Today was kind of a sad day. Sad to leave this camp, sad to leave the great fishing, sad to leave the eagles. However, There was still a bit more new adventure to come. Our original plan was to head out Friday bay and come out through Fourtown into Mudro but we decided to back track. My hip was not bothering me anymore but I had developed a pinched nerve or something in my shoulder and really did not want to deal with the 300 rod portage into Gun Lake. So we backtracked...but not all the way.

Left camp pretty early. We had everything prepped and ready to go the night before. The food barrel was so much lighter now and we were able to spread out the weight a bit more evenly between the portage pack and the food barrel. We headed back towards LBF and stopped for a pic of the pictograph wall.

We portaged around LBF and back into the river and headed west to the Horse River. The plan was to hopefully find a camp on Tin Can Mike for the last night. We couldn't stay on Horse Lake as we were a Mudro restricted permit.

Our journey up the Horse River was a pleasant one. It was my 2nd time on the Horse River. Lot's of rice to paddle through to get into the main river but it was easy enough. We encountered a family of swans on the way.

Entering the main flow of the Horse River there were the marked portages and just a couple pull throughs/lift overs. We never had to leave the water to navigate the obstacles and they were kind of fun. The current would pick up as the water was squeezed between the exposed boulders and slow and steady was the name of the game. We passed a whitetail buck at least a 7-8 points grazing in the water and we were able to paddle by at about 30 yard and he stood there watching us. I couldn't believe he didn't take off. I should have gotten a picture but I figured as soon as I got within range of a decent pic he would have been gone anyways so I never took out the phone for a pic. A beautiful river and it was enjoyed thoroughly. Upon entering the bay into Horse Lake we encountered a submerged boulder that leaned us to one side pretty good. We didn't tip but it was comical at best being stuck on a rock in the middle of a larger area of water. Horse Lake looked pretty vacant from what we could see. It was in the middle of the day but the wind was picking up a bit so maybe that kept folks shore-bound. For us it was a quartering tail wind that had both of us paddling one side of the canoe to maintain a straight bearing. We soon hit the portage into Tin Can Mike and snagged the east side campsite. This camp was pretty beat up and had a big hornets nest way up in the pines which explained the constant bald faced hornets flying around camp. They didn't bother us and we didn't bother them. We didn't do much at this camp. Mostly lounged around. We were close to exit point and we could just chill now and have an easy morning. Dinner tonight was Bear Creek vegetable soup with egg noodles. It's very yummy and has been a staple on my trips. We hit the sack early again.