I talked Rob into leaving a day early since it looked misty out, and I did not want to go home with muddy portages and crowds. We left out site around 2:00PM and since we had to paddle against the current made lousy time. It had started raining heavier by the time we made the first portage on Nina Moose River. The portages got very muddy and I had mud up to my thighs on one portage. We finally got to the Moose River and the current was stronger than anytime I had ever gone up. We finally arrived back at the end of the EP portage around 8:05PM and the only way to unload was to go 20 feet from the established trail. It looked like several others had done the same thing. As we were taking out second load and the canoe it started to snow quite heavily. By the time we mounted the canoe several inches of snow had to be brushed off the car. We had snow all the way into Ely and just past Cloquet it stopped.