Day 3

Today we were heading out of Clear and into the North Kawishiwi. No portage drama this time and it was smooth sailing into the North Kawishiwi. After a short paddle and portage we came to our own personal Everest of the trip. The 210 rod portage. I’ve done longer portages, but this was one of the toughest. Partially because I was carrying a little more weight than in the past. It’s hilly, rocky, and deceiving. Everytime I started to go back down hill I thought to myself “I must be getting close to the lake!” only to be greeted by another hill up, than another down, etc… After beginning to wonder if I had taken a wrong turn and would soon be greeted my some Monties up in Canada, I saw a glimpse of water through the trees. Soon I dropped the canoe with all the grace of a car wreck and rested my shoulders before going back to see how the others were fairing. My brother was right behind me and also managed to try and dribble his canoe as he took it off his shoulders, and the girls were right behind as well. They really did a great job of carrying some heavy packs the whole trip, and one of them had a bad hamstring she was battling through. I know it hurt her more than she let on. During the portage we could hear the raging waters to our right. And after reading about the area in this forum, we decided we definitely had to come back later to check it out.

We made camp at the second site east of the portage. What a beautiful site. A high rocky outcrop provided a great view, while some really large pines offered some nice shade in the large and open main area of the camp. This site may be my favorite of all the sites I’ve stayed at yet. I took lots of pictures at this one. My brother and I caught some fish for dinner in the area across from camp, so this would be the one fish meal we had on the trip. We supplemented the fish with some hashbrowns and pan fry bread.

We ran into the same scout group that had trouble at the 70 rod Clear Lake portage. He asked us how the 210 rod they were about to tackle matched up with the 70 rod we had seen them on. I told him it was a doozy, and to just tkae some breaks along the way. If they had trouble with the 70 rod portage, I'd hate to see how the group was after that one. I imagine the boy I saw the first time wouldn't be too happy.

Then we decided we do an early evening trip back to see the rapids along the portage. I had noticed a side trail while portaging that we followed to the rapids. It was ok, but not what I remembered seeing on the forum. If you were heading back west on the portage it was at the top of the hill after the second boardwalk. We could see down stream a much more major drop in the river, so we backtracked a little more on the portage and found a second trail that went toward the river. We followed that one to a high cliff view of a large pool in between falls. I found a way down to the rapids by trekking off to the left and soon we were at the base of the larger falls/rapids. What a powerful sight! We sat there for quite awhile, and hardly anyone talked. We just reflected and took it in. It was one of the greatest moments of the trip. I took a handful of photos and as it was getting dark, we decided we better get going back to camp. We had some smores again that night in front of the fire, and we soon went to our respective tents for the night. That day was one of the best days of the trip.