Wednesday, May 24, 2017 The morning of the third day was warmer and brighter than the morning before, which helped me get off of the cold ground and out of my sleeping bag a little earlier. Another breakfast of oatmeal made us happy and energized to get out onto water. The first time of the trip the wind was blowing in the direction we were traveling, so we were able to relax a bit and allow nature to do a bit of the work on our way to see what Johnson Falls was all about. Once we reached the western end of the lake we ran into a few people doing the same as us, so we docked our boat and made the short hike to the falls. At this point in time the falls were heavy! With lots of rain, and little sun, the falls poured a lot of water over the presiding rocks which made for quite the feel. The mist was refreshing, and the sound of the falls was loud and unrelenting, which made for a great time. A must see if you are in this area of the woods! We were happy with our time spent at the falls, so we headed back to our canoe where we were met with a strong headwind as we headed back east across the lake. It felt like we were taking two steps forward and one step back each paddle which deterred our spirits a bit until we decided to check out Vale Lake. We left our canoe at the shore and made the short hike up to the lake where we saw a small water fall and a nice view of the eastern side of Pine Lake. It was nice to be on our feet after that paddle across the lake. Although, we explored the area around Vale Lake looking for a better vista of the surrounding lakes, and sometime during our exploration of the wilderness my map fell out of my back pocket. If you knew me you would know how much I love my maps, but you don’t so just take my word—this frustrated me! We were lucky enough to know our route out of the boundary waters from this point so we weren’t that disabled due to the loss of my map, but it was simply the idea that I let it happen which got to me. NEVER AGAIN! We ventured back down to our canoe and made our way north across the lake to our campsite where we enjoyed the sun. Our camp was located in a part of the woods that had a majority of eastern cedar trees, so we didn’t have much trouble finding dry firewood. On our last night we had some ravioli and relaxed by a hot fire until the sky was filled with stars. I fell asleep to the constant calls of cool ol’ mister loon.