and crawled out. The headlamps revealed how close we were to a crushing death. Now I'm standing outside in the driving wind and rain (finally I'm getting cooled off from roasting :)). Quickly everyone is out and beginning to assess the damage. Luke throws me a set of raingear and we continue to search the campsite for potential problems. The edge of another tent has been hit and grazes the leg of one member of the party. Other trees are down but we are unable to spot any "widowmakers" in standing trees or any others that appear to be ready to fall on us. All 9 of us gather and give thanks to the Lord for His providential care. We could easily have had deaths in the camp. Now we prayed for the group that was left behind at Lynx and committed them to the care of the Lord. After over an hour of wandering around we went back to bed after one thunderous exclamation point that ended the storm. We knew that we would have our work cut out for us in the morning.! This is what the daylight revealed.

The following photo shows another tent that was hit on the edge. Actually it was deflected by a standing tree to this spot. If it had'nt been deflected it would likely have crushed the tent. One of the islands will never look the same.

this photo was taken from behind the island ...note the campsite through the island.

Soon we began to see searchplanes and figured that others may have been hurt in this terrible storm.

Now we knew we had to change plans and return to Lynx promptly. We figured the trails back the way we came would be a disaster. So we kept with the original plan of returning via the Sioux Hustler Trail. Later we found out that the SHT in our area took a major hit. Our understanding aftewards was that this storm not only comes straight line with 70mph winds but also drops downdrafts with hurricane force. The following pictures will show you why the approximate 600 rods to Hustler from Rangeline via the SHT took 4 1/4 hours. We were thankful that we had a new and excellent hachet or there's no telling how long it would have taken.

I think the 3 sentinels survived the storm but similar size trees did not. Some of the huge downed trees were the easiest to get past. It was the smaller tangled mess that presented the toughest part of the trail. Finally we neared the end of the trip between Rangeline and Hustler. The damage was enormous. What a great feeling to be back on the water. Now our thoughts and prayers returned to our friends back on Lynx Lake. The rest of the trip back was relatively easy. No damage at all to the short and beautiful portage that separates Hustler from Ruby and the portage from Ruby to Lynx only had one tough spot, otherwise it was all downhill and not too bad. Finally, back to the campsites. Our companions were all safe. They had a tough evening with high winds but apparently the worst part of the storm dropped on us at Rangeline. It was time to give thanks, get cleaned up and rest. We were totally whipped.