Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Oyster, Finger, LLC September/Oct 2013
by landoftheskytintedwater

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 09/29/2013
Entry Point: Moose/Portage River (north) (EP 16)
Exit Point: Moose/Portage River (north) (EP 16)  
Number of Days: 7
Group Size: 2
Day 2 of 7
Monday, September 30, 2013 (Oyster Lake to Finger Lake)

A beautiful morning. We would enjoy clear, sunny and warm conditions all day. Breakfast was oatmeal with dried cherries and some coffee on the french press. Both of our muscles were sore from the first day, but we packed up and pressed on for Finger Lake about 10am. We stopped over to check out the pictographs on Rocky Lake on the way to the portage into Green. The landing on the Rocky side is lives up to the lake's name, but the portage is beautiful, and Green was sporting some especially nice falls colors when we got to the end of the trail. A quick paddle across Green and another pleasant portage into Ge-Be and it was time for lunch. Destination: rock chairs.

Following lunch at the rock chairs, we paddled to the north end of Ge-Be, briefly got out of the canoe at what looked like the portage landing into Ge-Be Creek before realizing there was no trail, then paddled a few dozen yards north to the actual portage, which is straight downhill to Ge-Be Creek. Glad we were headed this way.

Ge-Be Creek was a nice paddle and it was very quiet all around us. I was hoping we'd see a moose walking around the bog surrounding the creek, but no luck. There was a beaver dam that required a pull-over just before Ge-Be Creek meets up with Pocket Creek, and we were able to pass by the portage into Pocket Lake and just paddle into the lake. All the sites on Pocket were vacant and it dawned on us that we hadn't seen anyone since leaving the Nina Moose River more than 24 hours ago. I was hoping this trend would continue so we could camp on the nice island site on Finger. The Finger portage was another beautiful portage winding it's way along Finger Creek to Finger Lake. We were planning a layover on Finger, so it was nice to put down the canoe at the end of the last portage for a couple days.

We paddled our way south of the southern island before M spotted a tent on the site. A solo tripper was doing chores at the 4-star site as we paddled by. I was pretty bummed but we headed to the island site on the northwest portion of the lake. This site is elevated from the lake and offers great views to the south and east. It only has one good tent spot far back from camp and a second tent spot in camp that is only marginal but OK for a one or two person tent. The grate area is nice featuring a couple large boulders and nice clean rock surface between the log seating. The latrine is back along an awkward trail. This site looks like it gets little use and a couple dead trees right in camp were full of great firewood. We took another dip to wash off, then set up camp.

Dinner was wraps with teriyaki chicken, cucumber, rice, snap peas, peanut sauce and carrots. Delicious. We followed it up by baking some brownies on the reflector oven. We noticed after dark that in addition to someone being on the southern campsite on the big island, there was also someone at the site on the northeast side of that island. After not seeing anyone for 24 hours and passing about 12 open campsites that day on Rocky, Green, Ge-Be and Pocket, 3 of 4 sites were full on Finger. The stars were awesome and we journaled by the fire before heading to bed.