Monday, May 30, 2011

Gloomy & gray this morn'. A quick breakfast of oatmeal & dehydrated apple slices supplemented by some leftover steak & potatoes from last night. Destination: Johnson falls.

The lake is reasonably calm as we push off & I am able to unhook the spoon that got snagged last night while fishing from shore. What wind there is at this point in the morning comes uncharacteristically out of the east. So we make surprisingly good time. It starts raining as we near the landing. The water levels here are as high as I've seen them, making the landing much more accessible. Some mossy trees catch my eye as we are pulling the Pearl up onto shore.

As you would expect. The trail back to the falls is wetter & muddier than usual, with plenty of standing water to traverse around or through. As always, the falls make the hike back all worth while. We take several pictures. But with the rain coming down the quality of most of the shots is not the greatest.

Ever the rockhound. Vickie finds a few suitable specimens for the collection in the near vicinity of the falls. With the persistence of the rain, we don't linger as long as we might of otherwise. We head back towards the Pearl.

The wind/waves are beginning to gather some momentum as we push off. Since I had the fishing pole along I decide to drag the silver spoon I had on behing the Pearl on the return voyage. Not holding out hope but, maybe I'll get lucky? At least it has stopped raining.

We paddle past the western most site & see that the 2 aluminum canoes are still there. We make it all the way to the site just before ours & we decide to pull off & catch our breath a bit. This is a pretty decent site. The exposed rock slope makes it appear as there is something of a natural sidewalk underfoot. Some neat large rocks are also scattered about. But we both agree that we prefer ours.

As we continue navigation on the water highway it is readily apparent that the waves have gotten noticeably pushier. Still manageable. But, we have to put our backs into it some. We find a small sanctuary to pull over & rest without having to get out of the canoe. After that short break we are able to continue on back to our site without further incident. P.S. No luck fishing.

Back at camp Vickie prepares some creamy wild rice soup for lunch while I work on supplementing our firewood supply. By this time the waves in the lake are starting to reach the uncomfortable level. And we forego any ideas of getting back out on the lake today unless things calm down considerably.

We both eat up some pages in our respective books. Also I sporadically continue working on the firewood situation & Vickie decides to make a batch of banana nut muffins. Also. We both love our new Sawyer 4L water filter system.

Around this time we see 2 aluminum canoes go by. One fairly close to shore, the other paddling right down the middle of the lake. It is still quite windy & wavy. Not impossible conditions. But enough so that you would quickly lose considerable ground if you stopped paddling for any length of time. You could tell the canoe in the middle of the lake was really struggling to make headways. We wonder aloud why they would paddle right down the middle of the lake. AND especially this lake! Of what possible benefit could they be deriving from such a strategy? Wildlife, scenery, fishing, & most important safety all would offer far greater chances for success nearer the shore. The best we could come up with was, they wanted to insure maximum privacy for anyone they might cross by who was at a campsite. ????? The wind never relented enough before evening to entice us to want to go out on the lake. So we stuck close by camp the remainder of the day.

Pine Lake