When I woke up, my ankle was feeling significantly better...tender, but no throbbing or sharp pain. My left knee was swollen and stiff. I really need to watch my footing today. No room for errors. I had planned to make a big egg and hashbrown breakfast, but I was moving way too slowly. So I had a quick raspberry oatmeal. I decided to pack the day pack very lightly today so maybe I could carry it with the canoe.

At 9:00am, I started paddling to the mega portage into Kiskadinna. I was rather anxious about my left knee, so I decided to try breaking the portage into 15 minute legs. These soon turned into 10 minute legs when I found out what a horrible, no good, very bad portage this is! What makes it so bad you ask? It has everything awful: Steep uphills and downhills, old burn areas with tag alders grown over the path, can't see your feet in many places, beaver dam flooded the path at the halfway mark so had to reload to wade across, incredibly hot day, tons of boulder hopping, only about 20 rods had good footing while the rest was some of the worst footing I have experienced, and it felt like a bushwhack in places.

All that and I couldn't afford to take a single wrong step. I talked to myself, I sang, I swore loudly, and I developed a couple mantras that I repeated over and over to stay focused: "Check your footing. Check your footing" and "Plan, place, plan, place".

I started out with a double portage arrangement of the blue pack followed by the canoe with paddles and daypack. This didn't last long. I had to set down the canoe before reaching the blue pack at the 1st 15 minute point. Then I carried the red pack past the blue pack. After that, it is a blur of leapfrogging. I ended up removing the paddles from the canoe to lighten it as much as possible. About half the time I triple portaged, the other half I double portaged. I drank every drop of the 80 oz. of water I was carrying. I swam in the beaver "pond" to cool off. I was very worried about heat exhaustion, so I took every opportunity to wet down when near a lake or pond. I came very close to crying, but I decided swearing was the better option. Note that some maps show this as 2 shorter portages split by a large pond. However, the main path clearly has this set up as one portage so I never investigated whether I could find the portage again if I paddled across the bigger pond.

Finally made it to Kiskadinna in one piece! Three and a half hours to complete this portage! I wrote on the map "NEVER AGAIN!"

I paddled to the 1st campsite on Kiskadinna and climbed up to have lunch: tuna with relish and mayo on rye crisp, dried oranges on sun warmed chocolate. I saved the tomato soup and peanut butter for later.

I had the option of camping on Kiskadinna, but I decided to continue to Omega. The portage from Kiskadinna to Omega goes straight up, then straight down. There are some decent rock steps, but some of the steps are too big for us short people. On the way down, I had to get creative in one spot. The step down was too big a drop for me to do safely, especially with my injuries. I figured out I could dip the bow of the canoe down into the ground and use it to help support my weight as I stepped down. Worked slick! New trick for the toolbox.

Wind was in my face for the first time on Omega (BTW, the McKenzie map has a typo and spells it Ogema), but it was not a strong wind. I went past the western most island campsite and took the beautiful campsite on the point just west of the portage to Winchell. I was hoping to spot my son and his friend tonight or tomorrow since this was our tentative check in point. I planned to warn them about the 325 rod portage.

I had seen nobody all day again, but about 4:30 two gentleman in solo canoes paddled by hoping my site was open. They ended up at the island site I had passed up. Then at 7 pm a couple came by desperately hoping for a campsite because the western end of Winchell had been full. I directed them around the corner. These 2 groups are the first people with whom I had spoken on this trip. With my injuries and the remoteness of my route, I had been feeling very alone, so it really helped to know there were people on this lake tonight.

This is a great spot for a layover tomorrow, and I clearly need one to recover. Excellent swimming, good shade. Tomorrow I can day trip to Henson to look for the boys. I cooked an easy dinner...curried rice that just needed boiling water and same for my cherry crisp dessert from Food for the Sole. I also gobbled up the leftover pepperoni from last night's pizza endeavor.

~Davis Lake, Kiskadinna Lake, Omega Lake

Portages: 325 rod (had to triple portage half of it), 37 rod

Miles: 5+