Sunday, September 18, 2011 - ** Day 6 ** In the morning, we woke up to a pretty brisk wind, but thankfully, not a cold one. After a walk over to the other side of camp and a look at the main body of Oyster, we decided to forego any fishing. The big body of the lake already had 10-12” rollers, and I figured that might get worse as it warmed up, and if the wind held. Quick time was made of breaking down and packing up camp, munching on some pop-tarts and Tang, and carrying our gear over to the Southern side of camp. The put in there was a bit tricky with the waves slapping in, but after finding the best way to position the canoe for a load and exit, we got it done. We took a deep breath, had a small prayer, and then pulled out into the main body. The lake here gets over a hundred feet deep in spots, and with the waves splashing against the right side of our canoe, we just wanted to get this stretch behind us. There were no other canoes out on the water. After about 30-40 minutes of fighting the wind and growing waves, we finally picked out the portage on the shore ahead. I was glad this crossing wasn’t as bad as it had been on Loon Lake a few days before. It was pretty overcast above, despite the winds moving the clouds freely above us. I was waiting all morning for rain to start on us, but, it gave us a respite, at least for now. We made the portage just fine, and loaded into the dead end of the creek, and began to head South. The water was extra low, and there were again several small beaver dams to pull over or jump around, but we managed them easily. We made our way steadily down the creek, past the portage/cut-off to Agnes, and another short hop-around portage down towards the river. Soon after that re-entry, the creek became a long, narrow, slow paddle. After a few curves, though, it wasn’t even that. I had envisioned a repeat of Pocket and Gebbe Creeks from two days before, but this got much, much worse. It became difficult as the channel split time and time again, to distinguish just which slot was the main creek, and which was not. Each time it divided, we would pause and together decide which way to go, hoping it was correct. We tried to reason out our decisions based on water flow – signs of torn bog – anything. Soon, I had that sinking feeling of being lost. The water became so narrow and shallow, we finally stood up, carefully, and began to pole our way, trying to use the extra leverage to push us along. Our progress downstream slowed to a inches at a time. If we felt any confidence in the direction we were going, it was only because we hoped the smaller branches we passed up were NOT the right way. At one point, we slowed pretty much to a dead crawl. Matthew stepped out to try and get some weight out, but he immediately sank one leg to the knee in the nasty muck. We now both got out, and carefully choosing our footing (which slowed us down even more), began to again make some forward progress. Every other step found one or both of us ankle to calf-deep for a moment. We kept this grueling work up for about 30 minutes, when Matthew suddenly stopped, straightened up, and said “Dad, I think I see someone over there.” I didn’t see anyone, or anything for that matter, besides the tall marsh. But after peering for a few seconds, I did make out a bright, fluorescent green shirt moving slowly ahead of us, and to our right. If it hadn’t been such a bright color, I don’t think we would have ever seen them. “Well”, I said, “he’s either lost like us, or, that’s the river.” Sure enough and fortunately for us, they were on the river. We still had another 40-50 yards of this little trickle of a creek and bog to pull through. When I say trickle, that is no exaggeration. At this point, the “channel” we were on was maybe 24” wide, and at the most, 6-8” deep, and just ahead of us, for some reason, it took a nearly 90 degree turn to the right. Inspired by the proximity of open water, we dug down deep and pulled-pushed-heaved-and strained, gradually moving past the right angle and inching closer and closer towards the river. We could finally stand up and see the water ahead of us over the reeds. Finally, with one final, long, and exhausted push, we surged out of the muddy grass and muck and poked into the edge of the river. We laid back and rested there for several minutes. Matthew dangled his legs, one after the other, over the side of the canoe into the water to wash the stinking much off his pants and boots. The fact that very light rain had been falling eluded us. We both drank from our bottles and shared a granola bar. After the break, and having regrouped mentally, we turned and headed down river, hoping to catch a glimpse again of the green shirt. After a bit of much easier travel, and a long bend in the river, we came up far behind them on a long open stretch. The bright shirt was easy to pick out against the backdrop around it. “Can’t miss that”, Matthew said. We noticed the river had been getting narrower, and shallower, too. Shortly, the green shirt way ahead seemed to stand up in his canoe. At first we wondered what he was doing. Then it hit me. “You’re kidding”, I said. The two men had gotten out of their canoe and were walking it on down river. We went as far as we could, but soon it was silly to try and keep paddling. I rolled up my pant legs and got out. The bottom here was pretty firm, with a bit of mud. We got used to the cold water soon enough, and both agreed the going now was easier than paddling had gotten. Soon, after a few in and outs at deeper spots or pools, we finally caught the pair in front of us at the next portage. And, it was nice to get out of the canoe after being in it all morning into something that didn’t try to swallow us! We chatted with these fellas for a few minutes. I noticed one of them had a shotgun stuck in one of his packs. I was tempted to ask him what he was protecting against, but didn’t. Moving our gear across didn’t take too long. On the second trip back, we were slowed by three different groups all on the trail at the same time, headed North. As we were just about to carry our last load back down, a solo paddler pulled into the portage. I asked him if he had come down Oyster Creek, like we had – curious to know how it gone for him. Granted, he was travelling lighter than two, but I felt two guys pushing would be better than one. He told us that a few days before he had run into a Ranger, who warned him of the low conditions South of Oyster, and suggested he portage over to Agnes and down to avoid it. Where was this Ranger when WE need him? LOL We hit the river again and soon caught sight of our travel pals at the next portage. What normally was a large waterfall and rapids here were as dry as it could be, with only a trickle here and there coming through. It was a bit disappointing, as I had remembered the nice view from before. A Bald Eagle more than made up for it. He sat in a tree right at the river’s edge just below the dry falls. As we drifted up slowly to get a good look, he took off right out towards us, curved back just over our heads, and headed right up and over the dry falls. It was a beautiful sight. As we reached the far side of the portage, the rain had picked up enough to warrant putting on some wetgear. It turned out we would need it the rest of the day. Before setting off again, we talked with the other two guys about moose hunting and how they had tried the year before. After, we asked them if we could “Play Through”. We all laughed, and as they broke for a cigarette break, we loaded up and headed out for Nina Moose Lake. Further down, we reached and pulled up and over a large beaver dam. It was built so well, we easily loaded broadside right up on the inner pool along the rim. Mister Beaver had done a fine job on this one. Afterwards was S-curve after S-curve, with several more smaller dams mixed in, but we finally paddled around one last curve, and broke out into Nina Moose. I found it funny that right at the mouth to the river, on our right, was a nice stretch of sandy beach. An easy landmark to spot the river by. “How could someone miss that”, I thought. The rain had really began to come down steadily now. We turned out of the river mouth and headed for the first camp on the Eastern side of the lake. It was open, and we wasted no time in the rain unloading and getting our gear up into the trees of the camp, setting up our tent, and crawling in out of the rain. We napped for a few hours as the rain came down, tired from the taxing journey down through the Oyster Creek mud pit. Around 6, Matthew crawled out to cook some dinner under the large tree that provided pretty good cover, near our tent. After him chiding me for snoozing in on our last evening, I dug out my last dry pair of long pants and joined him. There wasn’t much of a sunset with all the cloud cover, but under just enough light, we enjoyed our last dinner in the Boundary Waters for this year. Neither of us really wanted to turn in, so we lingered out a bit, enjoying a hot drink and just watching the lake in the rain. Nothing happened to speak of, but with some of the trees already changing color for Fall, it sure made for a pretty view out across the other shores. Closer to dark, we made sure our gear was stowed well and dry under tarp, then turned in to sleep under the stars one last time, somewhere up there.