Saturday, August 11, 2012

My heart started racing when I heard what I swore was a larger creature stirring around our campsite after my 6AM alarm went off. I was almost convinced it was a bear until my wife woke up and considered that it could just be a very loud squirrel jumping on our overturned canoe. Then I heard a big splash in the water! Regardless, the creature was gone by the time I got out of the tent.

It’s very surreal to wake up to a foggy lake that is releasing its summer heat during a crisp August morning. I couldn’t resist snapping a ton of pictures as the fog over the glassy surface slowly melted away as the sun got higher. The paddle out of Polly was one of the most beautiful I have done. The glassy lake and bright sunshine combined with the beautiful northern bays and islands of Polly were pure heaven.
The travel was slow but steady – lots of beaver dams and avoiding rocky waters. It was fortunately another cloudless day and the hazards were easily seen. There were no signs of other people on the route. We made it to Hazel and deliberated stopping for lunch as all 3 campsites were vacant, but after how busy Polly was, we didn’t want to take chances getting a site on Phoebe as it was getting later in the afternoon. We pounded some more snacks and pushed on, not without me missing the canoe with the big pack after the last portage and falling into the water causing some minor abrasions – the only physical mishap on the trip. We were much too hungry at this point to be pushing on, but we were almost there and kept eating peanuts and bars to keep going. Now was the biggest surprise of the trip: not a single soul was on Phoebe Lake. It was so refreshing to have a pick of campsites rather than fighting crowds like at Polly. I wanted a site that had a good vantage point for seeing the sunset and the Perseid meteor shower that was peaking tonight, so we took the site on the southern shore instead of an eastern-facing island site. It was tucked up and away and provided a very secluded experience for us, but yet it had a nice rock landing that you could sit or lay out on and a great view of the sky and the lake’s islands. Phoebe was different in that it had bowling-ball sized shale-like rocks on the shorelines rather than the big bald-faced rocks that a lake like Polly has.
We had another freeze-dried lunch and campshower (my wife was really loving those) and just relaxed. Then came the realization of what turned out to be the very biggest disaster of the trip – I had forgotten my nalgene bottle full of leeches in the water at the Polly campsite, and I was not going to be able to jig for walleyes at this perfect lake for it. Bummer. After our Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai for dinner which was actually very good, we walked along the shoreline to get a better view of the sunset and had some wine. After our backpacker chocolate cheesecake (not as good), I wanted to stay up past midnight for the meteor shower, but again my wife was exhausted from the busy day and we decided to sleep a couple hours and wake up later. At about 1AM, we stumbled out of the tent to the most glorious night sky I had ever seen. We saw many meteors which were very easy to spot before the moon came up above the far end of the lake in a red crescent, which my wife liked better than the meteors. Then, we crashed with the plan to finally sleep in!   

Lakes Traveled:   Hazel Lake, Phoebe Lake,