A cool but strikingly beautiful sunny morning. Mist rose in thick clouds from the water as we enjoyed coffee and a substantial breakfast. As we hung by the fire John noticed movement not 150 yards north of camp along the waterline. A mother moose with a youngster in tow emerged from the brush and hung out along the shoreline for a long time. We watched and snapped pictures for a while before going back to finish breakfast. After eating, Cody and I went out to fish the calm water and the two visitors were still along the water’s edge after moving northward almost even with the portage to Shell. Pretty cool morning in more ways than one! After a short but uneventful fishing session we came back to camp and were entertained by a couple of beavers that would come within ten feet of the shore line by camp.

The other three decided the bluff across the lake to the south was calling out to them and they wanted to go explore it. I was feeling tired and decided to stay and find a sunny spot to read. Within the hour I started hearing loud calling from that direction and discovered they had found a way up to the top of the rock face and could see quite a ways over to Upper Pauness as well as me sitting in camp. I am really glad they had the energy to do that and hope to see their pics of the view soon. They continued on a loop into Upper Pauness and then back to Lower P before returning to camp. They were gone long enough for me to figure that was what they were up to so wasn’t surprised to see them coming back from the north.

That afternoon Cody and I went to fish the rapids between the two Pauness Lakes. We didn’t catch anything but were treated to some deer watching. Jon and Terry had gone back to Devil’s Cascade to take pics but when they came back they were laughing over the fact they ran into so many neat people to talk with they had spent their time chatting with a number of people they had run into and really didn’t take any more photos. While they were gone Cody and I had a front row seat to a couple of beavers that were constantly swimming past our camp, tail slapping and diving, and putting on quite a show for us. We also had a chipmunk visitor that would eat right at our feet but we could not get to eat a peanut out of his hand - we came close.

After supper the rest of the night was reading, talking, and getting ready to move out the next day.