We awoke and struck camp right away, packing all our gear down to the lake. This was for two reasons; one to get going early, and two to get away from the mosquitoes up the hill! We had coffee and scrambled eggs in pouches on the rocks and talked about the day and the portages ahead, as well as the days and the portages that were behind us on this trip...and then it was time to head out. We bid adieu to Fairy lake and it's fantastic East camp, and headed for the landing. I pumped water on the way across and was dismayed to find that my Katadyn Vario was plugging up after only five days and maybe forty liters of water. The info said the filter can be expected to last up to 500 gallons and we'd only put through 10! I was not amused. Fairy lake was where my Katadyn Hiker Pro had burst its case last summer, leaving me and my friend stranded with only 1.8 liters of fresh water between us. I was able to pump four fresh liters through the filter, but it was obviously plugging up, and I was happy we were headed out as we hadn't brought a spare filter cartridge (who would expect that you could only put ten gallons through a five hundred gallon filter?). I'm open to opinion's on better water filtration than Katadyn, if you have a fave please let me know.

We made the short portage into Boot in good stead, now finding that the spring along side that portage had quit running, and so the trail was dry. The paddle through Boot lake was lovely, with a small breeze at our backs and none of the campsites occupied, we watched loons swimming along side, skirted some rocks that lie just under the surface at the corner of the boot, and soaked up the white noise of the running rapids that drop off toward Fourtown lake. That portage had dried up since we'd come in, what with just a trace of rain our first night, and so I kept my sandals muck-free on the return. It seemed the wind was starting to whip up across Foretown, greeting us with a fresh breeze, so we struck out right away from the landing and took in the sights of a lovely doe grazing near waters edge from the island as we passed through the narrows. Coming out the other side of that island the breeze had dropped and we had flat water to paddle all the way into the stream on the South end, and we easily made our way into the first of three portages. There we were met with good news that the beaver dam on Pickett lake had been knocked out, so that the river from Mudro to the landing was running high and we wouldn't have to drag our canoe over the rocks to get back to the car. I welcomed that news, as I'd struggled with that the year before and it wasn't all that fun getting the boat through the rocks.

The portages passed without incident, though there were many paddlers going in and coming out that passed each other along the way through. I passed on some fishing tips about Gull to a group who was headed in and may be going that way, and that made the notorious second portage seem a wee shorter than it had last year. A quick jaunt through the rocks of the last portage and we were paddling across Mudro, reminiscing on a beautiful trip, commenting on our luck with terrific weather, and wondering where we should put in next year (or will we go again this fall?).

In no time we'd paddled to the landing and loaded the car, returned the canoe in Ely, and were sitting in the Boathouse cafe and brewpub eating a burger and sipping bloody mary's. The buffalo wings there are scorching hot! After a side trip to Ely's Music Outfitters, we had new tunes for the trip home and were headed out, our wilderness needs met for another few months. Now...about that shower!