I got out of the tent around 6:30 in time to see the sunrise which was beautiful. It was a perfectly still morning and mist was present toward the southern shore of Brule. After breakfast and coffee I packed up and was on the water about 8:00am. It was sunny and still, with pockets of mist still in the bays. The paddle up to the bay holding the portage to Cam Lake and the rockslide was incredible. Falls colors and mist on a totally still sunny morning. I paddled slowly taking it all in. The portage into Cam Lake was as advertised: very rocky. You really have to think about almost every step and there are numerous hops between boulders surrounded by muddy water. The landing on the Cam side is a boulder field. But Cam is beautiful. I paddled over to the rock slide then continued to the portage into Gasket. This portage was also very rocky and ends at the base of the rock slide on Gasket. You can walk out onto the rock slide right from the portage. There are also some cliffs on the east end of the small lake. The next portage is probably the easiest of the stretch with some stretches that are normal rather than non-stop boulder fields but there is a decent little climb toward Vesper. The portage landing on the Vesper to Town portage was the worst part of this stretch: you enter a rock field with downed trees and its unclear from the water where the portage starts. Once you find a rock to get out on it becomes apparent you need to get to the beaver dam at the very end of the bay, which requires some interesting maneuvering and rock-hopping. From there, the portage literally starts as a boulder field. It continues on a rocky path which perhaps gets gradually better as you get closer to Town. Because of the landing, I'd say this is the hardest of the four portages, with the Brule/Cam portage being the second-hardest.

I took a little breather on Town Lake before heading to Cherokee. In addition to the 10-rod portage, you need to take another few-rod portage to get into Cherokee.

I was aiming for one of the two island sites mid-lake and was happy to find the site facing west open. In all, it took me about 3-3:30 to get from Brule to Cherokee. It stayed sunny until early afternoon, then turned cloudy in the afternoon and finally rained lightly off and on in the evening. I enjoyed the last of the growler for afternoon happy hour, had a taco bowl for dinner and thankfully had stashed some firewood under the tarp so I could have some s'mores for dessert in the rain.

As I got into the tent for the night I thought I heard a wolf howl but it was so distant I wasn't sure if it was a wolf or a loon. About five minutes later I heard an unmistakable wolf howl.