Sunday, May 29, 2022

We all slept warm and cozy in our respective cocoons despite chilly temps. The night was a symphony of chorus frogs and toads with an intermittent solo by a white-throated sparrow. The dawn broke with an abundance of optimistic bird calls, all hoping to be the one picked by a mate today.

We had a simple morning putzing around camp and cooking up a perfect pan of cheesy biscuits and country gravy with sausage. We rehung the food pack and packed some basics for our day trip. Since the weather was still iffy and we planned to paddle the whole triangle (about 12 miles) we brought a daypack with lunch, a tarp, and rain gear. We also brought the pack basket with a bag of warm, dry clothes, a sleeping bag and pad as well as the 1st aid kit. We planned a clockwise trip so the long portages would be completed by lunchtime. The main goal for the day was to cover a lot of miles with relatively light loads as a way to train up a bit.

We heard an unusual frog call today. It sounded like a spring peeper combined with a cricket noise. Maybe an aggression call by a spring peeper? We saw a lot of people coming across the 175 rod portage into Clear Lake, probably from Farm Lake start. All of them were overpacked and were double carrying their canoes instead of portaging them on their shoulders. They all looked crabby and miserable. A couple people arrived at the Clear Lake landing with their 2nd load just as we were starting off. They had left their 1st load including a canoe and lots of junk strewn across 90% of the landing. They had the nerve to get cranky at us shimmying past and snapped that there were a bunch more canoes coming. We ignored them and made quick work of the portage, stepping aside as other canoes trickled through.

At the infamous (in our family) 210 rod portage, Joey headed across with the canoe while I scouted for a lunch spot. This is the portage Joey first did 6 years earlier (age 13) and got incredibly mad at me because he mistakenly thought it was 120 rods rather than 210. Back then, he had made a valiant effort to carry his pack the whole way and almost made it before realizing it was much longer and psyched himself out. He stormed back yelling at me that I had lied to him (I hadn't lied, just hadn't corrected him when he mentioned the length as 120 rods earlier) before hiding and pouting in the brush at the end of the trail. What a difference 6 years make! Now he just runs any size load across in no time and comes back for more.

Joey standing at the end of the 210 rod portage. The water is higher than 6 years ago, but those are the shrubs he hid in when he was so mad.

I found a lovely overlook of the rapids about halfway along the trail (between the 2 boardwalk sections). After we finished eating, Joey and I bushwhacked downstream to the falls, then managed to find a thin, little used trail back to the portage that brought us out by the west end on the westernmost boardwalk. It was really hard to find and clearly hasn't been used much since a lot of trees had fallen. We spent about an hour with lunch and exploring. We saw lots of wolf scat, some of it fresh. We also found a radio that seemed to have been lost for quite awhile and had a dead battery. We took it back with us (and then lost it on a fall hunting trip this October...something about that radio...).

The rest of the triangle went smoothly. Water levels were high enough that we could have run some of the sections like the ducks we watched, but we decided to take all of the portages. Some of the portages were still mildly flooded and I can only imagine how dangerous it was at the highest flood stage a week or two ago. A few campsites along the route were occupied, but most were empty. Stew was bummed that he had forgotten the fishing gear back at the campsite so he didn't get to do any trolling.

The whole route took us about 6 hours including the hour long lunch. Back at the campsite, we enjoyed watching the loons and mergansers diving into the current to catch fish. I also learned the spring plumage of male mergansers is very different than their summer or fall plumage. They are black/white with red/orange on the bill. I should remember to bring a bird book on future May trips since the birds are at their most abundant and active this time of year with plenty of migratory birds alongside the regulars. In terms of guide books I think May is best for birds, June for wildflowers, July for berries along with butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, and August/September is best for mushroom identification.