Friday, August 07, 2020 With wind/rain in the forecast we were up and on the lake early. We were camped at the north end of Little Sag so we had quite a bit of paddling ahead of us. Up until this point we had only canoed across smaller lakes so this was our longest canoe. Overnight the lake had filled with campers. Wednesday night we were the only ones on the north end of the lake. By Thursday night all of the sites on the north end of the lake near us were taken as well as most of the sites we passed on our route south. The paddle through Little Sag was beautiful, although a bit tricky to navigate with all of the islands and inlets. Thankfully we made it through with only one tiny backtrack and we hit the first portage of the day. The portage into Mora was my favorite portage of the trip. It was beautiful and it was an easy portage to get in and out of on both sides.

The portages on this leg of the journey were definitely more well traveled and generally easier to navigate than the first leg of our journey. We fairly quickly made our way across Mora, Tarry, Crooked and Owl. Crooked seemed like a nice place to stay, maybe on another trip. . .we had one beaver dam we had to get out and walk over, but other than that it was fairly smooth sailing until we got to Tuscarora. By that time (10:30ish) the wind had picked up. We stopped at the first campsite to take a look. It was a beautiful campsite, but the only place our tent would fit was out in an open field area on the point that was directly in the wind. We knew that storms were coming so we decided to attempt to cross the lake to find something a little more sheltered.

The paddle across was rough and all the campsites we passed were taken. After almost an hour of paddling we made it to the campsite on the far end of the island, right between the two portages (campsite 542). It was empty, but also exposed to the wind. There were some tent pads back in the woods so we decided it would do if need be. We quickly paddled around the corner to checkout another campsite (543). It was slightly less windy, but not by much, and there wasn't a great place for our 4 person tent. We headed back to 542 and made a go of it.

We set camp up, making sure to get the rain fly stretched extra tight and secure. The twelve year old took a nap in the hammock and the rest of us did some exploring. We enjoyed wading on all of the rocky ledges and our 10 year old caught a few frogs that were warming themselves on the rocks.

We cooked an early dinner (Mountain house Beef Stroganoff and Chili Mac) and then packed up everything that wasn't needed for the night and prepared all of our gear for the incoming storm. The rain held off and the wind died down enough for one more try at fishing in some of the bays near our campsite. No luck, but we did get to see the sunset in the BWCA one last time.

We headed to bed and had almost fallen asleep when the first storm rolled in. It stormed off and on during the night. Thankfully our new tent (MountainSmith Conifer 5) kept us nice and dry.

~Little Saganaga Lake, Mora Lake, Tarry Lake, Crooked Lake, Owl Lake, Tuscarora Lake