High Temperature: 83

Low Temperature: 53

Barometric Pressure: 30.06

Relative Humidity 7AM: 85%

9 AM Temperature: 58

Moisture: 0"

Route: Sawbill Lake to Peterson Lake

Sawbill Lake

Portage 100 rods

Smoke Lake

Portage 90 rods

Burnt Lake

Portage 230 rods

Kelly Lake

Liftover Portage

Peterson Lake

Up at 6:30. I have a pretty nasty sore on leg from my Chotas. A part of the boot is doing a lot of rubbing above the ankle of my right foot. Those boots aren’t made for walking. Furthermore, the boots stink – BAD! I try to take care of it but am only marginally successful. The problem doesn’t go away until after the trip is over.

We leave our camp on Sawbill at 9:00 and get to camp on Peterson at 4:00.

Smoke Lake Portage

On the way we met a nice young woman from England on the portage between Smoke and Burnt. She was leading a group from a summer camp by Ashland, WI. She seemed very capable and had good control of her group of Americans.

We wanted to camp on Kelly Lake but only one site was open and it looked low-lying and buggy.  We elected to push on and try for the one campsite on Peterson. We knew that the campsite was marginal from our quick inspection on the way in. The entire site is rooty, but it was better than buggy.

We find the site open and decide to take it. The site has a poor fire pit area. There are no log benches, but we didn’t care because we had chairs. One of our mantras during the trip was, “Chairs are good”. We found ourselves often appreciating them, doubly so at this campsite.

Peterson Lake Campsite

There was only one tent pad big enough for Jim’s two-man tent. I found a space for mine on a game trail. Tell me that that didn’t make me nervous. I thought Bullwinkle or Smokey might rudely awaken me.

My Tent on a Game Trail

Jim’s fantastic entrée was Beef Lomain with burger and red peppers. Mmmmm … I contributed a couple biscuits from the reflector oven.

Biscuits Baking

You know, for as poor as this site was, I know I will have fond memories of it. It served our purposes very well. There was tons of firewood. We saw no one else. Even though we were only a 10-rod portage from an entry point, we could have been in the middle of a PMA. We knew that the Baker Lake Campground was probably noisy and certainly buggy. But not here.

Jim on (in?) Peterson Lake. “Chairs are Good”