Day 3, August 29, 2023. Through the Burn. 10.7 miles, 7 portages. Sarah, 6 no-names, and Kahshahpiwi Lakes.
Today was a long day (and our planned route was a bit longer). We left our Sarah campsite around 8:00 and paddled through Sarah's 'waist', where the 2021 fire appeared to have transitioned from a canopy fire to an understory fire. The campsite at that narrow section of Sarah is one of our favorites, but doesn't appear to have been camped a lot this year, and while the canopy isn't impacted much around the campsite, the once-thick understory growth has been greatly reduced. Our portage out of Sarah's northeast corner was very different than when we last traveled through here. The fire was so intense here that the highly organic soil burned from between the rocks along the portage trail, turning the path into a rock-hop that we could only identify by the surveyor's tape a portage crew had used to denote the trail. It'll take several years' leaf litter to refill the gaps between the rocks. As we exited the portage, Tia saw a couple grouse. The second no-name had a floating muskeg put-in, and the lake's perimeter was mostly sphagnum moss and other water-loving plants. At the end of the next portage we spotted a family of six grouse, and I was able to grab a couple photos. We had light breezes as we worked our way through the no-name chain, but the wind was pretty high when we entered Kahshahpiwi. We paddled to the east shore and found a nice lunch stop around 1:00. Wind picked up as we lunched, and we saw occasional whitecaps as we paddled north and into the wind on the lake. We paddled past 'the Hilton' campsite, then turned into Kahshahpiwi's eastern bay holding the portage into Trant. It was around 3:00 when we reached the bay, so rather than head for Trant, our route plan for night 3, we stayed on a nice island campsite we'd used several trips back in that bay. Campsite setup was easy, and Tia caught up her journal notes as I did the bear bag hang. We had afternoon coffee/tea, and Tia finally had an opportunity to review her 'Plants of the Canoe Country' flower book. Wind died around 5:00, and we were fed and in bed by 8:00.