Saturday, September 03, 2022. Your, Fair, Badwater, Quetico, and Beaverhouse Lakes. 6 portages (60, 120, 170, 1440, 60, and 200 meters). 15.0 miles total.

Sometime during the night the wind died and the morning dawned a calm and beautiful blue. The temperature was in the upper 40s, lowest so far on this trip. When we got on the water a gentle breeze started up, but it was from the east, helping us along our way all day. We hadn't seen anyone for two days, but as we passed through Badwater, we saw a group eating breakfast, and think it was the crew of five out for 14 days—hope they had a great trip. We didn't interrupt their meal—just paddled on. We'd planned to stop for lunch on Badwater, but it was too early. Instead, we split a Clif Bar (coffee collection, of course!) and kept moving. The portage between Badwater and the West Bay of Quetico Lake was the longest of our trip at 1440 meters. The portage seemed to be 1/3 rock, 1/3 sphagnum bog, and 1/3 firm soil footing. The sphagnum segments had the best (and most) corduroy work I've seen on a portage trail. We stopped near the middle of the portage for photos.

Today's wind was never strong enough to create a chop—a perfect paddling day. Because it was such a nice paddling day, we decided to bypass our intended Quetico Lake campsite and move into Beaverhouse in case wind picked up again in the morning, our exit day. At the end of the 'low water' portage into Beaverhouse, we saw a collection of double-bit axe heads, another reminder of Quetico's logging heritage.

We hugged the east shore of Beaverhouse as we exited the portage from Quetico but didn't find a campsite until we were near tomorrow's Beaverhouse exit point. We'd usually pass up a site like this—there are trees across the primary tent site, and the secondary tent site has 2”-5” of soil atop a rock slab, but if we paddle any more we'll be at the car, so we call it a day. Cool temps put us in the tent shortly after dinner/cleanup.