Woke up early and enjoyed an amazing sunrise over Korb Lake. Korb Lake Sunrise

Was not thrilled that shortly after I took this picture a breeze picked up from the SSW. I would be paddling with a headwind again today. Proceeded to update the forecast on my InReach and got some bad news. While today I had a window until about 11 until the wind really picked up, it didn’t look like it was going to die down much if at all overnight before becoming even stronger the next day which was my exit day to paddle Burntside. The wind was going to be form the SSW which meant I would be going straight into it on the big lake.
I was concerned enough that 16mph gusting to 32 was going from unpleasant to dangerous that I went to check to see if I any cell signal. When I saw that I did I made the decision to see if I could get picked up the next day instead of paddling. Ryan at Ely Outdoor company answered my text pretty quickly and let me know they could pick me up at 1:00pm. Debated internally a bit between challenging myself and worst case scenario and opted to go let him know that I would go ahead and take the tow.

With that decided I felt much better about the day. I still wanted to get one of the three sites on the southeast part of Crab and made sure to close up camp and set off quickly. I was slowed down a bit by the already significant headwind as I made my way down the Korb River, through Little Crab, and onto Crab Lake. Crab presented a bit of a challenge but I was very happy with the trim I had established that allowed me to track well.

My first choice was the campsite closest to the Burntside portage and I was pretty dang happy to find this open as I made my way around the small island in front of the site. This really did turn out to be a great site and a prefect place to spend my last 24 hours. It is a large site that could probably accommodate a max size group with room to spare. I picked a couple of properly spaced trees near the water for my hammock. With the wind being from the SSW, there was still a nice little breeze blowing up the creek that comes from Clark Lake, which seems like it would be a viable way to get to Clark Lake even at moderate water levels.
It was a quite warm afternoon and I took several swims to cool off and refresh myself. I also took the canoe out a couple of times to see what fish I could scare up. I did hook into something that was good size that ran out my drag for awhile before my line snapped, would have liked to see what it was. Early in the afternoon there was one canoe that I saw making their way towards Burntside which turned out to the the only canoe I would see all day. I could hear the wind blowing in the higher branches but it really turned out to be a nice protected little bay the whole afternoon and evening.

That night I had another nice fire and again just sat by the lake taking in the transition from sunset to twilight to night. I had also set up my hammock tarp in ‘porch’ mode so as I laid in bed I could look out from the hammock to the northern sky, hoping that at some point in the night the northern lights would make an appearance. Alas, no such luck this trip. I slept well with the sound of the wind in the tree branches high above me. At one point I realized that I would not have found this nearly as soothing if I didn’t have a ride lined up the next day!

Southern most Crab Lake campsite ~Korb Lake, Little Crab Lake, Crab Lake