I woke up at 7 to a cloudy/gloomy morning with a SW breeze. The storms must have just missed us to the south. We leisurely packed up and left Meeds at 10:30 am with Omega as our destination. It was a little windy so we hoped it didn’t pick up. About ¼ of the way down the Meeds-Swallow portage we encountered a tree down. It was a cedar with a 16-18 inch trunk and it was directly along the path for 30-40 feet. It seemed like there was no way around it. Scotty busted out his hatched and cleared a path along one side of the trunk. It took a good 30 minutes or more but was well worth it. The total delay for the downed tree was probably 45 minutes.

Somewhere between the downed tree and Swallow I had a grouse run across the portage about 10-15 feet in front of me. Claire was getting tired after the Swallow-Pillsbery portage and was worried about over exerting herself. Scott and I double portaged from then on. The portages were getting shorter anyway and doubling even the 100 rod’ers wasn’t difficult. All of the portages have been real muddy so far. We made it to Henson and the wind was brutal! It was straight out of the west and blowing right down the length of Henson. It was quite the struggle. At times the wind was blowing so hard it felt like we weren’t even moving and there was no way we could stop paddling or we would be going backward in a hurry. It was a long paddle and we finally made it to the Omega portage. It was a rather easy portage. Slightly uphill and muddy but we made quick work of it. Our plan was to see if we could tell if the NE site on Omega was open and then check out the prime southern camp site. The NE site looked open so we headed for the southern site. The wind on the north and south sides of the island was still whipping. We quickly made it to the site and saw it was occupied. We were a little bummed but we soon saw the wind was brutal on that point and Claire even saw a little dust storm on the site. We headed around the north side of the island this time and hoped the NE site was open like we thought. The only time I felt even the slightest bit uncomfortable in the Souris River 18.5 was on the north side of the island on Omega. As we were getting around the island we were broadside with the wind. And it was blowing. The waves were close to being white caps and every now and then a good size one would roll under us. I thought if we got caught off guard one could swoop the canoe out from under us. It was tough to keep the canoe straight even though we were with the wind but it never felt shaky. About half way down the island we saw another canoe come from the NE finger. We quickly realized they didn’t have packs with them and assumed they were the ones from the southern site since nobody was on the site when we paddled by. Were they day tripping up to Finn or were they checking out the site on the NE finger because their site was so windy? We assumed the latter and assumed that we made it there just in time.

The NE site was in fact open and we arrived around 3. We were exhausted and quickly made Annie’s pasta. It was delicious. We got the tents set up and Claire and I pumped some water. She was holding the Hydroflask by the cap and as it filled the cap tether slipped out and the full growler fell right on her big toe. She was really in pain. We were scared to see what it looked like the next morning.

Claire and Scott took a nap. The site was pretty great. It had a nice sandy canoe landing and a slight hike up to the site but nothing difficult. The tent pads were just back on the right side and the fire grate over looked the tree lined shoreline on the far side and had a great view. The rock around the fire area was slanted and made seating a little awkward but not a big deal. Claire woke up with a bad headache. She had sort of a rough day. We joked about how tomorrow would be ‘her’ day.

We made instant potatoes and a steak for Scott and I and 2 veggie burgers with cheese for Claire. It was all delicious. I know I said you can’t beat pizza in the wilderness but steak in the wilderness just may beat the pizza. The food (and maybe some water?) made Claire’s headache go away. At some point in the afternoon we heard a tree fall into the water to the north. A few nips of the blackberry brandy and we were off to bed around 9:30.

Meeds - Swallow - Pillsbery - Henson - Omega