Thursday, August 02, 2018

We woke up to a beautiful morning.

I was soaking up the sun rays after it had rained all yesterday.

Unfortunately, the sun was fleeting as it gave way to more clouds. We packed up early and hit the water. We decided that since we went way farther than we had planned the first day, we could now probably do a layover night—something I’ve never done. We were thinking either South or North Temperance. Everyone was in a much better mood today. No rain. No threat of camping at a portage trail. There was even talk of grilling up the steaks for lunch if they didn’t seem to have spoiled yet. Here’s a group picture just after our longest portage of the trip – a 225-rodder.

It just dawned on us, we hadn’t met anyone on a portage trail yet. We could only assume everyone had stayed put yesterday. But as we traveled north, we didn’t encounter anyone until we got to the portage between North and South Temperance. We didn’t see anyone on South Temperance, and there was a beautiful unoccupied campsite on a tall rock formation that we passed. At the portage, we waited 10-15 minutes or so while the other group (travelling south) got all of their people and belongings launched. No worries, there was no rush today.

On North Temperance, we were delighted to find all three campsites unoccupied and decided to call that home for the next two nights. We initially decide on the seclusion of the northern most site on an island. (By the way, the map makes it look like the campsite is on the west side of the island, but it is actually on the east side.)

So we land and cook up our lunch that was supposed to be yesterday’s dinner, composed of steak and corn on the cob. Mmmmm… So good. And none of us got sick, so the vacuum-sealed steak must have been just fine. During lunch, I throw out that I would prefer a site with more of a view. Now, as the trip leader, I’m not about to leave a site everyone else likes just for my own personal preference. But, I wanted to see if anyone else agreed with me. Well, almost everyone else agreed they would like a view, so we headed back to the southernmost site. It had a great view, a nice rock peninsula for swimming/lying down, and some great hammock trees. It was a push to set up 4 tents, but we made it work.

The rest of the day was classic B-dubs: swimming, lying in the hammock, fishing, cooking, eating, talking around the campfire, and watching the sunset.

We tried pizza for dinner, but I don’t have any sort of reflector oven. As a result, it was not super successful, but everyone made their own creations of pizza crust, cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni and we made it work. I wouldn’t do this meal again without some better equipment (or better technique?).

~Jack Lake, Weird Lake, South Temperance Lake, North Temperance Lake