Monday, March 14, 2011 We awoke early to get a jump on what would be, to put it lightly, a struggle to get up the stairway portage. I made eggs for breakfast, and filled up everyone's water bottles as we would surely need it. We packed up camp and loaded the sleds one by one. As soon as one was loaded, Reese walked it over to the bottom of the portage. Like I said in the intro, the camera got packed away accidentally so I have no photos for the day. I can only describe to you the process of getting these sleds up the portage to Duncan. We realized that there was no way we were going to pull the sleds up the hill. The sun and heat the day before had made it too icy to even consider. We managed to rig up a pulley system using rope, webbing, and carabiners. REEL carabiners, not the ones you buy at in the checkout lane at the grocery store to hold your keys...DISCLAIMER, please if you use this system DO NOT use those biners. YOU WILL hurt yourself or someone else because they will break. Back to the system, we tied a loop in the end of the rope at the bottom of the hill. To the loop we attached a carabiner, which was then clipped to the tow rope on the front of the sled. Disclaimer 2: Be SURE the rope you use will be able to hold the wait you are pulling, other wise you will be slidding down a hill face first with a heavy sled chasing you... not cool. Again, back to the system, at the top of the hill we wrapped webbing around a sturdy tree and clipped a carabiner to it. The rope was run from the sled at the bottom of the hill, up, through the carabiner at the top of the hill and was hooked to a harness we had for pulling sleds. The two ladies stayed at the top of the hill so as not to be in the way at the bottom of the hill if this all went south. One guy put the harness on at the top of the hill and walked down, pulling the rope and sled up the hill, while the other two guys pushed and guided the sled up the hill... This worked better than I could have hoped. We got the sleds to the top of the first staircase and reset our pulley for the second staircase. It took some time but without the rope and biners we would still be on Rose Lake!

There was a strong South wind in our faces all the way across Duncan. Erin quickly tired out and I pulled both of our sleds, at the same time, across the last third of the lake. She rallied for the portage to West Bearskin and was hot on my heals when I hit the ice again. She keeps telling me she is not a tough "outdoorsy girl" but she keeps proving her self wrong!

We arrived back at my truck in the early afternoon, and headed for the Trail Center restaurant for a burger before heading back to Two Harbors to drop off the tent at the Canoeist where we finally got to meet Mike. He was shocked that we hadn't caught any fish (the best we did was one tip-up with the bait missing from the hook). From there it was back to Duluth were we parted ways with Brett and Tina who had to head back to Mpls. and we headed back to Bemidji getting home around 9:30 pm.

On the way home I got a voice-mail from Reese saying that he had talked to Cory and that Bayla was fine. The vet was able to remove the remaining 3 hooks from her lip, but she was still sore.

I would consider this trip a success even though I'm sure Erin and Tina had at one point or another plotted my demise for pushing them outside of their box(es). I think that they will look back at the trip and realize what they accomplished and the smiles that were had by all.

Lessons Learned:

1: Buy the best side cutters on the market. I don't care how much they cost, when there is a hook stuck in someones face (man or beast) you won't regret it.

2: Pack a climbing rope the next time you want to camp on Rose in the winter

3: Camp on Duncan and day trip to Rose

4: Wall tents/hot tents are THE WAY to go

5: Stay at Hungry Jack Lodge again

6: Ice screws work in frozen ground also... this was helpful

7: Taking the extra time to stop and take a bunch of picture is well worth it.

8: You need to get a wood stove VERY hot for a reflector oven to work...leave the reflector oven for summer trips.

Things to buy or things to leave behind for next trip:

1: BUY Crampons for the hill

2: BUY Side Cutter

3: Bring sunglasses

4: Bring Less food (always a problem)

5: BUY/BUILD a sled from Black River Sleds... Sweet toboggans!

Congrats again to my cousin and his new Fiance. Glad we could be a part of the memory!