Tuesday, July 04, 2017 (day 5, Ge-be-on-e-quet to Oyster)
We woke up early on Independence Day and had a simple breakfast of oatmeal, which allowed us to get going by 8:30. While the portages this day were straightforward, each time M said she wanted me to take the canoe despite having said that she wanted to portage the canoe on all of this day's portages. The lakes today were aptly named - Green Lake was a dirty and somewhat unpleasant lake, and I was quite happy that I'd successfully convinced M that we shouldn't move from our lovely site on Gebe to the lone site on this lake the day before. Rocky Lake was much prettier, but the landings on both sides were tricky, with no good places to launch or land the canoe.
Coming through the portage to Oyster, the lake looked beautiful and clean but it also looked big and windy. M wanted to take the first site on the peninsula in front of the portage, but it was already in use, which I appreciated since I wanted to get across the lake. So we pushed to the end of the peninsula to turn toward the east end of the lake.
Turning around the point of the peninsula, we encountered the first really strong head/cross wind we'd encountered on the trip. Since one of my goals for this trip was to evaluate the suitability of a Northwind 18 for our paddling needs, I was thrilled to have the chance to fight the wind. M was determined to get to our designated site as quickly as possible, since we could see the site across the lake and could tell it wasn't currently occupied, but was sitting right by a portage on the other side. So we pushed hard, and the boat responded quite well. It was a bit more work to steer against the wind (which was hitting us at about 2 O'clock when we were perfectly on course) than a smaller boat, but it cut through the waves nicely and never made us at all worried about tipping.
We arrived at the site without any issues and without anybody else claiming it and I began to think I was silly to worry about it, but we hadn't been t the site for more than thirty minutes before two separate other parties came through the portage and toward the site in hopes of claiming it, so I was glad we'd worked hard to get there quickly.
We had lunch and then I considered the water situation - usually I draw drinking water from the center of the lake, but despite the boat's good handling I still wasn't crazy about paddling an empty canoe into the center of the lake against the very strong winds, and I figured the wind was forcing fresh water to the shore anyway, so we drew at the lake edge. The water was still almost as good as Ge-be-on-e-quet's water, which had been the best water on the trip.
Since we'd arrived at the site before noon and it was a beautiful day, we decided to explore a trail that seemed to head from the site toward the portage, and sure enough, there was a trail that connected from the site to the portage - just under a quarter mile away. We walked the portage in its entirety as well, and then walked back, and discussed whether it might make more sense to simply portage from the site rather than loading the canoe only to unload a quarter mile away, but decided that unless it was extremely windy in the morning, it would still make more sense to paddle to the portage. M also decided that she would definitely portage the canoe the next day, since she hadn't portaged it since the first portage of the trip.
The day was so beautiful, and the wind did such a good job of keeping our site bugless, that we didn't even set up the rain/bug fly. M gave me some trouble for having taken the camp day on Gebe when we could have come here before taking it, but I reminded her that this site may have been taken the day before - all evidence suggested that we were now too close to the entry point to assume any site would not be taken.
It being Independence Day, we looked and listened for fireworks, and heard a few at around 10:00. We seemed quite far from Ely, but after the trip another BWCA poster stated that one of the resorts on the Echo Trail sets off fireworks, and that's probably what we heard.
I don't believe I've ever slept in my tent without its rain fly - I'm too paranoid, too unwilling to risk waking up in a soaking wet sleeping bag when I have an excellent, stormproof fly right there. But I really wanted to see the stars without having to sit outside the tent all night, and the sky was so clear and cloudless, that we decided we'd do it, with all our gear stacked near the door and with the rain fly at the ready. We actually got into the tent that way, and then shortly after we'd gotten comfortable I felt the temperature start to drop and a few clouds roll in. So out I went, in my underwear, feeling totally like I'd failed yet again to just take the chance, putting the rainfly on the tent and dragging all our gear under the fly.
And then, about 12:30 in the morning, I was vindicated. Out of nowhere a massive storm cell hit, lighting up the tent with hard flashes of lightning against the total blackness of a hard downpour, with water hitting the ground with such force that it sprayed water and dirt up and under the front vestibule of the rain fly, still managing to soak one pair of shoes and getting the footbox of M's sleeping bag slightly damp even through the tent's mesh door. Twenty minutes later, it was calm and clear again.~Ge-be-on-e-quet Lake, Green Lake, Rocky Lake, Oyster Lake