Sunday, June 13, 2010 Day One: My biggest mistake with all of the planning was picking an entry where we would have to portage through 8 lakes before we hit one with campsites. This was after driving all night and having spent the entire day before working to get everything together for the three groups. The lakes between Round and Gillis, our target for first camp, were very short, easy paddles. The portages were the difficult part. With three less than adult sized people, and two of the three adults in pretty poor shape, it was slow-go on the trails, and an off and on drizzle to go with it. Plus, there was some low water on some of the lakes and our portage locations had to change because you could not get the knoos to where the maps showed the portages to be. And of course the maps were all mismarked where 80 rod portages on paper were really 100 rod portages for my knees. Also, they included many up and down steep changes in elevation. And then to think that we would have to exit this same way on Friday. Does it sound like I’m making whining excuses yet? So, by the time we got to Gillis it was almost 4:00, we had not eaten lunch, and we were exhausted. We broke out the steaks, got them on the grill, made mashed potatoes and corn, skipped the dessert, and forgot about sautéing the mushrooms and onion. Everything tasted great, except that we had half of the steak left and everyone was full, or too tired to eat any more. Steak with waffles for breakfast the next morning sounded pretty good so we packed it all up, cleaned up, and finished setting up camp. Lastly, we decided that we needed to change our trip plan to avoid the same journey back out and decided to skip going to Little Sag and instead head toward Ogish and then to exit at Seagull where the other groups would also be. Too bad, Little Sag was the highlight I was most looking forward to on this trip. But the good choice was deciding to spend an extra day on Gillis. I slept well that night, albeit in a tent with my brother and nephew. I was too tired to try to find a good hammock spot.