Tuesday, June 27, 2017 Day 3 Tuesday Tow to Prairie Portage Paddle Birch, Carp, Emerald (about 12 miles) 2 portages Got up at 6:00 Packed remaining gear. Made turkey sandwiches to pack for lunch and got the 2 frozen water bottles to keep the cheese, butter and sandwiches cool. We take 2 igloo water cooler jugs that serve as bear / critter barrels, so we used one as a cooler. We had 6 real eggs, romaine lettuce, butter, American cheese, provolone, small broccoli crown, little smokies, bread, corn tortillas, Whataburger salsa packets, real maple syrup, and brownies for fresh food. The bacon is the thick precooked kind. Ate breakfast pancakes and bacon at outfitter and finished loading boat for our tow to Prairie portage. It took about 20 minutes to get to Prairie Portage. It feels like a bit of a cheat, but it’s a long way to paddle without it. We talked to 2 men smoking pipes at PP that said they had 15 hours of rain a few days ago. We hoped that meant the bad weather was over and we were in for a few nice days. We checked in with the ranger and bought Quetico shirts, then loaded the canoe and started off to the east on Birch to the Carp Portage (40 rods). It was a bit wet, but pretty broad and level so I carried the canoe on this one. An older couple was triple portaging and as I passed the man on his trip back, he had stood aside and said hello. As I passed he took another step and I heard him slip down the trail onto the rocks. I called back to see if he was ok, and he said he was. I feel for him, since I slipped the last time we went when I stepped around a Labrador and injured my leg pretty badly. The sides of the trail are definitely harder to walk on. He came back through with some packs so I guess he was alright. We set out on Carp. The wind was mostly behind us but it still seemed like a struggle. We had the usual discussions of is that an island, no I think it’s a peninsula, but manage to navigate correctly. I was glad we decided to each have a map this time. We stopped at a site listed as a 5 star site, but decided to push on through to Emerald.

The Emerald portage is a lot rougher than the 80 rod suggests, especially after a lot of rain. It’s a pretty good rocky uphill to start then lots of muck, a stream running through part of it, slick rocks and small logs in the muck that I guess are supposed to help but just made it harder to balance. Our packs were all probably over 60 lbs which is about ½ my weight. My pack kept falling off my left shoulder and I used a lot of energy trying to get it back, the bungied paddles fell apart and I had to gather them back up. I was also carrying a dry bag with binoculars, camera and rain gear, so I got winded and decided to stop and rest the pack on a tree trunk that had been sawed off. It see-sawed down to the ground which of course meant I couldn’t stand back up. I decided to take the hand carry stuff down and come back for it. I met Daniel coming back the other way. He wasn’t too happy I had dropped the pack. Anyway, I went back and picked up the pack and set it on a larger sawn off log to help stand up. I sat on the log, put on the pack and heard a crackle as the log disintegrated into the ground. I guess everything stays pretty wet there and it was rotten. I manage to struggle up using a tree and a lot of balancing. I made it to the end of the portage, but Daniel had gone back for the 3rd pack, so I loaded the canoe so he could come up and drop the last pack in. I felt bad for not bringing both packs, but we made it through. We paddled to the 1st campsite on Emerald that was supposed to be a 4 star site and got out our sandwiches. It was pretty closed in and when I looked at the maps there were at least 10 horse flies sitting on it. We decided to move on and check out the campsite on the east side of the lake. There were a group of guys on an unmarked site near there. They were the last people we saw for 7 days. The next site had a lot going for it. Nice fire pit, a couple of sitting logs, a clear view of the lake, and a ledge of rock near the firepit about knee high. We decided it would do. We set up the tent, and I got water and filled the filter bag and the sun shower with iodine for handwashing. The water is crystal clear, the clearest I’ve seen anywhere. Daniel found 2 halves of a hollow log about 1 foot high for the latrine and dug a hole up a on the hill behind the camp. It involved climbing over a dead tree next to a 10 foot drop-off, so I tied back a couple of small limbs on a tree with paracord to create a shortcut. It still had some tricky footing on the way down, but it felt a little safer. We had red beans, little smokies and rice with cornbread for dinner. The ova easy eggs make a much better cornbread than the one with just water. It was a fairly warm, sunny day all day. We had packed in brownies with icing for dessert. Not worth the weight. We got the packs repacked and hung the bearbags. And got to bed about 10:00