The Portage

We took our time waking up, enjoying the serenity of the morning. I made some pancakes and we slowly packed up.

We weren’t really looking at watches, but I would bet it wasn’t until 11 am or so that we paddled off.

The plan was now to do the triangle. So we paddled up to the northeast corner of the triangle and then headed west towards the falls. Somewhere along the way Heidi caught a nice-sized northern. We decided to keep it for dinner. This part of the river, just east of the falls portage, was extremely beautiful. I really wanted to stay at a campsite here, but I knew that we had to get further than this today. Soon we were in the midst of our 209-rod portage. Besides having to step over/duck under a few trees, it really wasn’t too bad. At the end of the portage we had our lunch break and took a short dip at the landing. We also checked out the side trail that led to a view of the rapids.

We weren’t too sure where we would camp tonight, though we had our eye on Clear Lake. Having reached the northwest corner, we started heading south. We eye the rapids near the campsite and decide a portage here is unnecessary as we shoot down them instead. (Side note: I don’t remember exactly what these rapids looked like, but I can now see this was likely not a smart idea.) We checked out the campsite at the bottom of the rapids and decide it’s a little small for our liking.

Here’s where our day started to go a bit awry. On our map, the portage into Clear Lake appears to start not quite at the end of the bay. Well, we found this downed tree and a landing, which we were positive was the start of the portage trail.

After trying to follow two different trails from this point, the trail dissipated, forcing us to backtrack—sometimes over downed trees. At this point, we were getting very frustrated. We decide to get back in the canoe and, since we had seen a few other canoes around, go find someone to ask where the portage was.

Fortuitously, we found another canoe within a few minutes of paddling. They informed us the portage was at the very end of the bay. As we went back to the rest of the group with the news and went to check out the supposed location, we immediately recognized what a ‘real’ portage trail looks like. Though this portage is technically not difficult, we were all beat and this one was especially hard for me. But eventually, we hit Clear Lake and were happy to be on a new body of water.

At this point daylight was fading (was it 6-7pm?), so we were in dire need of a campsite. One by one we checked each of the campsites on Clear Lake. We had looked at all but one and they were all full. If there were no campsites on this lake, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to portage again today. Luckily for us, the last campsite that was out of sight turned out to be open.

It was a very elevated campsite with not a ton of room. And I remember there being candy bar wrappers everywhere. But, we were beyond happy to be home for the night. Heidi filleted the fish and we fried it up. This was supplemented with pretzel goldfish and beef stew. After another round of campfires, boxed wine, and good conversation, we drifted to sleep.

Second day route:

~Clear Lake