We headed to Babbitt, where we had reservations in a motel. My bad, I had scheduled our trip to start on the same weekend as Blueberry Festival, so Ely was totally booked months in advance. We checked in and drove over to the Whistling Bird in Gilbert for dinner. What a great meal, that place never disappoints me!

We went to bed early and set our alarms for 5.

We had checked the weather that morning and saw that severe storms were possible that afternoon, so took the first site on the peninsula. It was large and open with no big trees leaning towards the tent pad and more raspberries than you could eat in a week! Got camp set up and went swimming. Had an early dinner...skies threatening but most of it sliding past us. High winds overnight and thunder, but no rain where we were.

Some poison ivy on the longer portage from Mudro towards Fourtown

~Mudro Lake, Fourtown Lake

It has a shady kitchen area, a flat enough tent pad and a decent landing. Wouldn't base camp here, but good enough for one night. We saw lots of open sites today, which is encouraging. Jesse made coffee after camp got set up and we sat in the shade. The new feet we got for our helinox chairs work great- no more sinking into the soft ground!

The site also has a resident mink which we saw a lot. Seemed like maybe its den was under a bush along the water near the landing. A toad also took up residence in my neoprene sock when I left it on the ground. Saw a snowshoe hare and a hummingbird. The camp also has an old bedspring and remnants of what looks like a stove, and we found a nice pair of fishing pliers.

Dinner was "lasagna" and strawberry cheesecake....delicious but not lasagna or cheesecake. Lots of late paddlers portaging into Gun from Gull in the rain at 8pm. Jesse's back is really bothering him tonight.

~Fourtown Lake, Boot Lake, Fairy Lake, Gun Lake

Woke up to heavy smoke and grey skies, and Jesse's back was feeling worse. We spent a couple hours drying gear and then packed up and moved to Gull, with me doing most of the lifting. That site just wasn't anywhere we wanted to spend several days, and if Jesse doesn't get better we aren't going far.

I'm glad we moved, our new site is gorgeous! Took the middle site along the N side of the lake. Much nicer tent pad, tall pines, a good home base for us to hang out and explore the surrounding area while Jesse heals. There's no way I'm heading into the PMA with him....he's having sciatica and some weakness in that leg, occasional stumbling and significant pain.

It's early afternoon and the smoke is still pretty bad. Just laying low and not exerting myself so I don't breathe it deep into my lungs. I found a bird's nest with birch bark woven into it along the latrine trail, and there are loads of really cool mushrooms.

Small amounts of poison ivy on the Gun end of the Gun to Gull portage.

~Gun Lake, Gull Lake

We made pancakes on the solo stove! I've always thought that it burned too hot, but that turned out not to be true. Jesse has gone for a walk along the shore to see if he can hike to the Mudhole portage- we are quite close to it. Earlier we cut and split some "fun" wood, just for a campfire if the smoky skies ever moderate. Collected lots of twigs and chips for the solo stove.

The woods along the shore here are fairly open, with red and white pines. It's easy to find trails. There's lots of noisy red squirrels and interesting insects, along with quite a few pillbugs.....which I guess are actually terrestrial crustaceans. And so many mushrooms popping up after all the rain.

We took showers and washed our clothes, then I went down the shore and sat on a pair of granite boulders that formed a lounge chair under a good sized white pine. We've seen a soloist and a group of 3 canoes today. Then we went exploring to find the portage into Home Lake. It's not where the Voyager map shows it, or the map on this site. It's on the side of the peninsula closest to the campsites, on the main body of Gull, not in the western bay. Hiked the portage and saw that someone had left undies and socks on a log on the Home end.....we did not pack them out. I draw the line at some guys underwear.....

Back in camp, had dinner and a fire. Smoke has really dissipated. A couple beaver went swimming by and an eagle is roosting in a tree across the lake from us. Finally went to bed when the sun went down.

~Gull Lake, Home Lake

Portaged into Mudhole- the water level in Mudhole was fairly high. It's actually a very pretty little lake. Then into Thunder, where we looked at the campsite on the west shore. It's pretty nice. Not sure you could fit a large group there unless you had hammocks, but it's real scenic. Then we were off to Beartrap Lake. We found the portage into Beartrap River easily. It clearly gets way more traffic than any PMA portage I've been on before Also, it's definitely had some recent love and attention. We followed it to the river, but didn't portage the canoe. Jesse took a bad step and tweaked his back, but it's not as bad as it was a few days ago. On our way back we looked at the campsite by the portage into Mudhole...just from the water it looked like it didn't get much use. Grass growing out of the firegrate and no good landing. Same with the site on Thunder near the portage back into Mudhole....looks rarely used.

We were back in camp by mid-afternoon and had a lunch of meat sticks and crackers and one of our pouches of pickles along with some "iced" coffee. I cleaned up the pile of rotting wood and green sticks that had been piled near the firegrate. If Jesse feels okay in the morning, we'll head over to Moosecamp.

~Gull Lake, Mudhole Lake, Thunder Lake, Beartrap Lake

This time we have a big open rocky porch area with an amazing view of the lake and fascinating rock formations. The best tent pad is separated from the rest of camp by 2 large boulders that leave just enough room for a "doorway". There are swans and coots, and a USGS marker from 1923 in the woods behind camp. Also a very calm little garter snake that let Jesse stroke it's head gently. We cut and split some wood for a fire....Jesse's back continues to improve slowly. A nice quiet day.

~Gull Lake, Gun Lake, Bullet Lake, Moosecamp Lake

Had showers and put on "clean" clothes. We've seen no one since leaving Gun. There's a nest of robins in camp, still not fledged. Seems awfully late in the season. Also lots of cool mushrooms and a young red squirrel with zero fear that started eating a mushroom while I was taking mushroom pictures. Sat up until dusk with the fire, then off to bed. Some medium sized animal was snuffling around outside the tent as we were falling asleep....Jesse was alarmed! Then the trumpeter swans did their thing right offshore.....so loud. Finally they went across the lake for the rest of band practice and we fell asleep. ~Moosecamp Lake

The woods here are more open.....lots of red and white pine and maple, some older quaking aspen. No birch. There's dogbane and some blackberries. I collected more wood and retired to the "front porch". It's shady with a great breeze, about 15 feet from the water.

Jesse got back from exploring and we saw a family of otters swim by- the little ones were squeaking and rolling around in the water, playing. Then I went back in the woods to visit a large white pine that Jesse found.

The day passed with lots of gazing at the water, watching birds, and taking pictures of the cool rock formations. Ribbons of dark rock intrusions in the granite, places where it looks like the quartz has melted and reformed into large crystal "bubbles", all sorts of interesting metamorphic changes in the rock.~Moosecamp Lake

Took a site on the east shore, across a bay from another campsite, close to the entrance to the Moosecamp river. We set up our kitchen and rain shelter on the hill, back in the pines where you can't see the other campsite.....but the fire grate and tent pad look directly at them. This is a beautiful but heavily used site, and the last folks left a bunch of trash behind. So far we've found 2 wet bags of TP, a can of bug spray, a pair of men's underwear (what IS it with abandoned underwear!), fishing line, a a bright blue fake fingernail. They also did lots of whittling, which is less of an issue in my book.

Down the shore is a giant cedar tree, might take 3 people to reach around it. Paths heading south lead to a rocky peninsula. This is another open site full of tall pines. The fire grate has been deformed with mill scale and is in pretty bad shape.

We had dinner and a nice fire, watched the sunset, then off to bed. Our neighbors are nice and quiet...yay!

~Moosecamp Lake, Fourtown Lake

This end of Fourtown is very shallow, with long sloping bedrock that extends out into the channel between the two campsites. Yesterday our neighbors had taken chairs out into this area and were sitting in the water having coffee- looked nice. We went out and paddled around this end of the lake....looked like rain but it never did. After that Jesse hiked up the trails north of camp, and I went over to the south side rocky area. Found a shed snake skin from a big garter snake.

When I got back to camp Jesse had returned with tales of mythically large cedars in a huge grove, so we went over there....buggy but gorgeous. We swam, and I found a large submerged slab of bedrock that worked perfectly as a lounge chair.

Now we've had dinner and are just sitting by the fire. We've got new neighbors with a bunch of kids, but they're nice and quiet. It's peaceful.

The first portage towards Horse goes right through the campsite there, so hopefully it's not occupied tomorrow, or at least they're early risers. Then we looked at the campsite down the bay from us, which has remained unoccupied while we've been here. It's pretty poor. There's one tent pad, in full sun, with blackberries starting to grow in it. It's small. Maybe would work for hammocks.

Back in camp, we found a very nice stainless pulley stuck way up in a tree. It took awhile, but we managed to get the pulley and some of the ropes down. There's still a fair bit of rope and a rope-wrapped rock stuck up there. Got a swim in...it was briefly hot and sunny.

We've got 4 days left. Looking forward to seeing Ole again and finding out how much our new puppy, Suzie Q, has grown. Not many pictures today, just the sunset.

Hard rain and thunder last night, but woke to clear blue skies. We had breakfast and packed up, headed towards Horse on our slow tour of the area. Voyageur Map doesn't show the first 2 portages in the chain that leads to Horse. The Horse end of the 2nd one is a minor boulder field, and the Horse end of the 15 rod (3rd) portage is choked with lush green poison ivy. Managed to find some rocks along the shore to put our packs on while we went back for the canoe and Darrell the barrel. On our 2nd trip through the final portage, we ran into a group of guys that just looked at us blankly when I mentioned it...boy howdy, hope they aren't allergic to the stuff!

Once on Horse, we headed north. First site on the west shore looked awful, we didn't even get out...small and sad, full sun. Second one on the east was taken, and the 3rd one heading N also looked taken, but the folks there hailed us and said they had just stopped to put out a campfire that the previous group had left burning. It's huge and beautiful, open and shady with tall pines and rocky points....my favorite kind.

There is some sort of anchor (maybe) driven into the rock at 3 places with a chain attached to one of them. Found 2 very nice tent stakes. Our tent is back in the shade, tarp is set up under the cedars about 15 feet from the water, amidst mossy boulders. The firegrate has a huge built up fireplace with many carefully constructed tables in it.

Went swimming again- 3 days in a row! Watched a big threatening storm with lots of thunder and lightning pass slowly to the west of us. We have fairly close neighbors...I swear it smells like they made popcorn. I'm craving a burger and a big salad. Instead we had stroganoff and watched a lovely sunset. ~Fourtown Lake, Horse Lake

I met a nice garter snake in the woods, and we had a grey tree frog hanging out on the vestibule of the tent. Down on the point is a large wolf spider with a recent hatch of spiderlings protected by a large web. We had flickers eating ants out of a large anthill in camp, and a snowshoe hare hopped by. Today we showered again...fells nice to be in somewhat cleaner clothes.

We had the green curry that I freeze dried last fall....it's so much better than even the most expensive commercially available freeze dried meals. Gonna do a lot more of that for next year! It's so good to have big chunks of identifiable veggies, and rich flavors.

It's almost dark, still and warm and cloudy. Feels like rain.

~Horse Lake

It's good thing that I always tie both ends of the canoe down. It's just one of those things I got in the habit of years ago. The wind had picked it up and turned it over and filled it with about 6 inches of rain. Everything is SO wet. Anything not tied down got blown into the woods.....which for us was just our chairs. No damage done, fortunately...our only loss was the piece of paracord that Jesse had to cut. The tree landed about 10 feet from our heads.

It looks like the lightning started a fire on the other side of the lake....at first I thought it could be mist in the bay, but it got more localized and then was clearly smoke. Been watching it for a bit while we had breakfast and it's slowly diminishing. We decided to head out....see if we find another campsite on the way where we can dry out, and if not we'll be done.

Got as far as Tin Can Mike....it's hot as heck, almost noon, and I can't quite face the thought of that portage into Mudro in this heat. The campsite closest to the portage is open...it's very sloped but we managed to find a spot to fit the tent that is actually comfortable and flatish. The latrine trail has some access issues.....a very steep, sloped, slippery rock face that I actually had to sit down and slide to the bottom to traverse. We found an older trail that had fallen into disuse for some reason- helped it be more obvious and blocked off the rockslide one. Eventually we had almost everything dry again...that will be nice when we get home.

Got sunny so I went swimming again. After dinner we went up on the long high ridge behind camp to get some pictures- you can see in all directions, it's very cool but also very full of biting flies. Sat on the shore in camp watching dusk descend....saw beavers and a huge snapping turtle eating fishes right where I was swimming earlier. Then off to bed...tomorrow is an early start. ~Horse Lake, Tin Can Mike Lake

Drove in to Ely, got showers and then had lunch at the Frisky Otter....and another trip is done.