Tuesday, July 21, 2009 We awoke to a steady rain. I didn't want to get out of the tent, but needed to assess the damage from the night before. Thankfully, we remembered that we brought a tarp and had put it up, so everything was amazingly dry! My husband didn't want to paddle in the rain, but I figured we brought rain gear for a reason, and there was NO wind (whew) so it was perfect to head out. We had coffee, couldn't manage to choke down breakfast since we aren't breakfast eaters, but had our coffee and enjoyed the scenery. Thankfully bears didn't get in our food, even though we hung it, we didn't do very well since the trees were not very conducive to the perfect situation to hang a bag as heavy as ours. We packed WAY too much food. We were warned at the ranger station that bears have been very active on Polly, so it was a concern. We headed off to our first portage of the day into the Phoebe river. When I planned this trip, I figured the smaller lakes and rivers would be less challenging...I was wrong. Rivers are unpredictable, and I didn't not count on the rocks that show up out of no where. However, seeing all the canoe scrapes on the rocks made me feel a little better that we weren't the first ones to not see them until we were literally on top of them. Even though the lily pads and weeds slow travel down, I became thankful for them since there aren't as many shallow spots where the lily pads are. Rivers are also a little annoying at times when you have many short portages. Sometimes it felt like we just got back in the canoe when it was time for another portage.
We made it to Hazel lake and still had enough energy in us to press on to Phoebe Lake. We tackled the 140 rod portage, which was actually a nice break from the short portages we encountered on the river, only to go back in the river again on the way to Knight lake. We put our canoe in the water after our portage and break, thinking we had clear sailing to Knight Lake. We came around the bend and got beached on rocks! I looked into the water, and for as far as I could see, it was like a rock dam and there was no where to go to get around it. We started to stress a little at this point. My husband was on a mission to NEVER get his feet wet on this trip, meaning I had to wet foot the portage landings and every other time. I was constantly changing between sandals and my hiking boots. Well, this time he had to get out of the boat. We took off our boots, put on our sandals, rolled up our pants, and started to walk the canoe through the rocks. Dane was holding on to the front of the canoe, I was trying to hold on to the back of the canoe, the rocks were sharp, slippery and very difficult to walk on. Dane told me I had to let go of the canoe, at which point I promptly feel forward into the water. So, I grabbed a paddle to help me through the water. His stress was adding to my stress, and I think his stress was all about having to get in the water more then anything. It was a touchy situation, not so much for navigation as it was on the relationship! Once we navigated that stretch and were back in the boat, we had smooth waters into Knight Lake.
We left Knight Lake headed down the river (again) into Phoebe Lake. This was by far the most beautiful stretch of river we had encountered so far.  The water was like glass, and even the dark storm clouds couldn't dampen our spirits with how beautiful this was. And, there were fewer obstacles along the way. We made it into Phoebe Lake just as the weather was starting to get a little darker and rainier. We decided to look for the campsite on the north end of the lake so we would be closer to our portage in the morning and kept our fingers crossed that it wasn't occupied. Well, we managed to paddle right by the site. It was rather hidden up in the trees and was well off the shoreline. We had to break out the GPS to verify where we were in relation to the site. Dane found it and went to scout it while I stayed with the canoe. He came back down the trail and said the views were amazing and it was unoccupied. We just had to figure out how to get the gear and canoe out of the water with all the rocks. Good thing he's an engineer! Seriously though, it wasn't that bad and we were so thankful we found this amazing site for the night.  Our first order of business was to get the tarp up so we could have a fire. The mosquitoes were ferocious! We needed the smoke so we wouldn't pass out from blood loss. No matter how much Jungle Juice you use, there's always a little spot you didn't quite get and they find it. As Dane was going out to look for more firewood, he stumbled across a destroyed portage pack, a Pullman suitcase, and clothes, gear, and empty food packages strewn about down the rocks! We were disgusted...and also very ashamed that we packed WAY too much stuff and couldn't bring it out with us. Thankfully, this site had the most amazingly perfect tree in which to hang out food, so despite seeing the evidence of what a bear is capable of doing, I wasn't worried. I was, however, very sad that someone would just leave this stuff, even the salvageable things such as clothing and gear. We could only speculate that they didn't go looking for it when it showed up missing. We rested, cooked dinner, and enjoyed an evening by the fire and turned in early after our somewhat stressful and adventurous day. We lit the candle lantern in the tent, played a game of "mosquito quest" (i.e. killing all the mosquitoes that snuck into the tent as we hopped in) and played a few hands of cards. The rain picked up its intensity overnight and we were sure we were going to have rough going the next day.