Most of us us were up by 5 AM eager to get started with day one on the water. Frankly, we were rather excited to have this opportunity at all after our whole BWCA trip had been endangered by the wildfire closures earlier in the summer. As it turned out, not only did the park reopen in time for our trip, but the open-fire ban was also lifted just days before we arrived so we were going to be able to have campfires and the complete Boundary Waters "experience".

After a hearty breakfast at Britton's Cafe, CCO owner Mark Olson gave us a shuttle ride to our starting point--#32 at the South Kawishiwi River. Our first portage was just under half of a mile and while the early morning rains had ended before we got to our starting point, the trail was still wet and slippery, so the mud, rocks and roots of this long-ish portage were going to be a bit of an opening test. Our crew stepped right up to the task and after about 45-minutes of double portaging we were loaded and launched onto water as smooth as glass.

This is a particularly pretty place to enter the park and our new people were immediately impressed with the BWCA's beauty. I told them the best was yet to come once the overcast skies would give way to the sun and the stunning greens and blues of the Boundary Waters were shown in their full glory.

The next few portages were short and simple and the sun did come out as the water remained calm. This made for a great day of scenic paddling as we continued up the Kawishiwi River, targeting the northeast corner of the "triangle" as our intended camping area for the night.

At one point, shortly before we hoped to find a campsite, I was glancing at the map and lost grip of it over the side of the canoe so it sat floating on the water. This would mean a simple U-turn to retrieve it but as we pulled along side of it, both my bow paddler Sarai and I reached down for this map at the same time and the sudden shift to the side quickly caused us to capsize! In many years of tripping and dozens of individual trips, this was a first for me. Fortunately it happened in warm and calm water, our PFD's did their job, neither of us were hurt and we didn't lose any gear! The other canoes were there quickly to assist and after we got to the nearby shore, got our canoe emptied and soggy gear drained, we were on our way again, not much worse for the wear.

This little incident did slow us down a bit and that, combined with an earlier lingering lunch stop, put us very late in the afternoon by the time we were actually looking for a campsite. This meant all of our intended sites were already taken and we decided to backtrack to an open site we'd seen earlier. This was only about a mile back and with the ability to skip our previous portage by running the gentle rapids that were now downstream, we quickly arrived back at our new home for the night. I had actually stayed at this site (#1137) many years ago and while I remembered it as not the greatest site I'd ever been at, by this time of the day it would certainly do. Once again the whole crew came through to get established here for the night and we able to get camp set up in pretty short order. After we were able to finally coax a stubborn fire to life we used it to cook a fantastic steak-and-potato supper before turning in for the night from a day that had certainly presented it's challenges but had still been a successful first day on the water.