Sunrise the next morning revealed a gorgeous MN Northwoods day with blue skies, calm winds and warm temperatures. After some quick coffee, yogurt and breakfast cereal--along with the final packing--it was time for our shuttle to the public landing at Saganaga Lake. From there we were towed across the big waters of Saganaga to the portage at Red Rock Lake. This portage was a short 10-rod carry to where we were finally on the water paddling. After making quick work of Red Rock, we portaged about 50 rods to Alpine Lake. Upon reaching Alpine we met another party that was headed the opposite direction. They alerted us to the campsite on Alpine that they had just left and pronounced it to be a great site other than a couple of snapping turtles that hung out there and which had made a bit of a nuisance of themselves. Other than the turtles, this was good news to us as some pre-trip research I'd done had indicated that this site (#346) would be a good one to target and take if open. Considering some of my crew had never been to the BWCA before and the rest hadn't been there in at least decades, we were clicking along like a pretty well-oiled machine and after little more than a half-hour on Alpine we had reached our hoped-for site.

This site definitely lived up to expectations with an awesome beach landing, a great fire-grate area, wide open spaces, numerous level tent pads, some fantastic sitting rocks out on a point near the water and a latrine that was in good repair with privacy and not too much of a trek into the woods. We celebrated finding the site with a tasty lunch and were excited to spend at least a couple of nights at this beautiful spot.

Once tents were set up and other camp chores were attended to, it was time to relax a bit out on those rocks. This resulted in even further bonding and more laughter as we shared stories recounting our adventure so far. Some of the group took the opportunity to sneak in a game or two of cribbage. At one point one of the turtles swam over to the sitting rocks to say hello and all of this happened under the watchful eye of a bald eagle that was perched for much of the afternoon in a nearby tree.

When the day turned toward evening we decided to get going on supper which was going to be some thick juicy steaks and "hobo" veggies (foil-wrapped potatoes, carrots and onions) all done directly over the fire. I always find this a delicious way to celebrate our first day on the water and this time it did not disappoint either. In our pre-trip planning, Kari had proposed a dessert of foil-wrapped bananas, topped off with some chocolate and nuts. This was a first for me and I have to say it was a winner with the cooked bananas tasting like a warm banana pudding and the chocolate/nuts garnishment giving it that perfect finish for a very tasty treat. This also happened to be Jeff's birthday so his wife Rochelle had brought some peanut butter balls to share in place of a cake AND Jenna had brought some freeze-dried chocolate cheese cake for further celebration of Jeff's big day. All of this was excellent and even with as much of an appetite as we had developed throughout the day it's still needless to say that we were all very full by the end of this meal.

The day ended with a stunning sunset before a pull or two from my bourbon flask and more delightful banter around a pleasant campfire. As we all turned in for a sound sleep, many of us wondered how our next day could be much better than the awesome one we'd just experienced.