Friday, September 07, 2018, 5 p.m.
Agamok site, Kekekabic Trail, 9.1 miles (39.3 miles)

What a beautiful day! A bird rustling in the bushes behind my head woke me at 6:30 a.m. I got up quietly, made coffee and watched a low mist dance over the water as the sun rose. The morning was totally silent. Sometimes, I feel like a silence addict. In the city, the constant noise grates on my nerves. I am literally willing to hike 20 miles into the wilderness over and under hundreds of blowdowned trees to get just 10 minutes of that wilderness silence.

We set out at 9:30 a.m. and started climbing. That would be the theme for the day. It took us two hours to climb up to the spur trail down to Kekekabic Lake, the site of the old fire tower which is no longer in existence. Fire towers were the reason the trail was originally built -- to get rangers to the fire towers. When the forest service switched to monitoring for fires by plane, they were going to abandon the trail, but people asked them to preserve the trail for backpacking. I think the MN Rovers took it over for a while. Now it’s managed by the Kekekabic Trail Chapter of the North Country Trail.

We had a few expansive vistas as we continued climbing up and down, crossing a 200-foot beaver dam, until we got to Harness Lake for lunch. It only took us an hour to cover the 2 miles from the spur trail to Harness Lake; the trail was in beautiful shape. About a mile east of Harness, the brush closed in again, all the way to the summit of the highest point on the trail, where we took a break. The next two miles to camp were fast, with lots of climbing up and down.

Agamok is a stunning campsite on the edge of a river gorge and lake. We took a site close to the river. I keep hearing voices. My mind always fabricates human voices and music when I’m near running water in the wild. We haven’t seen anyone else at all this trip, just canoers far off in the distance. Colin thinks there is someone a day ahead of us.

I’m soaking my feet in the river and contemplating a swim, the gray clouds are coming in and a cool breeze just picked up. Rain?

Colin takes in one of our first views since getting on the Kekekabic Trail

Agamok Falls