Boundary Waters Day 3
Saturday was our last full day in the Boundary Waters. We woke, did the morning two hour ritual of making fire and breakfast (blueberry pancakes and hash browns -- very yummy) and plotted out our day.
We decided that we wanted to go to Canada and paddle in one of its lakes. We plotted out a route that would be an up-and-back route, instead of a loop. It would include a single portage that was listed as 220 rods, or over two thirds of a mile. All told, this route was about 20 miles and had more than two miles of portages. I had signed up to do them all as a test of how hard could I push myself.
The day was beautiful, probably low 70s with no wind and light cloud cover. We all dressed lightly and headed towards Canada.
We saw a number of people along the way, both on land and in the lakes. Most were fishing. Clearly we were the odds one attempting to travel rather than fish.
We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I had prepared while waiting for the hash browns to cook. The sandwiches had all but collapsed under their own weight and had gotten quite soggy. I'm used to wheat bread where PB&J sandwiches keep much better. None the less, they were yummy (apple cinnamon was my favorite) and hit the spot.
The trip to Canada was largely uneventful. We surfed the wake of a passing fishing boat and were rocked by the wake of a speeding canoe taxi. When we got to Canada at about 4pm, I paid $10 for a day pass (good until 10pm!) so we could paddle for 5 minutes in Inlet Bay before reversing our route and trying to beat the sunset.
Our fears of getting back in the dark were unfounded as we made great time when everyone was paddling rather than trying to figure out where we were going or pumping water from the lake. We returned to Snowbank Lake with plenty of sun to spare, but were shocked to find driving winds had whipped Snowbank into 2 foot white-capped waves.
At first, none of us were too worried since our canoe sits rather high in the water and seemed to be pretty stable. However, the waves were coming such that we would fall into the trough of one and have the next one nearly break into the canoe. Luckily we didn't have any waves come into the canoe, though many tried, and Jon took the brunt of the waves since he was sitting at the front. He later admitted that he was worried about a couple of waves that nearly entered the canoe. Mike strapped his backpack to the canoe just in case we were to capsize.
I was at the back, paddling hard, trying to keep us on track for our island. I had to paddle hard to keep us angled slightly into the waves to prevent them from hitting us broadside and rolling our canoe. At one point I called out to have everyone paddle on the right side of the canoe (Mike and Jon were both paddling on the left) only to have a mutiny because they did not believe that we needed to go to the left. I was sure that's what we needed as we were drifting to the right and were taking more waves broadside. I screamed again "paddle right!" only to have them argue the point again. Finally I yelled out something along the lines of "I'm in back, I'm steering, and I know what I'm doing! Paddle right!" and got the needed strokes, just a few, to get us on track and pointed the right way. Once into the shadow of the leeward side of the island, it was easy to make landfall.
Upon returning to camp, we found that our garbage bag had been chewed into. Not by anything big (we were assuming that no bears would make it to our island since we were well out in the lake), but probably by a squirrel, or maybe a bird. Luckily it didn't chew into our food bag and only licked (maybe) a few empty jelly packets. I was grateful that it didn't make anything resembling a mess and the holes in the garbage bag were at the top, rather than the bottom.
We started dinner, and finished about the time we heard the first clap of thunder. I was not happy to have a thunderstorm coming our way. We looked at the sky, but couldn't really tell if we were in for a lot of rain, or just a little. The thunder seemed to be far off in the distance, and the clouds were moving slowly (so slowly that I couldn't see them moving, but Jon claimed that he could), so I couldn't guess when we might get rain, or how long it might last.
It started to rain just a few minutes later, but thankfully it lasted for only 20 minutes. Jon used his hiking umbrella, and I put on my poncho while Mike dove for cover in his tent. The rain wasn't strong enough to put out the fire with some logs protecting it on the fire grate, though we considered letting it do that since it was late and none of us wanted to stand around in the cold rain. Before we could decide, it stopped raining and I decided that now was the time to get into my tent (something I didn't want to do in the rain since it's so hard to get into my one-man tent).
The thunder and lightning stopped when the rain did and the wind died down. It became quite peaceful. I slept much better that night, though apparently I still snored. We were all woken by a noisy crow around 7am.
We decided that we wanted to go to Canada and paddle in one of its lakes. We plotted out a route that would be an up-and-back route, instead of a loop. It would include a single portage that was listed as 220 rods, or over two thirds of a mile. All told, this route was about 20 miles and had more than two miles of portages. I had signed up to do them all as a test of how hard could I push myself.
The day was beautiful, probably low 70s with no wind and light cloud cover. We all dressed lightly and headed towards Canada.
We saw a number of people along the way, both on land and in the lakes. Most were fishing. Clearly we were the odds one attempting to travel rather than fish.
We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I had prepared while waiting for the hash browns to cook. The sandwiches had all but collapsed under their own weight and had gotten quite soggy. I'm used to wheat bread where PB&J sandwiches keep much better. None the less, they were yummy (apple cinnamon was my favorite) and hit the spot.
The trip to Canada was largely uneventful. We surfed the wake of a passing fishing boat and were rocked by the wake of a speeding canoe taxi. When we got to Canada at about 4pm, I paid $10 for a day pass (good until 10pm!) so we could paddle for 5 minutes in Inlet Bay before reversing our route and trying to beat the sunset.
Our fears of getting back in the dark were unfounded as we made great time when everyone was paddling rather than trying to figure out where we were going or pumping water from the lake. We returned to Snowbank Lake with plenty of sun to spare, but were shocked to find driving winds had whipped Snowbank into 2 foot white-capped waves.
At first, none of us were too worried since our canoe sits rather high in the water and seemed to be pretty stable. However, the waves were coming such that we would fall into the trough of one and have the next one nearly break into the canoe. Luckily we didn't have any waves come into the canoe, though many tried, and Jon took the brunt of the waves since he was sitting at the front. He later admitted that he was worried about a couple of waves that nearly entered the canoe. Mike strapped his backpack to the canoe just in case we were to capsize.
I was at the back, paddling hard, trying to keep us on track for our island. I had to paddle hard to keep us angled slightly into the waves to prevent them from hitting us broadside and rolling our canoe. At one point I called out to have everyone paddle on the right side of the canoe (Mike and Jon were both paddling on the left) only to have a mutiny because they did not believe that we needed to go to the left. I was sure that's what we needed as we were drifting to the right and were taking more waves broadside. I screamed again "paddle right!" only to have them argue the point again. Finally I yelled out something along the lines of "I'm in back, I'm steering, and I know what I'm doing! Paddle right!" and got the needed strokes, just a few, to get us on track and pointed the right way. Once into the shadow of the leeward side of the island, it was easy to make landfall.
Upon returning to camp, we found that our garbage bag had been chewed into. Not by anything big (we were assuming that no bears would make it to our island since we were well out in the lake), but probably by a squirrel, or maybe a bird. Luckily it didn't chew into our food bag and only licked (maybe) a few empty jelly packets. I was grateful that it didn't make anything resembling a mess and the holes in the garbage bag were at the top, rather than the bottom.
We started dinner, and finished about the time we heard the first clap of thunder. I was not happy to have a thunderstorm coming our way. We looked at the sky, but couldn't really tell if we were in for a lot of rain, or just a little. The thunder seemed to be far off in the distance, and the clouds were moving slowly (so slowly that I couldn't see them moving, but Jon claimed that he could), so I couldn't guess when we might get rain, or how long it might last.
It started to rain just a few minutes later, but thankfully it lasted for only 20 minutes. Jon used his hiking umbrella, and I put on my poncho while Mike dove for cover in his tent. The rain wasn't strong enough to put out the fire with some logs protecting it on the fire grate, though we considered letting it do that since it was late and none of us wanted to stand around in the cold rain. Before we could decide, it stopped raining and I decided that now was the time to get into my tent (something I didn't want to do in the rain since it's so hard to get into my one-man tent).
The thunder and lightning stopped when the rain did and the wind died down. It became quite peaceful. I slept much better that night, though apparently I still snored. We were all woken by a noisy crow around 7am.
posted by Mark at 8:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home