Thursday, June 14, 2007      Kashapiwi Lake – Yum Yum Lake 6:30am, waking up and grabbing the fishing rod is getting to be a habit. The first cast into the small lagoon behind camp resulted in one fantastic pan-fried smallie for breakfast, followed by the last of the pancakes and some tang.  Clearly we have poison ivy, this makes first case ever for me, and Dusty is almost covered; fortunately we came prepared.

I knew the Yum Yum portage was rated as long and difficult, but it now sounded better than the muddy portage at Side Lake so we changed our route. The Wind Gods must be displeased with the whole sail thing; this is the third day in a row we are heading into strong straight-line winds. At this point we are fighting for every foot, a brief stop in paddling to re-fill a water bottle means risking being thrown off course, and a whole lot of effort to steer true again. How to appease the gods??? If we come across a volcano, the sail goes in.

At a stop for lunch where the old abandoned ranger station used to be Dusty dozed off and left me to do all the work again, not quite, here’s a kid that continuously has played an active roll, carried the bigger load without complaining while keeping more spring in his step than me. I couldn’t pick a better paddling partner or be more proud. 

The dreaded (¾ mile) Yum Yum portage just across the lake was not as bad as expected. Half the trail is just fine, the other half is made up of a series of very steep up and down climbs with a long stretch of mud at two of the low points. I would not want to try this in wet conditions. The highlight of this portage lay about ¾ the way through as we came to a scenic overlook; there was a prairie about 70 feet below that stretched a few hundred yards across, and was about as long as I could see, a mini Grand Canyon. 

At the right time of day this would make a good place to watch for moose. The lake was attractive and peaceful, and the water was umm, yummy.

At Yum Yum Lake another nice island campsite was home for the night. Nearby, a beaver made his presence known by repeatedly spa-lunking his tail into the lake, it sounded like a very large rock hitting the water.

Another beautiful sunset surrounded by absolute intense quiet. 

Worn out and bothered by skeeters and biting flies, we made it an early night, unsuspecting of the events that were about to unfold. This was the first night we turned in before dark, so the nightlife must have been a little less familiar with our presence. We heard them venture in closer and closer as we were trying to sleep. I reminded Dusty we are in their backyard, not the other way around, and they are just curious. Dusty was lightly snoring when I first heard a scratching on our tent wall, Perimeter Violation! Then…WHAP! I backhanded the tent wall to scare it off. Dusty asked what happened; so as not to alarm him, I explained “JUST SOME LITTLE CRITTER WALKING AROUND OUTSIDE THE TENT, HE’S GONE NOW!” loud enough to make a human presence known. In all my years of wilderness camping this has never happened, and then I remembered with the bugs and all, we ate dinner inside the tent. I knew better, how could I have been so careless, our tent probably smells like food. Not a good situation. Need to be prepared, flashlight check, pepper-spray check, knife check. Dusty began snoring again, and I was just about out, when it returned. Whatever it was, it was back at the tent wall scratching right next to him (elevate awareness level to Defcon 5). Wide-eyed in the darkness, I lurched up, its’ back, and this thing doesn’t scare, I thought! Listening deeply in a dead calm, to the on and off again scratch, it sounded like something was licking the tent. This tent is unlikely to withstand a pounce from even a medium sized animal. Not ready to be part of the food chain I had to do something. Separated by only inches and a thin nylon wall, I could hear a beating sound, it was its heartbeat, and it was loud…no wait, that’s just mine. You’re always prepared for something like this, that is, until it happens. Should I unzip the screen door, then the main door, and poke my head out to potentially rub noses with something that has better night vision than me, and is not afraid? No Way, the fight/flight response has already kicked in. I need to surprise it by cutting through the tent wall in one quick swipe of my knife, and emerge wielding the knife (I should have brought a bigger one), and little bottle of pepper spray, with my flashlight in hand. No wait, that’s three things, and I only have two hands. More planning, I listened to determine the exact height from the ground that the sound was coming from to get a hint of its size. Closing in on the location, listening and squinting, I saw something move in the tent. The threat was identified, a simple elbow to Dusty’s ribs and “hey, stop scratching your poison ivy”. Problem solved! It had been his arm rubbing the side of tent the whole time.