I woke up about 6:00 this morning and got out of then tent 10 minutes later. It was very calm -

Islet through the trees -

The loons were calling from different corners of the lake, the local kingfisher was rattling around, and a couple adult eagles were patrolling too. It looked like some of the loons were just starting to molt into non-breeding plumage, especially around their faces -

A little extra adventure was on the agenda for today. After a pancake breakfast and morning swim, we loaded up and started paddling around 10:00. We did not have far to go to the short but notorious portage to Unnamed Lake. Looking back at Other Man from the landing -

The notoriety of this portage comes from the fact that it goes over a pile of pure muck that appears to deadend at a sheer rock wall. You make your way up the wall, then have to negotiate a sharp turn with a 17-foot object on your shoulders and head down a very steep rubbly slope. It's actually much easier than you think it will be when you first see it. When you get to the muck piles, keep in mind that this is not the right one to go through -

Instead you go through this one -

Then it's actually pretty easy to traverse the rock wall on the other side -

Before descending the steep slope to Unnamed Lake -

After our first trip across, there was nowhere to leave the canoe on land without blocking the takeout, so we put it in the water and tied it off out of the way. That was a good thing, because as we were coming back with our next load we ran into a duo going the other way on the rock face. These were the only other people we met on a portage in the Quetico interior this trip, and we were glad we had not blocked their path. We did have to wait a bit while they figured out how to maneuver their solo canoes around the rock ledge. Then we finished the portage, loaded up, and launched into Unnamed -

Unnamed is a pretty little lake, and has some marshy edges that ducks like. In fact, right before we ran into the two guys on the last portage, a couple small ducks flew overhead from Unnamed toward Other Man - probably flushed by the paddlers we met on the portage a few minutes after the ducks flew over.

It did not take us long to cross Unnamed to the next portage, which is pretty much just a straight drop down to the next lake -

Carrying the canoe down -

At the landing -

We had camped on this little lake on the second night of our 2003 trip. I always thought of it as Bit Lake, although the part you go through is separated from the main part of Bit by a narrows (see map above). We wanted to explore the narrows and the main part of Bit now. So we paddled in that direction. But it turns out the narrows is really a very short stretch of flowing, wood-choked stream, blocked at the upsteam end by a beaver dam:

So I guess Bit Lake is really a separate lake after all. We decided not to carry our gear the short distance over the creek to the real Bit Lake this trip, but it looked like it might be worth exploring in the future. There aren't any campsites marked on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a site there somewhere. The lake looked bigger than we had imagined it from the map -

Back on the Lake Formerly Known As Bit But Now Known As Unnamed, we went to check out our 2003 campsite. It wasn't the greatest campsite, but it does have a nice view back toward the "narrows" to Bit -

Dave-O -

We snacked on some bars, then made the short hop to the portage to Bell Lake. This is a smooth level path through (you guessed it) cedars -

There were some bright blocks of quartz with a bit of greenstone at the Bell Lake end of the portage -

We loaded up and paddled over to the first campsite on the north side of Bell, where we tied off the canoe for lunch. A broad-winged hawk announced its presence soaring above us with its telltale whistled call, while a white-throated sparrow (one of the few we heard in this late season) sang his sad song. The wind seemed to be turning from the east, possibly presaging a change in the weather, but then it seemed like maybe it was just caused by the arced shape of Bell, which we continued down after lunch -

As we got toward the east end of Bell, we saw a group of canoes coming from the portage at the southeast end of the lake, traveling on the main route between Saganagons and the Man Chain. (I believe, by the way, that the portage they were coming from is where the Boy Scout fell and hit his head in Lost in the Wild, which started his days of wandering alone overland through the wilderness before he got himself to the shore of Ottertrack. But I digress.)

We had traveled that main route back in 2003, but were heading a different way now, making a detour off the beaten track to Blackstone Lake. A glance at the maps tells you the portage between Bell and Blackstone is probably not much used. Fisher shows it as the only route into Blackstone (although there are actually two others), and says it's close to a mile in length. The Chrismar Adventure map says its not much more than a half mile. Either way, it's plainly not on any major route. And that was confirmed as we got started crossing. This is definitely the most overgrown Quetico portage we have been on. This picture is looking straight up the middle of the portage path -

The picture below is also the actual portage path. It doesn't look heavily trodden, because it isn't -

The tread was very rough, and the heavy growth made for some seriously hard work forcing the canoe through. Once I got tangled up in a downed tree and had to set the canoe down to get straightened out. But despite all that, the trail was (just barely) discernable beneath the thick growth the entire way. Every once in a while we would come upon an ancient downed tree that had been sawn years or decades ago, which assured us we were on the right path. These were also good places to find more interesting fungi -

Variation on a theme -

Closer to the Blackstone end was a big patch of ferns yellowing from the fall weather -

Who knows what these are? -

Little mushrooms growing out of a downed tree -

Different little mushrooms growing out of a still-standing tree -

Yes, we made it to the shores of Blackstone -

Blue asters on the Blackstone shore -

The first trip across, with the canoe, took about 25 minutes. Given that it was slower-than-usual going, that means the Adventure map's estimate of 180 rods is closer to the truth than Fisher's 290. Altogether it took us an hour and a half to make both trips across the portage, with the longest crossing being the one between loads when we took pictures. It was a good time, definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Now it was time to find a campsite. Out on Blackstone, we circled around a little island near the portage where I had a potential site marked on the map. There was a very primitive (though kind of cool) site there, but it was early enough to explore further, and I had an inkling we would find a more deluxe site near the point that divides the north and south arms of the lake, so we headed in that direction.

As we approached the island just off that point, it seemed pretty clear that we were coming up to THE address on Blackstone Lake. If the first primitive campsite by the portage was a single-wide, this was a luxury estate, with an open pine forest, lots of good tent pads, and a great fire ring with a very comfortable backrest. We got there about 4:15, set up camp, went for a little swim, then I leaned back and jotted down a few notes about our trip -

David walked around the island and took a few pictures. Looking back at the direction we had come from the portage -

The northeast side of the island (there was another small fire ring and lone tent pad over here) -

Abstract -

I'm still sitting around but at least I filtered that water -

The wind had shifted and was now coming from the northeast, and it got a little cloudy and cooler, so we decided not to go for an after-dinner paddle on this evening. After dinner we poured a little Maker's Mark and sat overlooking the lake we had all to ourselves -

We had to fend off a mouse while we snacked on cookies with our bourbon. Then, after it got dark, a couple of toads were hopping around. Good thing we didn't step on them. A few mosquitoes came out at dusk but not too many. But we still crawled in the tent before 9:00 and went to sleep after a little reading, tuckered out from the excellent portage into this lake.