The alarm went off at 7 and we were out of the tent at 8. We had Good to Go granola for breakfast and it was awesome, maybe even slightly sugary. We were finally on the water at 9:40. It had gotten really windy Friday evening and it was still windy. I woke up to lots of lightning around 12:30. There was some rain, some wind, and lots of lightning for an hour or more. 

The strong south/SE wind was blowing right at the portage to Gun. We brought the canoe up onto shore and Claire helped me lift it since the wind would have blown me over if I tried to lift it in the water. We could see as soon as we entered Gun that the site straight out from the portage was taken. We soon saw that both the far north site near the portage to Gull and the site on the south eastern shore were occupied as well. 

The wind was really whipping and the further north we went, the larger the waves got. We were hoping to spend the night on Beartrap, but decided that it was a long way to go in those conditions. We came through the narrows and around the corner to the east and saw that the middle site (1084) was open but it didn’t look very nice. The trigger site looked open but it was hard to tell for sure. Lucky for us it was! We arrived at 10:20, only 40 minutes after we left Fairy. I barely had to paddle, I mostly only steered because of the strong wind. 

The wind was now SW and most of it was blocked by the far shore. There was just enough of a breeze to keep most of the bugs away. I was a little surprised that the best site on the lake was open when so many others were full, but there were fresh marks from pulled tent stakes so it was clear that somebody had just left. Claire napped in the hammock and I set up the tent. We had Camp Chow grilled cheese soup for lunch around 12:30. 

I faintly heard thunder off in the distance. I put the fly on the tent and got camp cleaned up. One big cloud missed us just to the north and there was another behind it. It started raining so we laid in the tent and read a little. It then got ridiculously windy and it was blowing straight in. At some point a solo kayaker stopped not far in front of our site to pump water. We think he was hoping to stay at our site. We saw several other groups, most of them coming from the east. 

I tried fishing from the big rock out in front of our site with no luck. The wind died down a bit and was pretty nice for a short time, but then it picked back up again. Back in Ely after the trip someone told us we had 30 mph sustained winds that day. Two canoes came from the east and went along the north shore and then cut right across the waves to the south right around the middle of the lake when it was at its worst. This was around 4:30 or 5:00. I’m sure the waves weren’t quite so bad further west but it still didn’t look like fun. 

It crossed my mind that there was a possibility that all of the sites on Gun, Fairy, and Boot were full based on how full they all were on Friday and how many people we saw going through. I hope that group didn’t have to make it all of the way to Fourtown in that headwind. We found some wood and had a late dinner. The wood wasn’t great but Claire (as always) got a nice fire going. It turned into a nice clear night. An angry bird would not stop making noise for several hours. It even kept going slightly past dark. It was rather annoying but also kinda funny. The moon came up late and it was awesome. We were in bed around 11:30 and daylight was still holding on. 

~Fairy Lake, Gun Lake