Monday, July 10, 2017 After a restful night, we awoke to a bright, sunny morning, a little later than we had expected (we didn’t get up until after 8:00). Since we were base camping though, There wasn’t really a need to get up right away. I went out to gather some wood, but quickly realized that the rains over the past few weeks had really done a number on any of the available dry wood. The vast majority of the wood had recently fallen or was quite wet. It didn’t help matters that the fire pit was so full of ash that there was not a lot of clearance to build any sore of fire that could have air flow. After some serious digging with my Deuce of Spades to clear out the fire pit, and some persistent stick collection, we were able to get the fire going again. Breakfast was delicious. Scrambled Egg and Sausage Tacos. 

We had essentially nothing planned for the day, so we relaxed on the rock ledge, collected and chopped some firewood, and just enjoyed being on Ima lake on a beautiful sunny day.

Even Copper got into the spirit.  

As the day turned into evening, we prepped our delicious steaks, popped some popcorn and enjoyed another fantastic BWCA sunset.

After the sun went down, the mosquitos returned with a vengeance, we tried to fight it, but they were so aggressive that they even bit through the bottom of the hammock! We again had to retreat to our tent. Thankfully we were well rested, so we managed to play a couple games of cribbage before packing it in. At some point in the night, I realized that my 20-year old Gander Mountain brand self-inflating sleeping mat had developed a hole and was completely flat. Unfortunately I did not have a patch kit along. (Mistake #5?) so I ended up using our life jackets for the remainder of the trip. Not ideal, but it could have been worse. In the end, the pad lining had separated completely from the foam, and developed several leaks, so there wouldn’t have been anything that could be done to save it.