Sunday, June 24, 2018

Planned~Tuscarora Lake, Missing Link Lake, Round Lake

*Revised~Crooked Lake, Owl Lake, Tuscarora Lake, Missing Link Lake, Round Lake

This morning was damp and overcast. The wind was not fun either. I had slept wrong and my shoulder was hurting so I didn't wake Adam up when I was awake. Instead I tried to work the pain out of my shoulder and took some advil. A while later we were up and moving around. We had breakfast and enjoyed the view plus the fact that it wasn't raining. I think we left the site around 10 or 11.

It wasn't far to the portage, not enough to get warmed up, so at least I was moving a bit slow for this one. Owl was another smaller lake but we were paddling into the wind and that was slightly concerning since Tuscarora was next and we would be going across the entire length of the lake.

The portage to Tuscarora was about 60 rods and rocky but I don't remember much else. Tuscarora is a beautiful lake. I just wish we could have enjoyed it instead of paddling straight through while struggling a little with the wind. It wasn't bad, but enough to take a little shelter behind the islands. We pushed on for the final stretch before the long portage and finally the wind let up in the more sheltered bay. It was here that Adam made the observation that the lake was not bad for the amount of wind and depth, and he thought the taller terrain, with the hills and cliffs, might be keeping a good portion of the wind off the water, especially closer to shore.

The portage to Missing Link was full of brush and mud. Halfway through we had to put the canoe in the water and load it up to cross the swamp. The food bag was pretty much empty by this point so we swapped who was carrying the canoe. Missing Link was smaller than anticipated. Nice cliff on the west side.

When looking for the portage to Round we ran into some issues... There was only 1 other portage on this lake and it was going to the east, not north. After staring at the map for a while then cursing, Adam passed it up to me and said he had some bad news. This was not Missing Link, this was Hubbub. That 360 (Adam's map said 420) rod to Missing Link we took was really the 280 to Hubbub. We made a wrong turn, again. We must have aimed for the wrong point when we came around the island and had our heads down in the wind (we were worried we would lose our hats ), not noticing that we entered the wrong bay. This was at about 2:30 and we were expecting to have an easy exit. After quite a bit of talking, we decided to continue along the route we were on with 3 mid sized portages rather than doing the 2 long portages in a row and backtracking. At least we would see a new area.

So we landed on the portage to Copper and began a grumpy portage. Copper was a long narrow lake that we were a bit too sullen to take in very well. At the end of the lake, after getting caught up on rocks where we both had to get out to let the canoe float over, we found the portage. 30 ft and 2 bends later there is a landing and we were thoroughly confused. We thought that maybe that was just a pull over not on the map so we went further looking for the portage. We came up to a beaver dam and realized this was not the right way. As we turned around a big brown beaver dives out of a bush and escapes into the water. This was about 5 feet from us and pretty cool.

We went back and found the portage down a small channel through the weeds. Looks like it was flooded because of the beaver dam and Adam's map is just old. This portage wasn't bad but after crossing the bridge it was a steep up hill. By the way, I mentioned earlier that there was a lot of underbrush in the burn areas, this was much worse. These portages between Tuscarora and Snipe were not used much at all and there were many times that we had to check to see if we were still on the trail. It was so thick that we could not see our feet. At least the down trees had been mostly cleared or it could have been impossible to do the portages without setting down the canoe. As it was, I did have a down tree on this portage that I had to go under and was practically on my knees with the canoe on my shoulders to get through.

After loading the canoe at another difficult landing on Snipe and trying to navigate through the islands without hitting submerged rocks, we did miss the channel once but only a 5 min detour, we made it to the portage to Missing Link, for what felt like the second time. This was a boulder hopping muddy portage that one point where there was a 5 ft boulder/wall we had to climb up. There was a convenient log there that made it possible but tricky. Along this portage we saw moose tracks. There appeared to be a cow and calf walking down almost the entire portage. Fresh tracks after yesterdays rain. Cool to see but we didn't see the moose at all.

We finally got to Missing Link for real and it was about 6:00. Our wrong turn was a 3-3 1/2 hour detour. Good thing I planned the last day to be so easy. If not then the ground we had to make up because of the rain and the detour would have made exiting that day a fantasy. Glad that I learned that lesson when our route just happened to work out like that for us.

The last portage was a little long, rocky, buggy, and muddy. I carried the canoe the last time and it was hurting to haul it. I was glad to set it down after as long as that day was.

It was before 7 when we got back to the truck, so we loaded up, changed and tied the canoe down. The plan for the day had been to drive to the end of the trail just down the road and maybe see the museum too, but we just settled for the Tuscarora gift shop. We got a beer each, a beer glass with the Tuscarora log, and I grabbed some stuffed animals for the kids. We drank the beers on the shore by the dock and enjoyed the evening sun.

On the way back we got Dairy Queen again and got back to Adam's place around 10:30-11.

That shower felt so good. So did the thought that I had taken the next day off (Adam hadn't or we probably would have stopped for another night).

Actual route ~Crooked Lake, Owl Lake, Tuscarora Lake, Hubbub Lake, Copper Lake, Snipe Lake, Missing Link Lake, Round Lake

Lakes Traveled:   Crooked Lake, Owl Lake, Tuscarora Lake, Hubbub Lake, Copper Lake, Snipe Lake, Missing Link Lake, Round Lake,