After a night of high winds, rain, and little sleep, we got up at 5:30 and were on the water at 6:30. The waves on Alice weren’t as bad as yesterday, but were still a challenge. I double packed the 10 rod portage successfully- surprising, since it was my first time double  packing. We quickly paddled Cacabic Lake. On the 240 rod portage, two of us started out double packing, but only made it 1/3 of the way before we had to drop the 2nd packs. One of the others dropped the canoe at the 2/3 point and back tracked to get the other packs. She double packed the two personal packs to where the canoe was and switched back to the canoe. Two of us then backtracked and grabbed the last 2 personal packs sitting at the 2/3 mark. It was kind of a weird system, but it worked out! On Thomas, we had white caps galore. We island hopped across the lake while watching an eagle soar above us, then portaged into Thomas Pond. We quickly portaged and passed through the river sections passing a few people and a couple of playful otters.

We stopped for lunch on a rock across the portage to Ima, and then had fun sliding (and falling) down the rock face into the muck. After lunch we hit Ima- talk about whitecaps! I climbed up along the west side of the portage with binoculars and a map to see what sites were open. We ended up on the second site on the east shore. We got in around 2pm and made camp with enough time for a nap before dinner... After a 3 hour nap, we had a late dinner to a “sailor’s delight” sunset. We hung the bear bags and went to bed. Ten minutes later we heard “scratch, scratch, scratch.” We had a microbear helping itself to our empty packs. We got up and hung the packs- only to hear “scratch scratch” coming from inside one of them! We started opening the pack- only to have the mouse come FLYING off the pack and hit Tauna! The adventures of the BWCA are ever-changing and never-ending!  Ima Lake Campsite review: Site 1190 This was a nice campsite with a view. The landing was a 1-canoe  very rocky  landing, especially since we had white caps coming right at us from the other end of the lake. The fire grate area looked good, but since it was so windy, we ended up hiding out farther up the site. We found two decent tent pads and a cool high elevation spot that might work for a tent if you don’t mind it not being staked down. The wildlife here was pesky-we saw mice and a snake. There was a depression just to the south side of the campsite where we put up our rain fly and cooked dinner over the stove. The bear hang was ok- we tied off to the main tree in the site and the top of a dead tree trunk that was at least 8’ tall. If you use this system, just make sure you get the packs away from the branches that overhang...or else you’ll be short a few cheerios in your trail mix. Overall a 3-star site. Lakes: Alice, Cacabic, Thomas, Thomas Pond, Ima Distance: 6 mi paddled, 350 rods portaged