Friday, August 07, 2020 Traveled 7.6 miles. 6.7 miles of paddling and 5 portages totaling 286 rods. Lakes traveled: Little Sag, Rattled, Gabimichigami, Agamok, Mueller, and Ogishkemuncie.

Up for the sunrise this morning and woke Lauren. Most days I have let her sleep in to whenever she gets up, usually around 6.30. Today however I’m a bit nervous about potential wind on Gabi, and so wanted to get an early start. Quick breakfast and pack up camp and on the water around 7. Another perfect day for traveling, sunny, light breeze from the south( we are traveling mainly north) and temps in the mid 70’s. Quick paddle across Little Sag and we stop in the narrow north part of the lake to refill water and observe a loon family and bald eagle. Couple of quick portages through the burned area and we are on Gabi. Lake is fairly calm as we head out but the breeze quickly picks up as we get on the big part of the lake. It is primarily behind us but does create big enough rollers that one person has to hold the canoe to unload at the portage to Agamok. Nice paddle across Agamok and to the Mueller portage. We plan to carry our stuff to where the Kekekabic trail crosses the portage and put it down off to the side and go down and check out the bridge and falls. We hear one other group coming down the trail the other way when we headed to the bridge but did not see them. Spent some time snacking, exploring, and tacking pictures of the bridge and the falls. After a nice rest we returned to the portage to finish the trek to Mueller. As we got to the landing a group of 3 women in a solo and a gorgeous Savage River tandem were just reaching the landing headed the other way. Across Mueller and on to the tough 103 rod portage to Ogish. I’m sure glad we were headed this way. Do not remember this portage being quite this tough when I took it with my son the other direction 10 yrs or so ago. Hills must have grown since then! Ogish is our destination for today and I was aware that campsites may be at a premium. Figured we would check out any open sites we saw starting with the island site right out from the portage and then the other 6 sites to the NE with the back up plan of jumping over to Skindance if we needed to. The island site was full along with the other 2 thru the narrows. Followed the south shore and around the islands and could see both of those campsites were full as well as the northern most site. However it appeared that the other site on the north shore(#791) was open. Paddled across with a pretty decent tailwind and hoped the site would work. Not a huge site but very nice for the 2 of us with 2 nice tent and or hammock sites, and good tarp area. The site is pretty exposed to the south and with a stiff south wind bugs were not going to be a problem! We had passed a few groups heading SW on Ogish and saw many more thought out the day. Hope all these groups found a place to camp. Got set up and a quick swim to cool off. Took a little longer to set up with all the wind! After eating we went out to troll around some with no luck. Looks like our weather luck may be changing a bit as it looks like it could storm tonight.