Saturday, September 17, 2016

I woke up to rain around 6. It was raining hard so I decided to keep sleeping. I woke up at least one more time and then again around 9 and it was a consistent steady rain. I finally decided to get up even though it was raining and started to pack. The rain stopped shortly after. 

We finally got out of there at noon. It was overcast but otherwise beautiful. The 240 rod was a little tough and we were both VERY sore afterward. The length made the heavy packs hurt. There were a couple heavy bursts of rain and everything was soaked. Claire finally had to get her feet wet at some point. 

A couple having lunch on an island on Jack said they had a standoff and were 10 ft from 2 moose at the Kelly portage. The gal almost seemed a little shaken up. It made Claire a little uneasy too, but I was really hoping to see the moose. Unfortunately we didn’t see them. We also didn’t see either of the sites on Jack, although we didn’t plan to stay there so we didn’t look hard. Jack was a fairly long paddle, but also very pretty. The grass and lily pads made it slow. We took a quick detour to check out the mine at the Kelly portage. We were a bit tired and kind of hoping for the north site on Kelly near the rapids but it wasn’t very nice. We hoped the other Kelly sites were open. The last thing we wanted to do was have to take the long portage to Burnt. Luckily the first site was open (site 824) and we arrived around 4. It was a very nice site and I think we got lucky. 

Two people paddled by around 5. They had packs but they looked on the small side and they didn’t look like they were eagerly looking for a site. We hoped they were just day tripping since it seemed like all of the sites on Kelly were full. It kept raining off and on, but was also very sunny at times. Claire wanted the pesky red squirrel to come over so she could rub its belly. That gave me a good laugh. It started raining as I picked up for bed. Hopefully this was the last time it was going to rain. Claire was in the tent at 9 and I climbed in at 9:30. I had some catching up to do on my journal and didn’t finish writing until almost 10:30. 

A lot of the portages this day were along the river and were very pretty. There were 2 or 3 waterfalls. The father/daughter duo looked like they were staying on the middle North Temperance site again. We talked to an older couple at the southern South Temperance portage. They were ‘inspired’ that we were single portaging. They were very nice. I hope that’s us in 30ish years. 

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

Lakes Traveled:   North Temperance Lake, South Temperance Lake, Weird Lake, Jack Lake, Kelly Lake,