Sunday, September 02, 2018 Well so much for a good nights sleep, don't know why I expected to I was so excited to get started! One last check of the weather and it looks like the weather is now changed for the week and the end of the week it looks like lows at night in the low 40s and I didn't bring a beany for sleeping! Luckily they sell some at the lodge so I pick one up in the morning! At the outfitting lodge at 7am sharp to get permits, watch the video, get a canoe and also some leeches. Have a breakfast of PBJ on mini bagels and our last Pop for a week.

Poplar Lake is glass calm perfect morning for paddling, although the skies look a little dark. Sure enough, forecast changed again, by noon they are expecting rain and maybe some storms.....Great!!!! We were hoping to make it into Gaskin today for the first 3 days of our trip, but with the looming weather and the thought of the 98 rod portage we might have to rethink that. I will be the first to admit I am not in the best shape!

So off we head across the Poplar, make it easy to navigate since we have been there before and my wife and I get into a nice paddling rhythm. Wow is it going to take sometime to retrain those paddling muscles. We get to the first portage into Lizz and holy crap am I out of shape, up the hill and over we go, nice to see the put in a nice pier on the Lizz side, I remember it being very mucky. Load everything up, I am so proud of my wife and how she manhandles those big portage packs.

So on we go making our way to Gaskin Lake, paddling and portaging and site seeing. Checking out a lot of the campsites along the way just in case we can't get something on Gaskin. Clouds are getting a little darker but we are having a great time. There is something that feels good about doing all that work, it is very rewarding. We see a couple of sites on Horseshoe but we decide to stick to our plan and push on to Gaskin. I will say the 98 rod portage is long but pretty easy for the most part. Although by the time we get everything to the Gaskin side (We were double portaging the whole time) it had started to rain pretty hard. We thoughts about waiting it out at the portage but decided that if it is going to storm we better find a site and get a tarp setup.

We load up the canoe and off we go, and we no sooner leave shore and the rain stops. We come to the first site which is on an island and find it empty, so my wife gets out and checks it out. She really likes it but after a short discussion we decide to go check the next site which is one of the sites we had starred on our map. We head over that direction, come around the corner and YES it is open too. We both get out at this one and both decided it is a very nice site and decided this was home the next 3 days. So I start unloading our gear I get it all up into camp and decide I am so tired, hot, and sweaty that I need to take a dip in the lake. So in I went, clothes and all! It was so refreshing! My wife decides to join me and brings out our soap, day one and I am already bathing??? Nice!

Looks like some rain moving in again so I threw up a tarp real quick and we had some lunch of ramon while it sprinkled a little bit. We then spent the next few hours setting up camp and getting things situated. The last people were nice enough to leave us a nice pile of wood to get us through supper and breakfast tomorrow. All the work done it was time to put up our hammocks lake side and enjoy one of my favorite things to do out here, nap in my hammock!

We have a tradition for our BWCA trips that our first night we freeze some New York Strips and have them with some mashed potatoes. So we fire up the campfire and grill some nice tasty steaks over the fire! So good.

We decide to go out and do a little smallmouth fishing and gather some water, no luck on the fish so back to camp for a campfire and then off to bed. WOW.....the stars are so bright this trip! What a great day, but I am pooped. Time for a couple of ibuprofen, a shot of fireball and off to bed!

Sorry so long winded, but we did a lot this day. I will get shorter.....I hope!

~Poplar Lake, Lizz Lake, Caribou Lake, Horseshoe Lake, Gaskin Lake