Wednesday, July 10, 2013

We decided that our original route up Agnes and down the S-chain was not doable for our crew of youth so we opted to change to our alternate route through Jeff. Our morning was greeted with some wind and waves, which so far the girls have not had to experience. We worked our way along the shoreline to the 39 rod portage leading to East Lake. A definite down side to Quetico maps...no topo information showing that this is a 1400' rock ledge! While the girls took a break for lunch, my co-guide and I scouted the shoreline and did some rock climbing looking for the portage trail (not an easy task). After lunch was over, we decided there was no way we were going to portage over that rock so we had to continue further up Agnes and portage into the west side of East Lake.

We were at least treated to a little wildlife sighting lol.

We continued our paddle up Agnes until we could turn south at the point and head back toward the 32 rod portage into East Lake. We were very happy to see a portage trail that was easy to find and easy to walk! We continued our paddle down East Lake to the 41 rod portage into Jeff Lake. This portage trail was also an easy portage but a kind of boggy river entrance to Jeff Lake. We did end up pulling the canoes through a short stretch in the beginning of Jeff because of the shallow sandy waters but it was a nice walk that left our boots in tact!

Having no notes about Jeff Lake, we were not sure if there were other sites on Jeff or not so we started scouting, with the hope of getting as far west as possible before camping. This day was to be our layover day, but our campsite would determine whether we would stay two nights or one.

We ended up at the only site marked at the west end of Jeff Lake. Definitely not a layover site. The canoe landing is very narrow, requiring storing of 3 canoes in two different locations. The fire area was sheltered well and had a nice rock to use as a bench and another to use as a food prep area. The only places for tents were in the open and the three tents for our crew were accompanied by a fair number of rocks. There is a very nice rock along the shore for sitting and relaxing or enjoying dinner. Bear hang options are non- existent, with only one large tree and no other trees in range, so we ended up sandwiching our food between two canoes and tying them together. Fortunately, it worked.