Thursday, June 15, 2023 I woke up at 4:45 am, thought about getting up, then went back to sleep. I finally got out of the hammock shortly after 7 am. I repacked and reorganized all my gear in my dry bags and organized everything in my portage pack, hopeful that a second look minimized forgetting anything. Peter had made pancakes and eggs, after we finished eating, I helped with cleanup and we loaded everything in Peter’s truck and drove to exit point, EP #16 Moose North, to drop my truck off. On the drive to EP #16, I found out that the logging trucks do not slow down for anything as one came around the corner. I moved over to the shoulder avoiding a collision. The road was really dry and the truck lifted the dust up to reduce visibility to nothing for about 20 seconds. Grateful to be alive, I caught up to Peter and we left my truck at the EP for our exit. The drive back to EP#14, LIS North was happily uneventful, and Peter’s tire was holding air.
We hauled our gear and canoes down to river and were paddling North by shortly after one. I think we need to improve on our entry times, but Peter often says we are “smoothing it”, so no worries! Peter beat me across the first portage and was able to catch some decent fish in the pool under the first falls, but we still had two portages to Loon Lake, so we carried on without keeping any fish. This was my second time paddling north on the Little Indian Sioux river. The river beautiful, but I can say the same thing Stuart River, and the paddle was enjoyable to Upper Pauness lake and the 40-rod portage to Lower Pauness lake. This portage is where things got interesting. There is a rumor, started by Peter, that this portage is thick with Poison Ivy! I can never remember what it looks like, as I do not have any reactions from coming in contact. As I am making my way across the portage, suddenly there is movement to my right, which I hear before I see. Momentarily startled, I realize it is just a grouse which I find weird, until realizing it is attacking me! At this point it was hissing at me and being completely annoyed and not thinking about dinner, I yelled as loud as I could “GET OUTTA HERE, GO AWAY!” Of course, this caught Peter’s attention and he appeared moments after the annoying Grouse had worked its way back into the thick vegetation. After Peter stopped laughing, he tried to convince me that the grouse were out to get me, and the only protection available was to wear a feather in my hat. Of course, he found a feather and put it in his hat. Fortunately, this was the closest I came to death on the trip, which isn’t saying much! Soon we were on the water, safe from the grouse, and I wanted to check out campsite 43. I had stayed on that site in 2019 and spent two nights there and was hoping to check it out one more time. As we got close to the campsite, we could see it was occupied and we changed direction toward the Devil’s Cascade portage. Last portage of the day, I had forgotten how rough this portage was from the south, going up 10 metersand down 10 meters then about 10 meters up to the top. I was sucking air by that point, but the last part was 30 meters down to the river. Of course, that 30 meters down required a return trip for the double portage, with the only blessing being the 30 meters up is free of gear! By the time I got back to the top, I was winded again. Soon we had all our gear and canoes back in the water and working toward Loon Lake. We came to campsite #26 and I had gone about as far as I could for the day. We weren’t sure how nice this site was at first, but set up and slept well on it, as the Devils Cascade portage broke me, but only bruised Peter!