Thursday: Up at 0630 for our 0700 breakfast at Voyageurs. The plan is to have VO shuttle our gear and canoe to the EP, drop us off, then meet us with a tow at Sag Falls on Sunday. Last check of the weather showed a southwest wind at 10-20mph with gusts to 25mph. Sure glad we are headed north so this will be a tail wind. I can't imagine paddling Gunflint Lake into a 20mph head wind!

We are hoping to make camp in Larch or Clove Lake today, so it we can take our everloving sweet time to get there. And, knowing there aren't a lot of folks in the wilderness yet makes us look forward to a relaxing paddle. We'll be paddling my 8-year old Northstar 17. Andrew chose the BB Java bent paddle from my stable and I chose my trusty BB Sunburst for this trip. New on this trip is a new set of yoke pads I ordered from Spirit of The Wilderness during the closure. These were to replace my CV pads that I have never been happy with and wanting to support the outfitters during the closure seemed like a perfect time to put on a new set of pads. (It was a great choice! I love the new, thicker pads).

I outfitted Andrew with a Kelty Farout 2 tent, Nemo Tensor Pad, Thermarest Cot and I brought my Haven Hammock Tent. Other gear on this trip included my Eureka Bugout (I got it used this summer on geartrade--another great addition!). 2 Big Agnes chairs, an MSR Windburner stove, 2 4-piece fishing poles, and lures and the bear barrels helped to fill out our 2 portage packs. One luxury item I bring is a small xm satellite receiver that I have customized to run off a phone charger brick. The entire setup is about a pound and is about the same size to pack as a transistor radio While some people like to listen to WTIP or WELY on the radio or read a book, I love to catch the Milwaukee Brewers game in the evening. That's all I use it for--so don't judge!

After breakfast we were shuttled to the Cross River Bridge on the far southwest side of Gunflint Lake. As we paddled toward the narrows into Magnetic Lake we certainly felt the wind behind us and once we hit Magnetic Lake there was only ruddering needed as the wind pushed us at a nice comfortable lake. We were particularly impressed at the house on the island on the north end of Magnetic Lake. Wowzers!!!

We paddled towards the first of TWO portages into Little Rock Falls. The McKenzie map shows only a single 20 rod portage, but that is not correct, there are 2. We did have some discussion about running the rapids on the first portage, but discretion is the better part of valor. One rant here... as we were approaching the landing at the first portage, a pontoon boat waving an American flag came up right behind us. We landed at the portage, and the pontoon boat landed right along side of us. Off the boat came two ladies who walked right through our stuff as we were unloading and took off ahead of us for a hike, then the motorboat took off. I told Andrew that crowding such a small landing was rude and that ethical travelers would always do there best to let a group ahead of them at least get down the portage a bit.

At the second portage we found our two "portage pushers" relaxing at the falls. We were able to portage around them, stop and enjoy the falls for a moment then push on. It was really a lovely paddle. As we went down the river we next hit the "split rock" portage. This one is really hard to find, but you'll know it by a border marker on a large flat rock. This one has some character. You portage up the rock, and then at the top you have a very steep downhill that requires bringing your canoe through a split in the rock. It takes some creativity to get through it, but once you are through the crack we were greeted by our first of many bumper crop blueberry patches!

We continued our journey down the Pine and made it to the 100 rod portage into Clove Lake. The wind was really starting to howl as we finished the double portage. As we were getting ready to head into Clove Lake, we met a family in 2 aluminum canoes. Dad and Mom, Grandpa and a little 3 or 4 year old girl. They mentioned they had entered at Larch Creek and were daytripping back to Gunflint Lodge. All I could think of was this nice family having to paddle the width of Gunflint Lake with a 20mph headwind. Andrew and I both expressed our concern for them to each other as we started across Clove Lake. We had planned on camping at the site at the north end of Clove, but we could see it was full so we opted to go to see if the island site on Larch Lake was open. We had a bit of a cross wind, but Clove is small enough that it was a doable paddle without significant effort.

Once we had portaged to Larch Lake, we were greeted with a significant wind with some pretty heavy duty whitecaps and rollers. We sat at the portage for a good 10 minutes trying to decide if we wanted to tackle the wind and waves or should we head back and grab an unused campsite on Clove lake. After remembering I have seen bigger on Brule and Knife, we decided to venture out. Honestly, it was not as bad as it looked. The 20mph headwind was a chore, but the waves were manageable. We could tell we had the lake to ourselves, so we plunked ourselves down on the island site. I had seen reports of this being a 5 star. It did look pretty heavily used without a lot of tree cover so it was a high 3 star for me. We had wanted to go fishing, but with the wind we decided to just sit around camp the rest of the afternoon, do some reading, catch the baseball game, and relax. We did try some shore fishing, but the wind was bad enough as it circled the island that it really wasn't useful. We were able to sit out on the rocks, sip a burbon and watch some swans. Early in the evening another solo tripper stopped at the site across the lake from us. All and all a wonderful day in the BWCA, and I could tell Andrew was already falling in love with this special place

This is that crazy split rock portage.