Thursday, August 03, 2023 Jesse brewed coffee last night and put it in our spare nalgene, so we had that cold this morning along with granola bars after we broke camp. On the water within an hour of sunrise. Got mildly turned around in the maze of islands but figured it out together and portaged into the string of ponds leading to Elton. If the water had been much lower we have been better off taking the longer portage- pretty shallow in spots. Then into Makwa- what a pretty lake. I wasn't much impressed with the campsites though- the first one had a clump of cedars leaning over the firegrate, the second one was ok but nothing special, and the third one would be awesome in, say, October or May...full sun, zero shade of any kind.

So, on to Pan. I hadn't looked much at the portages along this section except to note that they all looked pretty short. If I HAD looked at descriptions, we wouldn't have taken the fake horrible not-really-a-portage out of Panhandle! At least we figured it out with just the packs, swore a little, walked the real portage back, bushwhacked over to our canoe, and paddled over to the very nice, wide, not full of branches that hate you portage. LOL! There were lots of footprints on that awful fake portage, so at least we weren't the only ones to be fooled....but still. I was going to rate it a one for least well maintained.

Looked at both sites on Pan and took the eastern one. Better shade and it's so hot. Smoke is moving in again. We drank loads of water, ate lunch, and swam. By 330 the site was getting really decent shade. Sweet Potato Chili Mac for dinner was delicious.

~Little Saganaga Lake, Elton Lake, Makwa Lake, Panhandle Lake, Pan Lake