We woke up early again on Wednesday morning to the start of another beautiful day in paradise. A great thing about the Sylvania site reservation system is you aren't forced to get up and travel early to find an open site, you can do so at your pace and on your own schedule, knowing exactly where your site will be, and that is should be open by 1:00 PM. Taking full advantage of that knowledge, we moved at an easy and relaxed pace all morning long. We hit the water before 9:00 AM, but when we got through Loon Lake and into Clark Lake, we decided the beach on the south end of Clark Lake was too tempting to pass up. We pulled our canoe to shore and had 90 lazy minutes of swimming, wading, sand building, fishing, and snacking. The best part- not a single other person was on the beach area that entire time. We did see a few canoes out in Clark fishing, but we were happy to have had the entire beach to ourselves for such an extended period.

Wanting to reach Mountain Lake for lunch, we headed out after our beach r&r and portaged to Crooked Lake. The landing was unexpectedly weedy, mucky, and a bit stinky, not at all what I had remembered from previous June visits. I had never paid attention to how shallow and muddy that entire portion of the lake was, and was happy not to be camped in that area. We did see a couple of trumpeter swans poking around the shallow weeds, likely enjoying the area more than we were. As we paddled out through Crooked, we noted how strange the water looked. It was very gray, almost like silt was suspended all throughout the water column, a sharp contrast to the crystal clear clarity of Clark and the clean blueish hues of Loon. There were weeds everywhere though, and it was easy to see why Crooked could support a pike population when many of the other lakes in Sylvania do not.

The portage out of Crooked and into Mountain is just a glorified pull over- short, moderately uphill, but with good landings on both sides. We quickly made it to Bear 2, which is just past the portage, and settled into one of the most unique campsites I have ever used. Bear 2 is just downhill from Bear 1, and situated on a skinny peninsula with Mountain Lake to one side and the small boggy Lillius Lake to the other side. Having our own "private" lake was a nice touch. The site doesn't have much for flat ground, and even the best tent pad has some slope to it, but was very open and allowed for a good breeze under the shade of the pines. Not far from camp along the peninsula there is an old stone foundation, possibly the hearth of a cabin that had been in place long before Sylvania was made a public wilderness area.

We spent the rest of the day setting up camp, exploring our new surroundings, and touring the shoreline of the rest of Mountain Lake. Most of the campsites were full, and we saw others out paddling around all throughout the day. We caught a few bass but didn't put a lot of emphasis on fishing. We ended the fairly lazy day with a nice campfire and planning session for our last loop trip the following morning.