I was up at 7:30. It is another beautiful day -- sunny and warm with just a bit of a breeze. It is completely opposite from last year’s Four Solos Trip where it was very windy, cold, and wet.

There is lots of firewood around camp, so I busy myself gathering, breaking/sawing, and stacking wood. Also, the fire grate is high and not good for the reflector oven as is. So, I build up a rock hearth in front of it for the reflector oven to sit on.

We decide to keep camp where it is and day trip to Steep Lake. The 120-rod portage to Steep is tough. It is uphill and wet.

Steep Lake is nice. We checked out the campsite (#80) next to the portage. Steve goes in search of the "Tablets" left by CCBB & BWCA.com member "Howard Sprauge". He finds one. We putz around the camp, relax a little, and then Jim and I decide to go on to Eugene Lake. Steve is still not feeling himself, so decides to stay at Steep for awhile and then head back to camp on South on his own.

Eugene is a family name. My father’s name is Eugene, and many of the boys in my family have Eugene as a middle name, so I wanted to see the lake. It is a very pretty lake. Jim and I had lunch at the campsite by the narrows (#87). It is a steep climb from the water to the site, and there weren’t many canoe landing or storing options, but the rest of the site is nice. It has a nice fire pit, good tent sites, and a nice view. We took a long break there. We didn’t bring our chairs, so we sat on the grassy ground with our backs against a tree. We sat there half sleeping, munching GORP, and soaking in the sunshine.

After our extended break we went back to Steep, and circumnavigated the lake. Our maps showed two campsites but we only found the one we were at earlier. Perhaps the other was closed. Still, if the site was where it is shown on the map it would have been pretty inaccessible up a cliff face, so maybe it was a mapmaker mistake.

There are some nice rocks formations on Steep. One formed a sort of cave. It was an undercut of a cliff face that you could paddle under. Jim and I paddled under it and explored it some.

The wind must have been blowing the leaves off the trees, because the portage from Steep back to South was covered with leaves that weren’t there before. This is the downhill direction and so should have been easier for us, but the leaves made the trail very slippery.

Jim decided he needed to rinse off and so took a dip in the lake - in October! I told you it was a nice day. When he got out he posed for a picture reminiscent of “The Pac Towel Girl”. Remember her? Twenty years ago she had a lot of guys contemplating buying a Pac Towel … at least that is what they told their wives’ when caught looking at the advertisement. I don’t suppose they’d sell as many Pac Towels with Jim. Jim made penne pasta for dinner and I contributed cheese& garlic biscuits and brownies made in the reflector oven. The brownies didn’t come out so good, but we ate them anyway.