Agnes - LLC - Ge-be-on-e-quet Loop
by TominMpls
Trip Type:
Paddling Canoe
Entry Date:
06/30/2017
Entry & Exit Point:
Moose/Portage River (north) (EP 16)
Number of Days:
8
Group Size:
2
Discuss Trip:
View Discussion Thread (14 messages)
Day 3 of 8
Saturday, July 01, 2017 (day 2, Lake Agnes to LLC)
We slept in uncharacteristically late the next morning, and took some time to make coffee, eggs, fry bread, and bacon for breakfast. As we were packing our gear, the couple with the dog paddled past our site toward the portage to Lac La Croix, and it was 9:30 by the time we pushed off from the site. I'd been worried about the wind on LLC, but as we left our site it was overcast but fairly calm. The first portage was quick and easy, but the second portage was clogged with about four groups, including a Boy Scout troop, all of whom were quite disorganized. Despite being the last of the groups into the portage, we still managed to be the first out, and we headed out across Boulder Bay on LLC.
This lower section of LLC proved to be some beautiful and easy paddling, and we managed to get to Never Fail Bay pretty quickly, where we stopped for an early lunch. The site we stopped at was at the tip of a peninsula and provided nice views of the bay, but unfortunately the site itself had been left in a really bad state by previous users of the site: a camp chair, compass, and random gear were strewn about the site, and furniture - including a makeshift table - had been lashed together out of wood on the site and left there. I like to pick up junk we find on sites, but there was far too much and it was too early in our trip, so we ate our lunch and headed back on our way.
Just north of our lunch stop we passed the couple with their dog again; they were heading back toward Lake Agnes as we headed north. I guess they were just taking a day trip and were base camping on Agnes. As we paddled on north, the gray day turned into a sunny one. Appropriately on Canada Day we passed our only segment of the Canadian border and saw one of the border markers as we turned east into the Fish Stake Narrows, determined to take the second island site in from the border. Unfortunately, as we came around the west side of the island we found that site taken. Winds were quite high on the Narrows but we crossed to Coleman Island uneventfully and found the third site west along the bottom of the island to be available. Fighting the winds a bit, we landed and decided to take the site.
Though M didn't particularly like the site, I liked that it appeared to have been almost completely unused - a daisy meadow occupied more of the middle of the site, and the fire grate, in the middle of that meadow, clearly hadn't seen any use recently. With little in the way of tree cover I struggled to find a place to hang the rain/bug tarp, but managed to rig something up that seemed reasonably solid, and we sent our tent up adjacent to it.
The weather quickly and unexpectedly changed about a half hour after we landed, as a huge rain cell moved in and got everything wet. The tarp wasn't ideally positioned, with the low sides propped up with canoe paddles and the high sides hanging from shrub trees, but we huddled under it to wait for the rain to pass. Though it reduced to a drizzle, it never did stop completely, so we played cards and then eventually fixed dinner under the now significantly-sagging fly. My enthusiasm for the site diminished further when it turned out that with all the meadow and flowers, the site was full of mosquitoes, so we had to carefully secure the edges of the bug netting on our tarp to keep out the mosquitoes. When we eventually went to the tent, we heard a constant loud hum as thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes were drawn to the warmth and light of our tent, desperate to get in.
At about 12:30 in the morning I woke as M smacked a mosquito that was buzzing by her head and said she thought we had a bunch of mosquitoes in the tent. I sat up and turned on the light, only to discover dozens of mosquitoes inside our tent. As M pointed out, she could tell they were inside because the ones inside were producing a hum about a half step higher than the ones outside. We started maniacally killing mosquitoes, but I got worried that they'd gotten in somehow, and we might have a really lousy week if there was a hole in the tent's bug netting somewhere. Eventually I discovered that when I'd zipped the door shut I'd left about a quarter-inch gap between the two zippers, and dozens of mosquitoes had found that tiny gap. I closed it, and we went on killing mosquitoes. About 20 minutes later we'd mashed over a hundred mosquitoes, and the walls of our tent were (and still are) stained with the blood and guts of what we now call the great Fish Stake Narrows Mosquito Massacre.
~Agnes, Lake, Lac La Croix
We slept in uncharacteristically late the next morning, and took some time to make coffee, eggs, fry bread, and bacon for breakfast. As we were packing our gear, the couple with the dog paddled past our site toward the portage to Lac La Croix, and it was 9:30 by the time we pushed off from the site. I'd been worried about the wind on LLC, but as we left our site it was overcast but fairly calm. The first portage was quick and easy, but the second portage was clogged with about four groups, including a Boy Scout troop, all of whom were quite disorganized. Despite being the last of the groups into the portage, we still managed to be the first out, and we headed out across Boulder Bay on LLC.
This lower section of LLC proved to be some beautiful and easy paddling, and we managed to get to Never Fail Bay pretty quickly, where we stopped for an early lunch. The site we stopped at was at the tip of a peninsula and provided nice views of the bay, but unfortunately the site itself had been left in a really bad state by previous users of the site: a camp chair, compass, and random gear were strewn about the site, and furniture - including a makeshift table - had been lashed together out of wood on the site and left there. I like to pick up junk we find on sites, but there was far too much and it was too early in our trip, so we ate our lunch and headed back on our way.
Just north of our lunch stop we passed the couple with their dog again; they were heading back toward Lake Agnes as we headed north. I guess they were just taking a day trip and were base camping on Agnes. As we paddled on north, the gray day turned into a sunny one. Appropriately on Canada Day we passed our only segment of the Canadian border and saw one of the border markers as we turned east into the Fish Stake Narrows, determined to take the second island site in from the border. Unfortunately, as we came around the west side of the island we found that site taken. Winds were quite high on the Narrows but we crossed to Coleman Island uneventfully and found the third site west along the bottom of the island to be available. Fighting the winds a bit, we landed and decided to take the site.
Though M didn't particularly like the site, I liked that it appeared to have been almost completely unused - a daisy meadow occupied more of the middle of the site, and the fire grate, in the middle of that meadow, clearly hadn't seen any use recently. With little in the way of tree cover I struggled to find a place to hang the rain/bug tarp, but managed to rig something up that seemed reasonably solid, and we sent our tent up adjacent to it.
The weather quickly and unexpectedly changed about a half hour after we landed, as a huge rain cell moved in and got everything wet. The tarp wasn't ideally positioned, with the low sides propped up with canoe paddles and the high sides hanging from shrub trees, but we huddled under it to wait for the rain to pass. Though it reduced to a drizzle, it never did stop completely, so we played cards and then eventually fixed dinner under the now significantly-sagging fly. My enthusiasm for the site diminished further when it turned out that with all the meadow and flowers, the site was full of mosquitoes, so we had to carefully secure the edges of the bug netting on our tarp to keep out the mosquitoes. When we eventually went to the tent, we heard a constant loud hum as thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes were drawn to the warmth and light of our tent, desperate to get in.
At about 12:30 in the morning I woke as M smacked a mosquito that was buzzing by her head and said she thought we had a bunch of mosquitoes in the tent. I sat up and turned on the light, only to discover dozens of mosquitoes inside our tent. As M pointed out, she could tell they were inside because the ones inside were producing a hum about a half step higher than the ones outside. We started maniacally killing mosquitoes, but I got worried that they'd gotten in somehow, and we might have a really lousy week if there was a hole in the tent's bug netting somewhere. Eventually I discovered that when I'd zipped the door shut I'd left about a quarter-inch gap between the two zippers, and dozens of mosquitoes had found that tiny gap. I closed it, and we went on killing mosquitoes. About 20 minutes later we'd mashed over a hundred mosquitoes, and the walls of our tent were (and still are) stained with the blood and guts of what we now call the great Fish Stake Narrows Mosquito Massacre.
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