Monday, July 25, 2022 We spent a wonderful night at historic Clearwater Lodge in the Voyageurs room - I highly recommend it. As newcomers to the north country it was interesting to read about the history of the lodge and surrounding areas. Clearwater Lodge was great about outfitting us for the trip and offered useful advice on the route - we also bought leeches from Ugly Bait shop down the road. We were paddling by 9 am and the weather was great - nice paddle past the palisades on Clearwater and easily found the portage to Mountain. We dropped gear at the Border Route Trail and hiked up to the eastern overlook; it was beautiful and gave a great view of Canada and surrounding lakes. We made it to Mountain campsite 5 by 2:30 and set up camp. We caught smallies on the first cast with leeches and had great luck with them the entire trip. Mosquitos were nonexistent until around 7 and then they arrived with a vengeance - fortunately we had nets. That evening we had a nice sunset cruise on the lake and played guitar and sang. We also heard and saw our first loons; what a beautiful and haunting sound. Slept great after a hot meal.