Saturday, August 27, 2022 Day 6 Having been watching the forecast closely, we knew the wind would not be cooperating with us this day, having swung around and picking up from the SE. Knowing this we made a point to get an earlier start. We also decide based on the wind and our current location we would travel through Rog instead of the taking the Alpine-Seagull portage.

We started with the short paddle to the portage to Rog. The portage does not seem to be used all the much with lots of growth encroaching on the trail, but over we find it a fairly nice portage. We battle a bit of wind across Rog and then take the short, rocky, and muddy portage to Seagull. Once on Seagull we stay close to shore along the peninsula but at it’s end we face the full ford of the 15mph, gusting to 30 SE wind. We take a quick breather behind the island, where we emphasize that we will paddle straight into the wind to get to the south shore. After a good 30 minutes of very hard “Character building” paddling into the winds and waves we make it to the wind shadow along the south shoreline. Here we happen to meet up with the two gals we had met the night before, who also was taking a little break and we have a quick chat. We watch as they head towards their pick up point and notice that they are not struggling much as the hills on the south side of Seagull are doing a good job blocking the worst of the wind.

With our spirits lifted and the paddling much easier, we make our way NE largely following the shoreline all the way to the leeward side of Threemile Island. We enjoyed a nice easy paddle at this point following the shore and end up at campsite 473 by about 1:00. We were glad to be off the water and could see the whitecaps on the main lake. We take our time and set up camp and have some lunch. I get a bit creative in setting up my hammock where I can get a nice view of the lake and set up my tarp in ‘porch mode’. Feels good to chill out for a bit and just watch the waves we are no longer fighting. The wind dies down a bit later in the afternoon and we do a quick trip over to see the palisades, but other than that we just enjoy what’s left of our last day. We enjoy a nice fire and talk about the trip, what we liked, what we could do better, stuff to remember for next time, etc. Gavin is quick to declare that this trip was his favorite activity as a scout and vows to encourage more scouts to join in future trips. In my book that makes this a successful trip!

~Alpine Lake, Rog Lake, Sea Gull Lake~Alpine Lake, Rog Lake, Sea Gull Lake