Tuesday, May 31, 2022

We decided to try to get home today instead of tomorrow. The forecast via the Garmin called for rain and wind today and wind the following two days. Without a tarp, our tent would be our only refuge, and my mattress had a leak.

(The morning after the Thunderstorm)

(The tarp succumbed to the thunderstorm)

We made and ate breakfast burritos in intermittent rain showers and 40 MPH wind gusts. Walter had lit the fire with my torch lighter and set it down in the fireplace to get more tinder on the fire ASAP. Of course he forgot it and it exploded in a whoosh about 10 minutes later.

(Making breakfast burritos in the rain the morning after the thunderstorm)

Packed up camp and hit the water. Badwater is oriented such that the wind didn’t bother us much. Although we dealt with rain showers all the way up the lake, we knew we’d have big wind issues on Quetico and Beaverhouse.

We had a hard time finding the portage out of Badwater. We were in the wrong bay. (Clearly, not my best navigation on this trip.) Once we found it, it is the wettest portage I’ve ever traversed. It begins and ends by walking in a stream. There were deadfall’s, mostly on the Badwater half, that caused me to drop the canoe and pull it under or push it over. There were also 2-3 involuntary droppings of the canoe when I fell after slipping off a piece of corduroy. Aside from the water and the deadfall’s, it was a decent portage. Not much elevation change.

We worked our way up West Bay of Quetico as the wind hit us from the southwest. There was only one time where we got hit broadside by a wave. We crabbed our way across portions and rested in leeward bays.

The wind was so strong it even created white caps blowing upstream in the Quetico River approaching Beaverhouse.

The meeting of the waves and current at the mouth of Beaverhouse created some impressive standing waves that we skirted left of. We could tell we weren’t going to go out into the lake but we were hoping to make the first campsite on the left. We had to pull to shore short of that. We hiked up over the hill to look at the campsite. (This was shortly before 3:00.). It was windy over there so we went back to the hillside above the canoe and had almonds and dried mangoes. We stood there in our rain gear, huddled on the lee side of a rock outcropping, listening to the wind whistle through the tree tops. The Garmin forecast was for wind gusts to 40 MPH and it was all of that. The forecast implied there might be a break in the wind around 5:00 or 6:00. We waited and hoped for that. We were both pretty mentally and physically spent from the thunderstorms and wind.

A little after 5:00 we decided that we needed to set up the tent and get in our sleeping bags to get warm. We were both shivering as the temp had been dropping through the day. Hauling the packs up the big hill helped us warm up. We found a somewhat sheltered spot on some mossy ground. I pointed out to Walter we’d be camping illegally if we were in the BWCA because we weren't at a designated campsite.

I read more of Singing Wilderness and then napped 7:00-9:00. Ate a couple handfuls of almonds. Put on my long underwear to step outside to pee. Left them on when I came back in and finally felt warm. Supposed to be low 40s tonight. Really missing my wife after a long, trying 48 hours.