Day 2: Tuesday, September 24, 2019

I woke up before midnight with my left knee throbbing. It felt fine the entire day before, and I’ve never had problems with it. It ranged from uncomfortable to excruciating depending on my leg’s position. It was really only tolerable with my leg perfectly straight as I lay on my back. I quickly realized that I had left my supply of ibuprofen in the food pack, so I tried to just ride it out. The only thing that came to mind was that I was sitting cross-legged for a good portion of the time in the canoe that day. Perhaps that combined the rigors of portaging were enough to stress my knee to this point.

I finally got up and out of the tent at about 2 AM to search for the ibuprofen and try to get a little relief. The good news is that it was the perfect night for star gazing. The bad news was that I was in no condition to lug out my photography gear to try to do some astrophotography. I downed some pills and hobbled down to the landing rock. I was able to sit with my leg out-stretched and really admire the view. I saw a shooting star right when I sat down, and the Milky Way was nicely visible. After about an hour of star gazing (and massaging the muscles around my knee), I retired back to the tent – this time with my supply of ibuprofen. I caught a beautiful view of Orion rising in the east as I went back to my tent.

I finally fell into a deep and relatively comfortable sleep after about 4 AM and awoke to the sound of some kind of honking bird and sunlight around 8 AM. Nice. I never sleep that late. My knee was still hurting pretty bad, and I knew that I would not be taking a day trip that day. I hobbled out of my tent and got my simple breakfast ready. I made some coffee with my new Aeropress maker, and it was strong and delicious.

I then went back down to the waterfront to enjoy the morning sun. After a few minutes, I heard a giant splash off in the distance. When I looked closely, I could see antlers in the water. My cameras were about 150 feet up the hill, and for a moment I considered just watching and enjoying the moose. That moment passed as quickly as it was conceived, and I scrambled up the hill to put the 200mm lens on my DLSR (my longest lens) and the 720mm effective point and shoot. I managed to get a few snaps of him in the water and then finally getting out, but just experiencing the moose was an absolute thrill and one of the highlights of the trip.

I spent the rest of the day relaxing around camp and exploring some of the cool trails. I heard the sound of a canoe landing at about 1 PM and saw two people poking around the camp site that I had landed on the previous day. I was a bit surprised that someone would take that site given the relatively small number of people in the wilderness, but then I realized that they were stopping there just to have lunch. They departed a little after 2PM right after another group of four (in two canoes) passed by my site headed west. The weather remained perfect for most of the day, but clouds rolled in at around sunset. I stepped out of my tent a couple of times that night to see about star gazing, but it was cloudy both times.

Moose in Long Island Lake between campsites 561 and 2010.

Moose exiting Long Island Lake northwest of campsites 561.

Moose exiting Long Island Lake northwest of campsites 561.

Mushrooms around Long Island Lake campsite #561.

Moss near Long Island Lake campsite #561.

Lovely trails from campsite #561 on Long Island Lake.