Well, I almost got out of bed on time. The zipper on my sleeping back separated during the night and I got cold! Around 4:15am I took the fleece blanket I brought with for warm nights and covered the sleeping bag with it to ward off the 48 degree breeze going up my shorts and reset the alarm from 5:15 to 5:45, then later just turned it off. I ended up getting out of bed at 5:45 anyway, made coffee and brushed my teeth, and was out of the campground by 6:00, only to turn around because I was wearing the wrong shoes! Instead of entering at Farm Lake, I drove to Pickerel Lake and entered there. I crossed Pickerel and got about half way across the portage when I had to drop everything and move a tree that had fallen over the trail. I finally got on the North Kawisiwi river about 7:00 and paddled right into the rising sun and a light easterly breeze. I made really good time all the way to the first portage, double portaged it seeing as it was so shor and then single portaged the next one ending up at the Murphys portage (namesake of my canoe) at 8:15. I stopped at the landing and got some rocks for an anchor and then went out fishing. I hooked up half a worm and threw it over the side and before I could even close the worm box and make a cast, I had a smallmouth on. It hit the worm that was just dangling in the water! I caught that one, plus three other smallmouth and a pretty good pike but fishing wasn’t really that hot. I tied on a rapala and casted the shoreline and got 2 more smallmouth plus I missed something huge. I stopped back on shore for a breakfast bar and then went back out fishing. I was a little worried about my bait supply and switched to Gulp! worms and it turned out that about 2/3rd of a green one with a twister tail was the hot bait of the day. I lost count of the bass I caught in the next hour or so before I headed back to the portage landing for some lunch of tuna fish on pita and trail mix. While I was there I ran into a group of 9 women in 4 canoes that were coming through who were very impressed with Murphy. They were long gone by the time I had finished my lunch and noticed that they had left a kneeling pad and map behind. I thought about running after them with it, but wasn’t real sure if the stuff was theirs because a man and woman had come through going the other way earlier in the day. I also wasn’t sure that I could catch them. I decide to leave the stuff there in the case the owner came back for it and started for home. The wind had been picking up all day and I was starting to get concerned about it because it was really blowing hard up in the trees but it didn’t seem to be that strong down at ground level. Instead of moving directly down to the next portage, I finally stopped at the portage to Greenstone Lake. This is something that I’ve wanted to do for years and have never done. I will also never do it again. The portage goes absolutely straight up. It must have gained over 100 feet in elevation before it finally leveled off on granite rock. There were no rock cairns or anything to mark the path, you just had to guess which way it went until it got back into some grass or something. It is, by far, the hardest portage I have ever done, and I was only carrying a camera! Greenstone Lake is beautiful though.

I’ll bet that it is just loaded with fish too, seeing as the only way to get to this place is nearly impossible. Given the size of the thing, I wouldn’t know where to even begin fishing the thing if I ever did figure out how to get in there without killing myself. Once I got back from that death march, I stopped and fished around the next portage for awhile and, as usual, the wind was exactly wrong. I got a pike, as usual for this spot, and a couple of bass and moved on. I fished in one of Barbs favorite spots near the next portage. That place is so much fun! There are always some big, feisty bass in there. I almost had a huge pike too, it attacked a bass I had on but let go before I got it up to the boat. Judging from the teeth marks in that bass, it was huge. It was a decent size bass and the marks went from the belly all the way to the dorsal fin. If I had a sharpie I could have drawn the outline of the pikes mouth on the back of that thing. After a few more bass I moved on. I planned to stop at the area called Deadmans and as usual the wind made it really difficult. I caught a couple of bass way up in the current and swore to myself I would come back tomorrow and fish nothing but the area from the first portage back to Deadmans in the morning when there was no wind and kept swearing that to myself all the way until I hit the portage back into Pickerel Lake. Man that is a tough portage after being out all day and fighting the wind the whole paddle back. My legs were just Jello. Once I got back to camp I walked down the steps to look at Fall Lake and could hardly make it back up the stupid steps. After thinking about it for awhile, I decided that I needed to change my plans. There was no way I was going to make a loop from Wood Lake like I had planned for tomorrow. That route would have been about 11 miles of paddling and 7 portages totaling over 800 rods. I took an Advil and decided to hit Lake One down to the small waterfall instead, had some chicken and oriental noodles for dinner, and flopped in the tent for the rest of the night. It clouded up about sunset so I didn’t get to test my new astronomy knowlege and then while I was on the phone with Barb I thought I saw lightning but never heard any thunder. Later that night it absolutely poured for about 4 hours straight and, of course, I had a leak in the tent right above my head. At least I got the zipper on my sleeping bag fixed just in time for the warmest night of the week.

Portages – 9 (including the 320 rod Greenstone hike), 630 rods. Miles paddled - 9 Weather – sunny and warm, inch of rain overnight. Lo 48, hi 78, strong PM breeze from the west.