Our break from the rain lasted about 9 hours. I woke to the sounds of sprinkles on the tent about 4:30. At 5:00, I had to pee so I got out in just my underwear - nothing like wandering around half-dressed in the wilderness. Went back to bed for an hour.

I was sitting under the tarp typing these notes when the wind shifted and broke the tent pole holding the corner of the tarp. Tied off the corner of the tarp directly to the stake which worked in the short term. Then the wind pulled the stake out of the ground so I tied the corner to a tree root I could get the rope under - should have thought of that the first time - doh!

The rain had eased some so I took the garmin out to send our checkin message and get an updated forecast. It was taking awhile to get the forecast so I left it sitting on the ground while I retreated to the tarp.

I was thinking of my wife and members of her family packing up in the rain just miles from here at the end of a non-Quetico fishing trip. They’re probably trying to wait it out just like us.

Following our travel-day oatmeal breakfast, we had a pretty long day in front of us once we got going: seven portages to Badwater. We started to encounter the ravages of last summer's fires on Trail Lake. The creek from Trail to Little Pine was especially apocalyptic.

Things were going well until I took a wrong turn early on the long portage between Snow and Your and followed an animal trail for about 30 yards. Dropped the canoe, walked back to the lake and found the start of the portage again. Set off on the portage with the food pack and Walter met me about 80% of the way across as he was tracking back to find me. We dropped the food pack there and both walked back to the canoe so I wouldn’t get lost retrieving it from the wrong trail. That was NOT a portage I wanted to walk thrice. It was actually a beautiful portage but it was long.

The first two days of the trip we had next to no bugs. Then the black flies showed up on Sunday afternoon. Oh my! They mostly weren't biting, but they dive bomb your face and ears. At the end of the portages into Fair on Monday, we were swarmed and paddled like we’d not paddled the entire trip. The adrenaline rush was welcome near the end of a long day, but the bugs weren’t.

On the portage into Badwater we had to cross a beaver dam. Walter made the mistake of crossing the stream in front of the dam and went up to his thigh in muck.

When we got to Badwater, I had to walk back a little ways to pick up a pipe insulation we use as a gunwale cushion for the front paddler that had fallen off. When I got back to the canoe Walter asked where the hardware was for the forward rod holder. We’d evidently forgotten it back on Bentpine.

Walter fished with his fishing rod stuck between his legs. It didn’t slow him down as he caught two large wallleyes. We released them both because they were too much for us to eat. We crossed to the other shoreline so my line would be the one closest to the shore and I picked up a nice eater.

We got to camp late again. We should have learned our lesson about long days on the first day. We busily got the tarp and tent up and were working on firewood when we made the decision at about 8:30 that we wouldn’t have time to cook because of the dark clouds on the horizon. We felt bad about throwing the filets in the lake.

We had just finished PB&J sandwiches and were having our nightly cocktail when the wind violently switched direction. It had been blowing steadily from the SE all day and it instantaneously switched to the south/southwest, breaking one of the tarp ropes. Walter jumped up, apparently to get a rope to fix it, but the tarp tore. We estimated the wind at 50-60 MPH. Walter had tied a rock to one side of the tarp to help hold it down. That rock was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo. We had to dodge it as we frantically hauled our stuff to the tent.

We started grabbing stuff and running for the tent 100 feet way. As we’re running up the hill, I looked to my left and could see the rain sweeping across the lake. Made another trip down the hill and back up with more stuff. Thought my rain jacket had blown away, but Walter had grabbed it and thrown it in the tent. I got the food pack and our gear pack and a bunch of my stuff in the vestibule beside me. (They always say not to bring food into the tent with you. We had all of our food in the tent with us.)

I got myself into the tent, removed my soaking shirt and threw it into the vestibule. A lot of the gear inside the tent got wet when we both dove in soaked to the skin. I closed the door and proceeded to hold the wall of the tent up so the wind wouldn’t blow it down. It had touched our sleeping bags on the floor of the tent before I started holding it up. That BA Copper Spur earned its stripes that night.

It was an interesting night with occasional thunderstorms continuing. Although we and all of our gear was wet, we were both happy to be alive and uninjured. I've been through a few severe thunderstorms in the woods, but it was Walter's first. Ironically, I had told Walter where the Garmin was right before the storm hit so he would know where it was in case I got killed or injured. By the time we dove into the tent, Walter thought we might both be killed or injured.