Ooh baby! I knew it would be cold so wore all I had including my rain pants. It got down to 32 bone chilling degrees last night. We are both moving slow this morning. It's coffee with my oatmeal and I share some with luna. Todays another big travel day. We both came to the agreement that we like to find good camps to layover on then spend a whole day traveling. It beats moving every day like we both did when we were younger. There's so much time taken up with setting up and tearing down camp. We like this way better.

We shove off from our site at 10:10 and just have a short paddle across the narrowest part of the lake to our 80 rod portage to Western Lake. Photos of me and Luna coming into the landing courtesy of Bob.

Bob has a different way of portaging. He's a traditionalist in some respects. I call him a "Traditional Hybrid" because he uses some old school methods like sleeping with a wool blanket instead of a sleeping bag and he has a a canvas duffle with a tump. A tumpline wraps around the high part of your forehead to help carry heavy loads. He likes the old ways and keeping it simple. I find it very interesting.

After crossing Western Lake we take a 195 rodder into Glenmore Lake then it's 205 rods to Schlamm. Then we need to portage into Glenmore Creek. Bob is nervous that the low water (drought) this year might be big trouble on the creek. It could be a mudfest and it's about a half mile long with a 60 rod portage in the middle. Here goes nothing!

Here's the landing after a nasty 60 rodder that breaks up the creek. Once we launch it's fairly muddy and takes some poling to get going. The creek has water and is covered with lily pads except for a narrow open channel of water to follow.

There's a few small old beaver dams to lift over. We would just tell the dogs to stay and we would drag the boats over.

We found the take out landing with a bit of difficulty as it's down a separate arm of the creek by a grove of trees on the west side. Then it's a 60 rodder into Lunetta Lake. We both are pretty whipped by now and are hoping the one site on Little Crab is open for us. Out of lunetta is another creek. At over a mile long and very winding and narrow we come out onto Little Crab and I immediately see someone in a white long sleeved shirt walking around the camp across the lake. Rats! Too tired to think, there's only one thing to do.

It's 6:00 now with the sun getting low. There's a short paddle to the portage going into Crab Lake. Thankfully it's only 20 rods but the packs seem to be very heavy now. We are running on fumes as we pass up the first 2 sites in hopes for the better one on the point. Yes, It's open!! It's huge and perfect for us. It has a shallow sand beach landing for luna to swim and nice spots to set up in a large area of big pines. The fire pit has seating all around although the grate is falling apart. The next day a tandem team of forest rangers visited the site to inspect the broken grate. It later will be replaced. The views are fantastic being on a peninsula jutting out in the middle we can see all the arms of the "Crab" from here.

I get the water filtering and it's almost dark as I finish setting up the tarp, tent, and hammock. I'm too tired to eat but use Bob's twig stove to heat water for hot chocolate. I brought some good brandy along and give a generous pull into my mug. Bob breaks out his Penobscot 12 Rye Whiskey. Yeah, that's good stuff! We worked like the Voyageurs of yesteryear today and we allow ourselves to relax. We will be here for 2 nights.

It's calm and clear and the forecast is for 30 degrees again. Lucky for me, sometime during the trip I found another fleece hat in a pocket. So I double up my 2 hats, put on my wool wrist warmers and layer up. I set up my tarp so it's just over the top of my hammock with steep sides. It's called "storm mode" but I like to think it protects from the wind and hopefully holds in my heat better. I'm set up in a low gully surrounded by trees. Bedtime is 8:30.