We awoke early on Sunday morning and decided to head further into the wilderness via Ashdick Lake. This was to be our first real portage (a 170 rod) and the first real test of the BWCA traveling experience. It sucked! The portage into Ashdick Lake is narrow and not traveled enough to keep the undergrowth at bay. We were told that the portages were wide and, other than being somewhat difficult to manage due to the rocks and other obstacles, relatively easy. They lied. The portage was a pain in the ass due to the few people who obviously use it.

Once on Ashdick we paddled across with no difficulty and made it to the much smaller portage that goes to Ester Lake. We took a small break on the portage, sitting on the soft moss and eating some granola bars and GORP. It was a perfect day; not too hot, not too cold and a crystal clear blue sky above.

With our second portage under our belt we hit Ester Lake with the plan on making it to Hanson Lake to stay for a couple of days. The paddle down was amazing. The waters were calm, the wind was at our backs and the sun was shining down; which proved to be a bad thing as none of us remembered to put on sunscreen the day before. The sunburns were quite interesting. I had burns on my thighs (from hiking my pants up while paddling), Matt had some very interesting “tiger stripes” running across his stomach and Gophers neck and back was looking redder than an apple.

Hanson Lake proved to be the quintessential BWCA Lake for us. Not a soul was around when we arrived, the sun was shining, the waters were crystal clear (affording a view at least 20-feet deep) and the air smelled of Cedar and Pine. It remains one of my favorite lakes to visit in the BWCA.

We set camp and, because it was very warm out, decided to take a swim. The site we chose had a very large rocky point sticking out that was coated in a “slime” (under the waterline), which we used as a slide. We swam for a few hours, having a good time of it all, before we decided to call it a day. We ate dinner (again, MRE’s), sat up and watched the sun set before tucking in for the night.

That night a major storm rolled in and, while it woke me up several times, Matt and Gopher just slept through the entire event.