Last Day in the Park Survived another evening in Woodland Caribou and I’m always amazed by how brilliant the star’s shine and the moon light makes its presence known when out in the wilderness at night. Last night’s scenery would be an astronomers dream! But man alive does the weather change fast, woke up to more pitter patter on the tent. I knew right away if we stayed here today, we would be hanging out in the tent or standing under a tree all day. Dad and I talked about our options of staying here or packing up camp and heading back closer to the Subaru. There was a campsite on Douglas Lake we wanted to stay on. Dad got up around 8:00 which must have been the equivalent of me sleeping in till Noon! He put his rain jacket on and went outside for a while. He comes back 10 min later and crawls back into his sleeping bag. “It was cold!” He said and we both shook our heads and laughed. A few min later he pops straight up and says “That’s it! We are packing up camp!” And just like that we started to get our sleeping mats rolled up and sleeping bags stuffed into their sacks. The night before, we packed up most of the gear and got things ready. We were going to move to Johnson Lake and take our time about it. Must have been no later than 9:30 am when we shoved off from our point on Upper Hatchet Lake. Coming up on Gull Island soon and could see the gulls taking flight one by one to fly over us. Almost like they were F-16’s flying off an air craft carrier. As long as we can paddle by without them getting a direct hit on us! Ha Ha! (wipe’s brow) Made it by unscathed and took a large victory drink of water from the Nalgene bottle.

It was time to make a grueling portage from Upper Hatchet Lake, into Hatchet Lake. The portage is like walking in a small stream, this time the direction is downhill. Things were slippery and muddy from all the rain and I took extra time to make sure each foot step was firmly placed. Taking a fall this far remote could really put a survival risk on our trip. Loaded up the canoe and paddled on through the northern arm of Hatchet Lake with the wind at our backs. We were really making great time and with that wind pushing us, it really makes for a huge confidence booster with every stroke we took. The last thing you want to do is battle the wind when your mindset on exiting the park and making good time. Thunderheads were accumulating in the distance and Jackson still had his rain suite on and was sitting in the middle of the canoe. Dad and I had taken our rain suits off on that portage out of Upper Hatchet. Right now Dad and I were enjoying a nice paddle with the sun shining down, the wind at our backs and approaching the final 525-meter portage of the trip. This is the portage from Johnson Lake to Douglas Lake where we first put in on the trip. I jumped out of the canoe and helped Jackson get the food pack on his back and off he went. Then I helped Dad get the bulky Duluth #4 pack on his back and away he went. I quickly scooped up the Wenonah graphite canoe and headed off after them. I could then hear Jackson and Dad talking on the portage and Jackson was saying “There is a lake over there so I turned back around”. Now, I was thinking that it had only been a matter of minutes that I helped Jackson with the food pack, how could he possibly walk that whole 525-meter portage already. Turns out we were mistaken about the length of this portage, as it was only 150 meters! We all laughed and I told Jackson to head back over to that Lake. It was now time for the 525-meter portage with the extreme boggy conditions. This was the portage I sunk my right leg into on the way into the park. I warned the group about what looks like only a puddle, could really be a boggy sink hole. I would not make that mistake again. Just as we brought over the food bag, Duluth #4 and canoe… lightening flashed, thunder rolled and it began raining cats and dogs! Dad asked “Where are our rain jackets?” I said they were in the other Duluth pack on the other side of the portage. Dad and Jackson ran for the trees to get out of the direct rain, but one thing was for certain… we were going to get wet! Except for Jackson, who still had his rain gear on since we left camp at 9:30 this morning! Had to laugh about that but it was smart on his half. I went back to get the last pack, like I did on every portage. I didn’t mind double portaging and it was easier for Dad and Jackson this way. Made it back to the canoe with the final pack, soaked from head to toe, I figured it wasn’t worth digging through the Duluth Pack to get the rain gear out. We just wanted to keep on moving so we carefully loaded up the canoe and had Dad get in front first so we could push the canoe out for the next person to get in. All the while, the clouds were rolling and thunder and lightning were crashing and you just knew that this was going to be a huge storm. Jackson gets into the canoe and then it came time for me to get in and shove off from the boggiest portage ever. I yelled “See you later!” And at that moment, we might as well have been in a monsoon in Woodland Caribou. Cold temperature changes with rain coming down in sheets, and you could hear and see the rain get more and more violent as we paddled on to the Johnson Lake entry point. No matter how hard we paddled today, our path was going to cross with this storm. Reaching our destination back to the Johnson Lake entry point we had to take a victory selfie and it felt so good to know that we will be heading back home today.