Day Four: Travel Day

The cold night was followed by a beautiful misty morning, also VERY cold! It was 27 degrees outside at 5:45, and there was slush in my tooth brushing water cup! Our water filter and bucket were frozen to the upside-down canoe (table) and we had to break them free. I took lots of mist shots, and discovered (no real surprise here) that this type of photography on a very cold morning takes lots of battery power! On misty mornings for the rest of the trip I usually had at least one camera battery tucked away in my bra.

After a gorgeous dawn, the mist was nearly gone at 8 AM. We had a late breakfast because of the photography, and were packing up about 9:30. The breeze was picking up, there was a clear sky and bright sun.

We paddled about a half-hour to the first portage and Neil's blood sugar was 71, so we stopped for a snack break. The twenty-rod portage has two entrances, and we had landed at the first. We wondered why there were two? Perhaps one for high water and one for lower? The next portage is longer and the put-in is very rocky. This is where I saw the elephant!

(Now perhaps I should insert here that these portages aren't difficult trails at all. The only real challenge is loading/unloading on the rocky put-ins and take-outs. Because I have a touchy back and bad joints, this is all labor left to Neil. With the low water levels, the loading and unloading spots were more difficult than they should have been, and even the short portages became a big task.)

We discussed our fatigue level, the number of portages (because we had to return over this same route), our real need for a layover day, the unlikely prospect that we could make it to Adams Lake as we had planned and still have time to return by the 15th without traveling every single day, the insulin concerns, and my pain. I suggested portaging over to the Kawishiwi River because I love the quiet river paddling; Neil reminded me that it made no sense to take this portage just to paddle a section of river if we weren't going to go on. So. . .we decided to turn back.

We drank Kool-aid at the end of the small portage, and ate our lunch at the first campsite. We noticed a Forest Service plane flying overhead and wondered what/who they were looking for. (More about that later.)

We paddled back through the lovely section of the river, hoping that a nice campsite we had seen earlier might be available. We met one couple in a red canoe, with a dog in a neon yellow life jacket. When we portaged over and saw that the campsite was indeed open, we hurried off to claim it. A turtle on a rock beckoned for photograph, but we saw a canoe approaching in the distance, so we dropped off our gear at the campsite and then went back for the photograph, which turned out to be quite unremarkable and not worth the effort.

We camped at 2:30 in bright sun and a healthy breeze. Spartan1 suggested that I might build an INUKSHUK and I did. It is a welcoming cairn, and we hoped it might signal to some of the Quiet Journey paddlers who might be going by. I photographed some asters, he rested, and I did a refreshing sponge bath with a pan of water.

At 5:00 it was 60 degrees and feeling cooler as usual. (That constant breeze!) We discovered that someone had left three tubs of earthworms in a DQ bag under the tree. We wondered what to do with them, and decided we would have to find someone who used live bait or else we should pack them out. We called to the people in the red canoe, but they weren't interested.

The decision to have a layover day relieved my concerns a bit, especially since Spartan1's blood sugar had been running on the low side all day. At 5:30 he was making the fire for supper. We dined on BPP Vegetarian Lasagna with extra noodles, Charlotte's Raspberry Blast, MH green peas, and coffee. The lasagna made a LOT! It didn't taste much like lasagna, it was rotini pasta in a brown sauce (no red sauce and not much cheesiness) but it did taste pretty good.

At 7:30 it was down to 50 degrees and Spartan1 still said he intended to wash up. I was glad I had done it in the warm part of the day. There was a very unspectacular sunset, even for a photogenic spot, and we watched the little fire die, retiring to the tent at 8:30. We were tired and disappointed, and ready for a day with no travel.