Slept ok and woke up with pretty much one thing on my mind...just how bad was this portage from Little Trout to Misquah going to be? That was objective #1 for the day - get that behind me.

So I had some breakfast and broke camp and paddled up to the portage...one of the worst landings yet. No where to stand or put your canoe when you get out of the water - just a field of large ankle breaking boulders.

Started the portage with my large pack because I wanted to be able to see where I was going on my first pass through. It punches you in the face right away with probably the steepest and longest climb right there within the first 20 rods. Then a couple of other weird overgrown spots where you could possibly lose the trail if you weren't paying attention. Then mud...then a field of boulders...etc, etc. But overall, I did fine with it all and just tried to be deliberate with my steps and not worry about how long it might take me. I GPS'd it at exactly 3/4's of a mile and I think it took me 26 or 27 minutes? Maybe 24, I don't remember. It was not that bad. Went back and got the canoe and traversed it again and was greeted by rain on the landing to Misquah.

I threw my rain jacket on for the rainy paddle up Misquah, which is a really cool lake. The rain jacket seemed counter productive though, because it was warm and humid to the point where I was a sweaty mess under the jacket, so I'm soaked either way....rain or sweat, pick your poison.

I stopped to check out the campsite on Misquah and it was indeed pretty crummy. Finished paddling Misquah in steady but not oppressive rainfall. Portaged into Vista and found my first sign of other campers, as the southeastern most site there was occupied. I paddled up Vista through the rain, actually coming to peace with my rainy paddling. It cooled me off, kept other people off the lakes and I knew all my clothes and gear were secured in dry bags so I wasn't too concerned about gear being wet.

But Horseshoe seemed like a good enough destination for today. While I did have thoughts and options of going west from there to Gaskin, Allen, maybe Henson or Pillsbury, I guess I didn't feel the need to keep travelling in the rain beyond a lake everybody raves about like Horseshoe.

Starting from the south on Horseshoe I checked out the easternmost site secluded back in its own dead end bay and passed on that one. The site itself could have suited me, but the feeling of being back in a swampy little section of the lake wasn't what I was going for - I wanted more of a view I guess. Paddled up to the central part of Horseshoe where there is a cluster of 3 sites all within pretty close proximity. It must have been moving day on Horseshoe because they were all available. I landed at all of them and picked the one I liked best - the southernmost one.

It was still raining and had no signs of letting up and I was wanting to get myself and my gear dried out a bit, so I immediately set up my tarp and found a higher drier spot under the tarp to set my gear and pulled out my chair and just watched it rain.....and rain and rain and rain. It was vacillating between pouring and just raining steadily for the next several hours. My site was flooding - the pools of water were creeping toward my gear and me, and I was running out of dry land to stash my stuff. This was also giving me an interesting look at what might serve as a tend pad in this site....the one I was planning to use was holding tons of water so I was actually glad I hadn't gotten a chance to set my tent up there. There was one in a lower spot that seemed to be draining better (weird huh?), so when the rain subsided a bit I ran over and quickly set up my tent, then brought my sleeping pad, bag and a book over there and tried to dry out in the tent.

It felt good to get cozy and finally out of the rain, but the rain wasn't going anywhere. I laid and read my book and listened to steady raindrops until about 7:30pm when it finally stopped. So that was about 10 hours of very persistent rain.

The campsite was still quite soggy, but the evening turned beautiful and allowed me to make some food and start drying my stuff out on clotheslines and exposed rocks. I even managed to make a bit of a fire - someone had left some good split wood stacked right on the firegrate, and while it did get soaked all day, it dried out enough in the evening hours to actually burn.

Once again the mosquitoes came out after dark and I had no reason to put up with them so I headed to the tent and called it a day.