We woke to dark clouds and snow flurries, not ideal weather for paddling. We broke camp and started for Iron lake. Paddling was pretty hard into a progressively strengthening headwind, so progress was slow. After a few hours, we decided to take lunch and formulate a plan for the big water. We found two long poles and made a 3-canoe catamaran to help ease paddling and avoid the big water hazards of Saturday and Sunday bays. The guys in the middle canoe had about three feet either side of the canoe to paddle. It looked ridiculous, but it worked really well…you could take a short paddle break without losing steam and it was nice talking without raising your voice. Our vessel was cruising now toward Sunday bay. The weather wasn’t looking good, and before we knew, it was raining hard. As the weather deteriorated, so did our progress. Several hours later, we rounded the corner toward the north end of Sunday bay and the curtain falls portage. Well just our luck, we ran into a huge sheet of ice. It was detached and floating, but too thick to break through. We ended up paddling about a half mile out of the way to reach open water behind the ice. Another mile or so later, our hearts sank when we saw that the whole north end of Sunday bay was still frozen over. You could hear the roar of the falls only a mile away. We knew that ice would be a problem, but now was not the time to deal with ice. It was now raining, getting dark, and we were cold, wet, and exhausted. A quick look at the map revealed the nearest campsite was two miles back around an obstacle course of ice. An executive decision was made that we head to the nearest shore and camp there. I’m not one to disobey the rules, but in this circumstance we needed to settle in for the night whether it was a designated campsite or not. Thankfully, our tarps protected us from the rain, sleet and heavy snow that we endured that night.