Tuesday, August 16, 2016 Peter again tried for Walleyes while I slept in, but after seeing the size of the Northerns in the lake, we’re guessing the Eye’s may have found new homes, where the predators were not so big! While eating our pancakes and last eggs, we decided we had three wonderful days up here and it was time to head home. After getting everything packed up, we hit the water heading for Cattyman. As we got to the portage, a couple from Nashville, TN was just getting to Jordan. We asked where they were headed and they said “Disappointment lake for the night and then they were going out the next day”. As we had the same destination in mind, but were going the other direction, it was obvious that one of our groups was going the wrong way. They were grateful that we got them going in the right direction, and we played leap frog, eventually finding they had found an open campsite on the island just outside the portage on Disappointment Lake. The first portage was from Cattyman to Adventure, a short and easy trip of 10 rods. Next we walked into Jitterbug (40 rods) which was a really boggy lake with lots of lilly pads and other weeds. After going by the portage to Ahsub (15 rods), we backtracked too far, and then came back again and eventually found the water path to the portage. Ahsub lake had a couple areas to put in, we went across the creek and further down before loading up. As we got started, there were still lots of big rocks in the water. About 50 yards down the stream, we got into deep water and worked our way across the lake to the next portage into Disappointment. At that portage we met two ladies that swam from their campsite on Disappointment to the portage (25 rods) and were looking for the Snowbank trail to walk. After a quick search they realized the June storm had made the trail impassable, so they decided to just swim around Ahsub for a while before heading back to their camp on Disappointment. This was only my third trip to the BWCA, and I had met many other canoeists on portages, but this was the first time I came across swimmers this deep in the BWCA. After a long paddle across Disappointment, we had to decide if we would take the portage straight to Snowbank (140 rods) or go through Parent(85 rods) to Snowbank(80 rods). I wanted to just do the long portage and be done with them, but Peter wanted to see how much damage there was from the June storms. So off to Parent we went. The campsites were empty and looked OK, but after we got to the Portage to Snowbank, we saw the firsthand devastation of the wind, as trees were twisted and snapped all the way to Snowbank. I think the last leg of our journey was about six hours from Jordan to Entry point 27, but without the hundred foot climb (I wonder if the mountain goat is OK?) I felt like I could have gone much further. We got everything loaded up and started for home. It was a great trip but still a long ride home. The next weekend I took my wife fishing, and she was able to boat a northern that was not too big to eat and I finally got my fish fry! So with three trips in my back pocket, I am planning a May solo from Snowbank through Ensign to Knife (Isle of Pines), down to Kekekabic for a couple days, and then back through Fraser, Thomas, Ima, and Jordan before repeating the path out from this trip. Maybe I’ll toss a surface lure on Jitterbug!