Friday, May 29, 2020

Morning came and there was one thing on our mind: let’s get out of here! The campsite had not grown on us, and we eager to get to our next PMA campsite. So after a very quick breakfast, we were off.

My research ahead of the trip revealed that the portage out of Sunday into the Beartrap was on the north side of the river, not the south side as shown on this site. The portage was indeed on the north and easily found. Again, a fairly rough portage, but it was what we were expecting.

The Beartrap River is nice and wide in this area. After a few minutes of paddling, we got to the obvious location of the Sterling Creek convergence. Although it was obvious where the general location was, it was quite difficult to find the actual outlet. We found it on the third try--it was only slightly wider than a canoe as shown here.

We were a bit apprehensive ahead of the trip because we didn't find much about Sterling Creek. Would the water be high enough to paddle? Or would we be doomed to trudge through sludge? Well, the paddle down Sterling Creek was incredible. Definitely my favorite part of the trip! It felt so remote, you knew that few people paddled this. We lifted over countless beaver dams, but there was plenty of water to float the entire thing. How did we not see a moose here?!?

Again, I had done some research ahead of time so I knew the approximate location of the next portage but didn’t know exactly where it would be. Surprisingly, it was right where we expected it, before an impassable boulder-filled section.

What is shown on this site is one long portage to Sterling Lake (besides the lift over). However, we found it to be two separate portages. I did actually spend some time seeing if they connected, but it appears as if a beaver pond flooded the continuous portage years ago. So now there is a 2-3 minute paddle between both portage portions.

Sterling Creek portages:

The second half of the portage was awesome. I loved it. It was rugged. It was technical. There were moose plums. You had to follow the cairns. If you like cool portages, make the trip to this Sterling Lake portage!

We had made it to Sterling Lake! It was beautiful, definitely enhanced by the fact that we knew we were the only ones here and had an island campsite reservation with our names on it! We decided to scope out the lake first. I had read that there used to be a campsite on the northwest shore of the lake many years ago, so we went to check it out to see if we could see any sign of it. The shore was pretty steep here, so there were definitely some nice views at the top. In fact, at the very top of the hill we found a large cairn. This intrigued us--does anyone know if the cairn is there for any particular purpose?

After not too long we were en route to the island to check out our new home. As the island came into view, the first thing you notice is the huge rock wall on the front end of the site. Turns out, it was a quite elaborate fire pit that has been built over the years.

Turns out that unlike the Sunday site, this one seems to be used quite a bit more! We found at least 3 tent pads and we even found an alternate firepit on the south side of the island. We weren’t sure why that would be there (although we may have found out why the next morning).

At the highest point of the island was a large flat rock area. Interestingly, there were about 8-10 rocks outlining a rectangle, causing us all to ponder why someone had taken the time to do that. I took a walk around the entire island and didn’t find any other secrets, but I didn’t look too hard!

Tonight it got very windy and very cold. We had pancakes for lunch. Then we had chili and made cornbread in the JMO. The bite in the air caused us all to turn in pretty early. I do recall talking about the moon phases and trying to figure out exactly how the moon orbits earth--stuff to google when we get back home!

Tonight I finally took the time to set up my rain fly. Boy am I glad I did! I was in a pretty exposed location high on a rock face and it got windy and rainy overnight. Luckily I did not get cold, but I was definitely kept awake by the rocking of the hammock and the noise of the rain fly flapping in the wind.

Today's route:

~Sunday Lake, Sterling Lake