Plan is to leave Duluth at 7am. My dad is supposed to meet us in Two Harbors around 7:30-7:45. None of this goes well and the meet up happens at 8:30 but its not a huge rush for us as day 1 is about getting to the campsite on either Wonder or Sunhigh and preparing for a long day 2 of adventure. Onward we make one last stop at the liquor store on the Sawbill Trail Road and buy one more liter of alcohol as we are not sure we are bringing enough. Total alcohol now at 4.25 liters. A few last minute phone calls are made before we start down the trail as reception ends quite quick.

I believe we arrived to Sawbill Lake around 1130 AM. Load the canoes and we are off. Hardly any wind so it is easy paddling to the highway portage. Once on Alton the wind was also hardly there so another easy paddle to the south end. Make quick work of this portage as well. A lot of wolf scat on this portage was noticed.

At this point we decide it is probably easiest to camp on Wonder so we head to the south end for that site. This was we don’t have to go through the tiny river fully loaded.

Once at the site we set up shop and get everything ready. One brother (Zac) gets a little antsy and wants to see what the river is going to be like tomorrow. Also noticed the tape/JB Weld on one canoe was starting to leak so we added some more tape to fix that issue. We head over to Sunhigh with lightly loaded canoes. Water is extremely high in there thanks to a decent sized beaver dam. I think there were 3 areas we had to kind of pull over or at least move about within the canoe but overall it was quite easy to get to Sunhigh. We kind of cruise around the lake a bit casting with little to no luck and then eventually head back for dinner.

Dinner tonight was Venison backstraps with mashed potatoes and country gravy. Washed down with our traditional drink hot chocolate and Rumplemintz. It was amazing as it always is.