5:45, I wake up before our call; excited. We check-out with the same night manager and drive the rest of the way to Ely, buy leeches and a license, and pick up our permit at the AWESOME new ranger station (I went to school at Vermilion C.C. and knew the old ranger station very well. This one is better, to say the least). We continued up 169 to Smitty's on Snowbank where some very nice gentlemen helped us into our canoes and sent us on our way.

Paddled HARD across high whitecaps brought on by 20mph+ winds. We chose to take the long portage directly to Disappointment. My wife and I made it 2/3 of the way over the portage before the weight of my pack, the food pack, and half the canoe was too much for my shoulders to bear. We reached Disappointment, dropped the canoe and headed back to retrieve my gear pack. We returned to Disappointment to find 5 other canoes and 11 people preparing to portage. Needless to say we tried to hurry out of that mess of canoes and bodies. Passing several 4-canoe groups we make our way into Disappointment and end up finding the best campsite ever, because it was available! The site is numbered 3 on the back of the latrine; it faces south and is north of the first island site. We count ourselves extremely lucky when in the next hour; we were passed by 4 other groups looking for sites on the lake. Set up our camp, after a pretty long search for a useable overhanging branch comes up empty, we find a few trees 30 yards from camp and set up a 2 rope system to hang our food. After a nice afternoon paddle we return to find a group of 4 guys who decided to camp illegally on the rocky point 50 yards down the shore from our legitimate campsite and 20 yards from our food pack. This is bothersome to us, but we choose not to confront them. We eat venison steaks, potatoes, and we sleep.