We got a late start, due to the quick planning (left Duluth at 11am). The standard stop at the ranger station proved to be somewhat eye opening when the ranger circled a spot on her map that represented two distinct things: 1. This is our destination, a home away from home if you will for the next three nights. 2. It’s ground zero for bear activity, of which there has been three sightings reported in the last 24 hours. Wonderful news…. With a stern warning not to return fish guts to the lake (which I still don’t understand), we headed north.

We joke that Mother Nature never agrees with us so it was a bit off putting when the wind direction favored our travel in our fully packed kayaks.

Our 1st portage of the trip proved to be a not so pleasant rocky, trip hazard voyage. With hills abundant, but some stairs to help, we passed through with minimal issue - besides comments on our poor level of fitness. Because of our weakness, as well as the time (now 630pm), we decided Moon lake would be our destination instead of the planned caribou lake.

Site:

We got lucky with the site. Medium sized site with many unobstructed views. Plenty of downed dead wood to keep warm in the evenings, great space for hammock employment (we forgot ours), and perfect food bag hanging space. The only less than great parts of this campsite would be it looked over a portage (not much traffic) and it faces southeast, so sun exposure in the evening was minimal. There were also some tame, somewhat aggressive chipmunk that would attempt to steal our food, A great site for this lake though. Would stay there again.

Attached you’ll find a neat log we found. Someone started to carve it. We contributed a bit and left it at the site. Feel free to whittle away! Would love to see how it progresses!

We unpacked, set up camp, ate steaks (always our first meal), and chatted by the fire with a drink.