Monday, August 3rd, 2009 We enjoyed toasted bagels again with juice and coffee. Our outfitter’s assistant, Annie, at Lacroix Outfitter, got us to EP 16 in fine fashion by 8 a.m. While driving down the Echo Trail roadway we saw two young (black) wolves with two adult grey wolves just before getting to the parking area. Once we were unloaded we tried to make it the full 177 rods to the water entry in one trip but quickly found out that we would need to double our portages. Found an error on the map apparently because the posting on the trail head says the portage is 177 rod and the map says it’s 160. Water level was good enough to get us to the first short portage. We started to encounter other paddlers coming back to EP 16 at the second portage along the Nina Moose River. Along the way we had to push over several beaver dams. We could usually paddle right over them. We took a break on the far shore of Nina Moose Lake around 11 a.m. We encountered more paddlers coming back Nina Moose Lake. I had to ask one group where they had camped the night before. He told me Tiger Bay. After finishing the 70 and 96 rod portages it was time for lunch. Our outfitter had played a joke on us on our first lunch. All the meals were packed in a large clear plastic bag that included everything for that meal. This bag was very small, clearly not enough for 5 men to eat. Ed was standing there looking it over before he turned the bag over. Inside was a note explaining the joke at the suggestion of Gary Harden. (Thanks Gary!) There was another bag further down in the food pack. During the 96 rod portage we encountered two groups of women. A group of three ladies headed the same direction were eating lunch at the exit of the second portage with us. A previous group of maybe 9 younger ladies were coming against us on the portage trail. They didn’t look to be older than about 14 or 15 with one being about 20. It was a sight seeing them carrying the heavy packs and canoes. We entered Agnes Lake about 2 p.m. and took a compass heading of 40 to make it to the other end. Ed and Joe presented the question of staying here on Agnes since we still had about 5 miles to make it where we wanted to stay on Lac Lacroix. We had a light tail wind for the two miles across Agnes and only two short portages to our destination. I was able to talk them into continuing somehow. Agnes is a beautiful lake with plenty of campsites. It is also fairly shallow according to the map, only 25 feet. A person could portage over to Oyster Lake to the West if they wanted a really deep lake. The map says it reaches 130 feet at its deepest point, maybe next time. Anyway, back to this trip report. The last portage of 65 Rod was either all up or all down. The terrain was anything but flat and smooth. Paddling through Boulder Bay was scenic and we were looking forward to our campsite at this point. We rounded the point into, none other than, Tiger Bay about 4 p.m. and found the campsite the outfitter had suggested was occupied. We moved a little further South to the campsite in, again, Tiger Bay, that the group leaving must have used because it was empty. It checked out to be very clean. I would give this campsite a very good rating, a great place to base camp. After setting up camp and cooking steaks for dinner, a storm blew in and out from the West. It maybe lasted 10 minutes at the most. After the storm there were some loons really tearing up the water across the bay. One was clearly chasing the other. Man, they were moving out across the water for an extended period of time. I’m thinking that these birds never get tired with their powerful legs. We watched as an Eagle flew over and they went into an alarm state and put on a different kind of show of “decoy by pretending to be injured and distract the Eagle” game so as to not expose the young one to the eagle’s wrath. It must have worked because the Eagle kept on going. The wind switched from the West to the North West after the rain and it gusted all night. I’m sure it got down in the upper 30’s because I had to get up and put on a fleece jacket and get back inside the sleeping bag in the middle of the night. It was quite cool for August 3rd to say the least.