Friday, June 15, 2007      Yum Yum Lake – Burke Lake The portage out of YumYum was slightly better than on the way in, in all I’d say it was worth the trip through there. We went through Grey Lake and started a portage leading into Dell Lake.

The portage leading into Dell will not soon be forgotten, it lead to nowhere, a hundred yards in the trail just faded away. The map showed a creek that should have been on the other side of the tree line leading into the South end of Dell, but it was basically dried up about a mile short of the lake. The creek bed is now a prairie surrounded by cliffs, we dropped our gear went back to the canoe to get the map and GPS. Then ventured out to look for the route, we determined were closer to the north end of Dell if it was passable, and it was. Then back for the gear, and back once more for the canoe, breaking branches along the way each trip to clear a trail. Bug-wise the trips across the prairie were the worst; it was the first time we had to use the headnets, relentless biting flies and mosquitoes. As we reached the lake on the final trip I was having an allergic reaction to something, as both my hands had swelled to the point my knuckles were dimpled in, and I could not easily bend my thumb. Last time I had a reaction like this was 30 years ago from beestings, good thing we had a complete first aid kit and Benadryl. When loading the canoe we were in such a swarm of mosquitoes and flies, and in a hurry to load, the camera fell into the lake. One of the last pictures of the trip proves we were not the only ones having a bad day.  Across the lake we stopped for a swim, we undressed and with all the commotion of the portage we hadn’t noticed that like a cookie with extra chocolate chips, we were just covered with ticks, from ankles to ears. It was unbelievable.

Cleaned and refreshed we set out again, only to witness the sound of thunder in the distance and a sky turning dark green, then louder and greener. It was moving in quick, but we managed to find a campsite and pitch the rain tarp in 30mph plus winds before the first raindrop hit.

What had started out an abandoned trail leading to nowhere is now officially a trail. I can say this because we were still there having lunch when a party of six had approached us and asked what lake they were on, they had followed our trail, with no problem they said.

Too many miles lay between here and our pick-up point only 24 hours away, after the storm had passed we suited up in raingear and paddled on in a comfortably warm light rain with no wind all the way to Burke Lake. Unknowing of the forecast, Burke made a good staging location for tomorrow. The last portage into Burke was a disappointing reminder that we were getting closer to home. A few cigarette butts and one fancy plastic tipped cigar butt lined the trail, it is unclear to me why people would come this far to enjoy nature with no regard to keep it that way. Their whole party should be ashamed.