Day 1: 7 Miles, 8 portages (965 rods), 9 lakes, 11.5 hours

~South Hegman Lake, North Hegman Lake, Trease Lake, Angleworm Lake, Home Lake, Gull Lake, Mudhole Lake, Thunder Lake, Beartrap Lake

Entered South Hegman (EP77) after doing a vehicle drop at Mudro. The Hegman lakes and Trease were basically a non-event aside from the vivid pictographs in the narrows between North Hegman and Trease. This is the first time we have seen pictographs in real life. They were cool, but not as special as I assumed they would be. Not these ones anyhow. Trease Portage was pretty killer, with no reward aside from forward progress. Personal satisfaction comes to my mind. I can't speak for the other 3 in my party (I giggle a little in my head). For the record, it took 37 minutes to walk this trail empty, well over an hour loaded, and I am a fast walker. Angleworm to Home was irritating, because from the water, we could see a man watching our arrival, and he quickly disappeared. They were on the other end cooking lunch. Their 3 kayaks were sprawled out in the middle of the trail at various points. I yelled at them. Home to Gull was grueling for me. I got stuck carrying the canoe (55 lbs) and the Seal Line 115 food pack (82 lbs). I was dead, but I lived to tell about it. Some of our party ran into some Forest Service types. They told us water levels are up, gave us a hi 5 for doing Trease Portage, and gave us a nice heads up that the Beartrap Lake site was opening up that day! But the folks at the Thunder/Beartrap portage site might nab it, so we boogied through Mudhole and Thunder to claim the Beartrap Lake campsite. I've heard some stellar reviews of this campsite, but to me, it was just a campsite on a pretty lake. It has all the amenities you look for in a site: good hanging tree, hammock trees, good visible landing, and plenty of tent pads. It just felt like a place to stay.