Monday, July 24, 2006

Boulder Lake to Kawishiwi River

We woke up to a nice morning after a night of rain and we decided to make a late start so we could let our gear dry out. The morning was spent re-organizing stuff and cleaning gear. It was hot this day, and we weren't quite prepared for how tough the trip would be to get into Adams Lake. We quickly found the entrance to the creek between Boulder and Adams, and after carrying over some rocks, we were able to put the canoe in for a short time. We were all looking for the first 20 rod portage but we were forced to stop short of it thanks to no water. We started carrying all the gear along the bank of the swampy creek until we had to carry across a small pool of water. It was in this pool that I slipped with the huge granite gear pack on my back, soaking myself. Not fun. Shortly following this pool, we hit the 20 rod portage which led to a dried up creek so we carried along the bank of the creek until we were able to put-in the creek. The creek was much like the Kawishiwi River right after leaving Kawishiwi Lake, and we were kind of paddling and kind of pushing our way through the muck until we hit an area of shallow water where we had to get out and push the canoe and jump from rock to rock. After this, we had a series of about three beaver damns we had to carry over to get into Adams Lake. Paddling on open water was a breeze and we cruised across Adams to the portage into Beaver Lake. We had lunch at the portage between Adams and Beaver, which was really pretty. Beaver Lake was also pretty and looked to have a nice site as you turn south to go toward the portage into Trapline Lake. The campsite on Trapline didn't look too appealing and we continued toward the Kawishiwi River. The portage started about 20 rods early due to low water and a beaver damn, then we hit the actual 60-rod portage which took us to a landing that was too shallow to put-in the canoe. We walked the banks a bit to find a suitable place to get in the river before we decided to just walk out the canoe and our gear until it was deep enough to paddle, which was about 20 rods out from the landing. Long story short, the portage with low water was probably more like 80 rods with a shallow landing on south end of the portage. We quickly paddled to one of the island sites on the Kawishiwi that we had passed on our second day as we traveled toward Fishdance Lake. We were greeted by a skull and bone someone had found at the campsite. The campsite was pretty big and had a good spot to put the tent. There was a surprising amount of traffic on the river that afternoon coming from the Malberg area, headed west. The Twins beat the White Sox in Chicago that night, and we listened to the game after some Sweet and Sour Pork for dinner. Some more whiskey was had and we hit the tent after the bugs became too unbearable.