I woke up this morning refreshed and ready to go at sunrise. The Nicole, my wife, is not used to sleeping on a thermarest and she was very sore and crampy. I cooked breakfast while Nicole packed everything up. It was a cool morning but it would turn out to be a very warm day. We headed northeast out of Clove and into the river system. No problem through the first portage and into Granite Lake. Since it was July and the water was low we decided to take Swamp portage rather than run the rapids, which could be done fairly easy in higher water. The portage was upgraded with 2x12 planking to keep you out of the very deep mud, hence the "swamp" in Swamp Portage.

We continued up the river system through 2 short potages and into Gneiss. It was a very pretty lake with tons of bald eagle. We saw some perched, flying and saw one do better at fishing than I had the whole trip thus far.

We decided that rather than stay in Gneiss where the fishing is good, we decided to take the portage into Marabouf. We quickly found out that this portage does not exist and we had to take the long way around which did not help my wife's demeanor nor her sore shoulders and arms. We made it into Marabouf which turned out to be some what of a mistake. It was already the afternoon and we had a long run infront of us. By the time we were 1/4 mile into Marabouf, the wind turned against us. It came hard out of the northwest and it took us 4 hours to go the 2 1/2 miles to the next portage. We stopped at a couple of out croppings on the Canadian side for Nicole to rest and loaded up on carbs to keep moving. I knew I would pay hell for this when we got home. We finally made it to the difficult portage. It is only hard because you have to walk against a granite rock and the walkway is maybe 1 foot wide. We then made it to Saganaga Falls and the next portage. Some people were fishing below the falls and said the fishing was great.

We headed to the first campsite we could find so we could eat a late dinner around 7pm. Most of the campsites were full and I thought the wife was going to have a nervous breakdown. We finally found a site on Horseshoe Island and I ended up cooking and setting up camp by myself, if you can believe it.

We swam, fished and rested. No fire tonight. In bed by 9pm.

A much warmer day, 85 degrees, sunny, windy and hot. 9 miles, 4 portages, and a horrible head wind.