Early morning. Probably slept a solid 4 hours, but feeling frisky as I want to get into Horseshoe and see what awaits us. The morning is nice, and we are on Horseshoe by 8. Caribou into Horseshoe is a nice portage, have done it a few times and gives us no troubles.

I just love this lake. Went through last year and passed on every campsite—we stayed on Gaskin. With a solid 3 or 4 sites marked on our map we quickly survey the two immediately adjacent to the portage in from Caribou and decide its plenty early enough to check the rest of the sites out. Glad we do, because we occupy what I think is likely the best or 2nd best site on the lake. We shack up on the site on the point that is directly across from the small island and 200 yards across from the site that has the cliff into water.

Nice open fire area, one huge tent pad with enough room for two tents, and a nice view East. Hell of an upgrade from the night before. Sweet!

Get camp set up, make lunch and make plans to check out Winchell. It’s 1 PM and we head out with a goal to check out the waterfall on Winchell. We push through Gaskin and it’s busy —great lake though, not surprised. We blast through the portage into Winchell and are at the end by 3 PM. Holy smokes.

I’ve heard stories about this lake and yeah, it’s huge. Big water. I would find out later that it clocks in at a lengthy 7 miles from end to end. Of course there is an insulting breeze in our face—standard.

We get out on the lake and are paddling at a good clip—trying whatever we can do to keep moving forward, but not gas ourselves for the 2 or 3 hour paddle back to camp. Did I say this lake was long? It took us a good hour to reach the falls. Probably not bad timing. We make our way up and get about as high as we can—what a gorgeous site and a great reward for the paddle in. Take a few pics, joke about the paddle, and head out. The other two in our group took their time and paddled around Winchell for a bit and came upon a cool water feature flowing into Winchell from a small lake on the North side.

We get back into Horseshoe at around 6 PM and I’m keeping my eye on the West/NW the whole time as larger clouds are starting to form. Something really neat was about to happen.

As we’re approaching our site, I look dead south towards the inlet that takes you into Vista. Not more than 200 yards due south from the campsite with the large rock cliff is there a cow moose with two calves. Momma is out in the middle of the weedy narrows in about 6’ of water grazing while her two kids are keeping their eyes peeled—the see us and keep an eye out. We keep our distance—not too close, but not close enough to get a super good iPhone photo—and respect them. Watched them for a good 15 minutes and headed back. So cool. I’ve heard stories of this being a Moose lake and we got lucky enough to validate that. Unfortunately the other two in our group would miss the sighting.

Get into camp around 7, get dinner rolling, and our other two roll in a half an hour later and it immediately starts raining. Rained pretty solid for 30 or 40 minutes, but let off and the night was calm there after. We had a good dinner under the tarp and a nice fire to close out a long and tiring day. Hung the food pack and lights out at midnight. Day 2 in the books.