Tuesday, May 28, 2024 25.9 miles traveled (22.4 miles paddling, 3.5 miles double portaging in 9 portages (0.3, 0.5, 1.5, 0.1, 0.1, 0.3, 0.1, 0.1, 0.5))

I woke to an overcast day with the sky threatening to rain. We packed up camp before any rain and began paddling down Boulder. We had a few periods of light rain, enough to dawn rain gear, but that subsided pretty fast. A couple of portages (with a few downed trees to deal with) later and we were on Gamble Lake. A long paddle brought us to the Doan Lake portage. Much of this portage was under water, ankle to shin deep, and several downed trees across the trail had to be dealt with. Then we paddled across Doan, crossed another short portage and ended up in Irene Lake around 3 pm. I still had my sights on getting to Sanford Lake and visiting the abandoned Tip Top Lodge. The planned route was to head due west on Irene, hit the Irene portage, then travel south and finally north to get to Tip Top. JJ looked at the map and felt like we should be able to head northwest on Irene instead, paddling into Little Mabel Lake, then into Hoolihan, then pop right in to Tip Top. Part of me said to take the route you know (no portages are marked on the other route) and part of me said we should explore. I made a conscious decision not to look at the time…and we headed toward Little Mabel. We found a semblance of a portage into Little Mabel, then paddled down to where I felt the next portage should be. The hint of a trail I initially followed ultimately petered out and we had to make a decision…bushwhack on or retrace our steps. We felt we could get through with our bodies and packs but didn’t think it would be feasible to get the canoe through the dense forest. So, we reconciled to retracing our steps and headed down to the Irene portage. At this point I again consciously refused to look at the time or GPS anymore today… I didn’t want to know! In my fatigue, I overshot the start of the Irene portage and tramped around the bush 200 yards south of the actual portage before getting back in the canoe to reconnoiter. We found the correct portage after a few minutes of paddling. Thankfully the portage was in good shape, and we were through in twenty minutes. By the time we hit Sanford the sky was already darkening.

I was pretty much exhausted, but JJ became a beast of a paddler. We covered the last 3.5 miles in one hour. I finally look at the GPS…25.9 miles covered, finishing at 9:15 pm after 13 hours of travel. Both travel time and distance traveled are new records for me. We set up bed rolls on the floor of the main lodge and cook some quick dinner, then hit the bed.