Our friends met us at Gunflint Lodge were we spent 6 nights chilling out after the first section (2-3 too many really). Gunflint Lodge is nice, and I love their new sports bar which they kept open to watch world cup games. Menu was good but limited and got a bit old pretty quick. Staff is very friendly young people from all over the country.

First day out was a long paddle wind in the face all the way to South Lake. I planned the trip in this direction as rumor had it the prevailing winds were easterly. That apparently is very hit or miss, and in our case mostly miss. No white caps (or very few) so we did it. 

One friend had a hard time getting out of Greenland, so we met them at Trapper Lake the next day and brought them back to South to meet the group. Bass fishing on South Lake is very good.

The rest of the trip was less eventful, always great to get in the rhythm again. We did good on the fishing and had fish dinner for 5 (one non fish eater) 4 out of 7 nights on the trail. Mostly bass and northern, with one great walleye. No bear, no moose, though we did see fresh moose tracks on the hike to Johnson falls. Really enjoyed the campsite on Little Caribou, but the fishing on that lake not impressive.

Our last night was on the far end of Pine, and out campsite looked into the BWCA one side and lake homes on the other. That was the 4th of July though so we did catch some fireworks. 

On Pine we stretched our legs on a relatively flat outcropping and about 5 minutes in we notice the absolutely still loon. Oops! We quietly left but got some great views. Glad we didn't push them off the nest, but probably stressful for that bird.

I was able to get a relay set up with my Garmin Messenger Plus to WP plugin that read a subset of message sent, which automatically posted the text, a picture, and location to a blog. That blog can be found at Blue Hat Travel. Can't put a link here so I will leave you to Google it if you want to see the campsites we used. I sent a message each night at camp.