Onward to the west arm of Adams Lake. Morning breaks under a dismal gray sky and cold rain patters on the fly. Crap again and again. Ummm, didn’t we just do this? I listened to the rain while getting dressed, and then there was a different sound. Uhhh, that ain’t rain. That sounds like sleet. I unzipped a corner and peeked out. Yup, sleet. About then a chorus of “ya gotta be #!%* me, that’s sleet coming down”. And just as quickly, sleet turned to snow………. Nate and Matt yell out, “so we having #!@&**$$ fun yet”?

I have picked up wet gear many times. There is wet, and then there is wet. Nothing beats wet like a tent covered in wet snow. Nothing beats feeling damp like rain gear in damp snow. We mumbled a lot that morning, but still got on the water by 9AM and headed for the portage to Smite…….

Smite is an interesting name for a lake. In our case we were smitten. The 60r trail to Smite from Beaver would not be so bad, if the rocks were dry, and we weren’t grumbling about the snow (now mixed with rain). The trail (more or less) seemed to basically wind around boulders and hang on a ledge along the drainage. Vegetation seemed to have the upper hand in a couple spots. All in all, it gave a feeling that we were generally bush whacking (but in a directed way). Once on the lake we were whacked by a couple of snow squalls, and then things started to calm (fewer squalls).

Smite really is a beautiful little lake and the portage out was in sharp contrast to the portage in. We never found the 40r portage out of the lake. We paddled between a couple big rocks and then the water way opened up. OK, I guess this is Adams Lake. Smite can mean being hit by a hard blow or being hit by love. I think in the end, beauty outweighed the blow.

In this area our plans were for short hops between lakes. Today was no exception and an early stop was welcomed to get the tents up and dried. We selected the first site on the NW shore of Adams (next to the invisible portage from Smite). The site was small but adequate for the day. We know from past experience that the island camp near the south end is a good one. The day remained cold with snow squalls on and off. We sipped a fair amount of coffee, our tents dried in the wind, and we picked up a few fish for supper. This was our forth day without seeing another soul.

Photos show: 1) loading at Beaver, 2) portage from Beaver to Smite Lake, 3) NE end of Smite Lake