Up quite early this morning.

A quick breakfast of oatmeal & boil some water for coffee, hot chocoloate, & topping off the water bottles before departure. There is a lone Whiskey Jack meticulously cleaning up our campsite as we pack up the tobaggons. In no time we are loaded and back on the trail towards the EP.

The trail back is now a virtual highway. But, it is a bit colder and more blustery than what we've seen the past few days. Still it's quite temperate. We make great time coming back and many times I hardly even notice I'm pulling a sled. There are a few spots where the slush has frozen and it is quite slippery. So I'm thankful to have my ski poles to better balance my self. Soon we are on the plowed road and one of the local fishermen pops out of his house to chat. We talk for awhile, and he admits that fishing has been quite slow as compared with recent winters. I then push on to the vehichle strip down and load the gear.

To save me from an extra 2 hours of driving, Mark agrees to ride back with Shawn & John. Since they didn't want to stop for a burger, I decided to head straight for Grand Marais myself and forego Trail Center. Along the way I run across a couple of moose along the Gunflint Trail. I stop at My Sisters Place and eat there while calling home to let Vickie know I survived and ask how Little Miss Aurora was doing.

After all was said & done I can safely say, that for me personally, this was an extremely rewarding trip. Being able to hike back to West Pike, and especially up to Gogebic, were accomplishments I won't soon forget. Catching my first salvelinus fontinalis through the ice, and seeing Mark do the same, was also very special & something I'd definitely hope to do again. Sleeping on the ice bed was also a new experience for me and broadened my knowledge. I was happy with the performance of my gear. The ski poles helped more than I would've thought, And, overall, I'm happy with my sleep system. Though, I would like to add an Exped down mat when finances permit. More for the comfort of my back than the need for added warmth. (I guess I'm getting old?) The need to snowshoe on this trip was, at best, minimal. But it did help immensely in breaking trail up to Gogebic. With the total lack of snow back home in central Minnesota, I thought I did pretty well considering I hadn't snowshoed since last winter. Somethings I'm still improving on; I need to pack necessities on the tobaggon a little better so they are readily accessible on the trail without having to dig too deep, or rip everything apart. Also, my monitoring of keeping cool, yet warm, needs some work. Especially with regards to my footwear. Changing socks more frequently in warm weather, like we had, will likely go along ways to resolving this issue. It's always makes it so much nicer to have a total team effort like we did. With everyone contributing to the overall good. We all shared some good times and good laughs. As I write this my eyes "light up like a Christmas tree" and I'm wishing we could have stayed another day.....or two.....or.....