On Wednesday afternoon I picked a couple friends up at the MSP airport and then we met the other members of our group and got started packing. As we were getting our gear together we kept hearing news reports of 15 inches of snow in North Dakota. This had us a little worried that some of it might also dump on us, but snow or not we were still going. We hit the road at about 2am headed for Ely, arriving at about 7am. We quickly unloaded all our gear and canoes, waded down the shallow Picket Creek and launched the canoes into Mudro Lake. The air was cold, it was raining lightly, and as of yet there was little wind. We moved over the portages into Fourtown pretty quickly. As we got started on Fourtown the wind started picking up and continued strongly for the rest of the day. We worked our way up through Boot Lake and over the portage into Fairy where we camped on the east campsite. We were all cold, tired, wet, and ready for a hot meal. We were finally able to get a fire started with the wet wood. We put steaks on the fire, boiled some water for hot chocolate, heated up some mashed potatoes, and beans. It was a good meal for the end of a cold day. We all were ready to get some sleep.

Mudro Lake, Fourtown Lake, Boot Lake, Fairy Lake