Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Moose, Mountain, west and east Pike Loop
by mhclon

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 08/10/2009
Entry Point: North Fowl Lake (EP 70)
Exit Point: John Lake (EP 69)  
Number of Days: 6
Group Size: 8
Day 3 of 6
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Awoke to a beautiful sunrise...

After breakfast and some early morning swimming, we started our biggest travel day of the trip. It took us about 3 hours to get down the 7 miles or so of Mountain lake in which we had a gusty 10- 15mph headwind, nothing dangerous, but it made the paddling a little slow.
The portage off of Mountain to Clearwater lake was only 81 rods but was probably the hardest with a steep uphill for the first 30 and the a slow descent the remainder. I say that because all of the rest of the portages on the trip were pretty easy for it being such a mountainous area. Clearwater lake is a very pretty lake despite it being very busy and it's 10hp limit.
After Clearwater was the 211 rod into west Pike where we planned on spending 2 nights. A scouting party was sent to find our campsite, as there were alot of requests to have a 5 star site. I don't know what everyone else looks for in a site, but we wanted a good swimming rock, good kitchen area, openness and breezes, large tent pads, etc... The third site across from the island had it all. We had traveled 12+ miles to get there but we made it. Jambalaya and chicken for dinner, with cheesy bread on the outback oven.(Smallmouth again for an added treat).
I added that picture as it is the only one taken that night as we were watching all of the shooting stars.