Saturday Day 4 Lakes (Winchell, Wanihigan, Grassy, Mulligan, Lily, Brule, Brule Bay, Vernon, Swan)

Repeat after me, wet, cool (I reserve Cold for when it snows), windy, muddy… and that was the trip to the latrine. The trip plan for Saturday was fairly aggressive. So we started the day with cold cereal and broke camp early. Well not as early as I initially tried to send us out. You see, when we went to bed I'd made the statement that we should get going when the sun came up because we had a long way to travel. Chris agreed. Well, I woke up and it had started to get lighter out, so I figured the sun would be up soon. I began to get dressed and rustle about. Chris woke up and asked, "What in the world are you doing?". I told him it was getting lighter out so I thought I'd get up. He graciously informed me that it was the middle of the night and to go back to bed. I stuck my head out the tent door. Sure enough, moon and stars. Bright moon, but still, just moon and stars. There must have been a break in the clouds.  I went back to sleep…

Once the sky did actually get brighter via the sun, we were on our way under a gray sky. As we got to the first portage, it began to rain. It was one of those short portages that follow a small rapids beneath cedar trees. My favorite kind. Well when we got to the other side with our first load, the wind began to blow and it started to rain harder. We decided to put our rain pants on after moving the second load and wait out the heavy rain under the cover of trees. My rain pants slide on quickly. Chris begins to grumble that he can't get his boot through his rain pant leg. Why would they make rain pants that force you to take off your shoes in order to get dressed? So he sits on a rock and carefully removes his boots one at a time, slips his foot through the leg and quickly into his boot to keep his feet dry. Chris re-laces the boots, and tries to pull up "his" rain pants. Turns out "his" rain pants are really Michael's rain pants (Michael being his 10 year old son) and Chris can't pull them up beyond his knees without losing circulation to his feet. We have a little chuckle (belly laugh) over that one. Chris foregoes rain pants for the rest of the trip.  Apparently it is difficult to portage with your knees bound together.

Once the wind died down (notice I didn't say the rain let up) we worked our way over portages and lakes until we reached the portage into Grass lake. In this case Grass was mud stew. The end of the portage was a good 75 yards short of water. Between the water and the end of the portage was a field of soupy looking mud. We surmized later, that the large amounts of rain water earlier in the month must have washed out a beaver dam, draining most of the lake. We chose to bushwhack along the edge of the lake alternating between fighting through trees or slopping through the shoreline mud. In this manner we portaged, to the portage out of Grass/mud Lake. It was here that we met a couple of moose hunters on the there way in for a second attempt at a moose for the fall. Good luck to them. 

We worked our way down to Brule lake and found a spot to eat lunch on an island campsite as it started to rain harder. After lunch we paddle in the rain across the expanse of Brule Lake. The portages didn't need the extra rain. They were already squishy with excess water. The only bright spot to the travel conditions was that it was not cold. Once off Brule, the rain subsided. For the rest of the day, the rain was much lighter and intermittent. 

Once we reach Swan Lake, we pick an elevated camp site with a unique entrance. The location to get out of the canoe is tucked off to the side in a small alcove of trees. A short path connected the landing area to the camp site. The tent and tarp were set up for one last time. The dry spot under the tarp was very much appreciated. The Noah tarp was a good purchase. In this case we set up the tarp over the camp fire grate as we did not plan to build a fire.  For a final time supper is prepared by the light of a head-lamp. The soup and grilled cheese are something easily prepared with the camp stove. This had been a tiring paddle day, we do not linger over the camp stove once supper is consumed.

Just a quick note about this camp site. Wow, was the ground soft for the tent pad. Exhaustion and soft ground, nice combination. Only draw back was that one of the grommets on the tent pushed through the strap. Chris did a nice job securing the tent poles so that the tent stayed up all night.