FEET!!: Insula to Lake Three (or Two)

View Day 5 - and the weather gods smiled in a larger map

Portage out of Lake Insula

Day 5 made up for day 4. The sun was up, the skies were blue, and there were only light breezes. That being said, I think the trek from Insula to Lake Three was one of the tougher ones for me (physically). My arms and shoulders were pretty tired, and I still had to paddle on the left (facing the sun - bleagh).

Down from the Portage

There was more canoe traffic and more burned land, but even with my complaints, it was an awesome day. We started off with the most awesome blueberry pancakes ever (complete with maple syrup) and headed into the byzantine channels of Lake Insula. We had to go straight out from the campsite, paralleling a bunch of islands, and then turn into one of several possible inlets. I decided at some point that we should be turning right to get to the right spot, and we (luckily) ended up going straight into the right place. There was a tiny little rocky channel for us, and then it was smooth sailing to get to the first portage of the day. Sort of. We were in the right place, but finding the right way past this island thing was a little tricky. We made it though, and there were a couple of canoes coming to and from the trail to help us out.

This being the second half of the week, my food pack was finally light enough for me to start taking the canoe on some of the portages. Thus, all the portages were mine (insert evil laugh here). The first one was arguably the prettiest portage we did. (One of the first two portages of the trip was also kinda cool - bunches of red/orange flowers and a slender snake.) There were lots of purple wild flowers all along the path. There was some elevation gain and loss, but the width of the path and the rockiness helped out a little.

At the end of that walk, there was another longer-than-expected lake in a burned area. I picked an inlet too soon again, and we turned it into lunch (tuna/crackers/cheese/trail mix again). The lunch spot looked like it was in a recently burned block, and there were some crazy-looking bugs around.

Post-lunch, we hit the water, and within 10 minutes, we were at the actual portage. This one was quite short (just a path to avoid a bit of a rapid), but Ali and I had the canoe backwards, and the yoke dug into my neck like mad. Granted, I think the canoe was well-balanced when I was facing the wrong way, but I had to get Ali to come rescue my neck maybe 100ft from the end.

We had a set of small paddles and small portages to get into Lake Four, but all of those went cleanly. Lake Four was still in a burned area, and I got a little nervous about the prospect of finding a good campsite. Though Four wasn't really all that good looking, things started getting better after we went through a not-supposed-to-be-a-portage full of mud, algae, mosquito ponds, and other gunk to get to Lake Three (thank you map).

With some rocky outcroppings, deep water, and actual live trees, we were hopeful for our buddy's fishing. We planned to have fish for dinner one of the nights. Thankfully, we also had freeze dried veggies, mashed potatoes (garlic and four cheese), and shelf stable bacon as a backup. Ahem, sides for the fish. Though there was no fish when we camped at Lake Three, we still ate pretty well.

Burnt area

The campsite at Lake Three might have been my favorite. We had some nice rock slabs coming up to the fire circle, and there were some prime tent sites. Between the good weather and some good exposure, we had places to dry all of our soaked gear. There was also the best bear tree ever near this rocky ledge dropping into the water. (The ledge would have been prime jumping area if the water had been a little bit warmer.) We wandered all over our bit of forest, but there were several occupied sites nearby. The other campers weren't loud, but we could tell that they were there.

We stayed up relatively late for the last night of our trip. The stars (and the sunset) were great; it was slightly more clear than any other night of our trip. We thought about doing some night canoeing just out from our site, but our sleepiness got the best of us. The patch on Ali's sleeping mat finally held, and we had a good last night.