Day 1 (Kabetogama to Namakan)
Up at 4am. Neither of us slept well with the anticipation of the trip - it was 70 with 84% humidity when we woke up which doesn't help for sleeping. I know I slept but it felt like I was awake all night. We had the packs pretty much ready to go the night before so it didn't take long to get things ready and drive to the boat landing. We spent about 20 minutes at the landing getting the seat bags and thwart bags into the canoe and such. We would dial it in later as the trip went on, but we had it set up pretty well from the start. We had decided that I would sit in the front for the first couple of days 
on the big water as I am bigger and a bit stronger in the upper body than Steve. Our goal for the first day was 30 miles if the weather held up. We knew storms were approaching from the west and it looked like a hot sticky day.
We were on the water at 4:55am. Paul took some pictures (hopefully to come) of our departure. Wind was out of the south from the start. We were pretty front heavy with the pack balance and my weighing more than Steve, so the canoe wasn't tracking very well and our trim was off. We took in some water with the south wind and put the bilge sponges to use. So it was a tougher start - paddling into the wind for a few miles. Once we hit the south end of Kabetogama we were able to get some wind protection, get out of the waves, and get things trimmed out a little bit. There were a lot of pelicans on Kabetogama. We wouldn't see any the rest of the trip, but we probably saw a dozen or more on Kabetogama. The temperature rose into the mid 80s by mid morning and the sun was hot. I ended up getting some sunburn as I didn't get sunscreen on soon enough.
We saw a fair number of houseboats on Kabetogama - looked like a great time on one of those. It's a pretty lake.
We stopped for lunch/break around 10AM (20 miles in) at an old forest service camp
that's no longer in use. There was a nice beach 
and I was happy to stop and relax for a bit. We ate some jerky, stretched out for a while.
We paddled into Namakan in the afternoon. Passed through the Namakan Narrows which was very pretty after being on big water all day. We camped on in island just south of the narrows. Pretty campsite. The Nat'l Park campsites had metal bear proof lockers which was kinda slick. Other than that looked just like a BWCA site.
Note the intact rain fly in the pictures here...
After a supper of cheeseburgers (tasty!) we were wiped out from the heat and long day so thankful that the weather held out for us we jumped in the water for a bit to cool off and were in the tent to sleep around 7pm.
Around 8 or 8:30 that evening the impending storm approached out of the W/NW. We figured it would be a doozy with what the radar had looked like the day before the hot humid air coming out of the south. Well, it was that and more. Neither Steve or I had ever gone through anything like that before in our 90+ trips combined before this and I hope never to again. You hear talk about when a tornado hits that they here what sounds like a train approaching. Well, they're right. It was straight line winds and we were on the lee side of the island, but it was pretty hairy in the tent to hear that sound. When it hit, all we could do was hold onto the tent poles and the tent to keep it from collapsing on us. We get some winds down here in Rochester, but not like this. I would guess it hit us between 60 and 70 mph. I remember just holding on to the tent and poles and hoping the trees on the island would stay standing. They did (but we saw trees down not far from our island). Luckily it was short lived. The nasty winds died down to a level we could handle and we got the rain and lightning from the storm. When it felt safe to go outside Steve through on the raingear and assessed the damage. Our tent poles were very bent and our rain fly had two huge tears in it. I came out as well - luckily the canoe was fine, our gear didn't blow around and we were alive and pretty much unscathed and had all our gear. Kudos to Steve for doing a fine job prepping camp that night. We rigged up a tarp to cover the tent and tried to calm the nerves and get some sleep.
After the storm blew through we had the most orange sunset I'd ever seen. I wish now I had gotten out and taken a picture, but the mosquitos were horrid and we were wet and rattled. Oh well.
Final tally:
31 miles
0 portages
Wildlife:
8 loons
1 eagle
1 turtle
1 deer (doe)
lots of pelicans
Supper:
Garlic/onion cheeseburgers
Misc.
Nasty storm
Torn rain fly and bent tent poles
Final weather report from International Falls:
High of 91
Low of 67
It listed a high wind gust of 35 mph which obviously grossly understated what we saw, so we'll have to go with our guess of 60-70 mph.
on the big water as I am bigger and a bit stronger in the upper body than Steve. Our goal for the first day was 30 miles if the weather held up. We knew storms were approaching from the west and it looked like a hot sticky day.We were on the water at 4:55am. Paul took some pictures (hopefully to come) of our departure. Wind was out of the south from the start. We were pretty front heavy with the pack balance and my weighing more than Steve, so the canoe wasn't tracking very well and our trim was off. We took in some water with the south wind and put the bilge sponges to use. So it was a tougher start - paddling into the wind for a few miles. Once we hit the south end of Kabetogama we were able to get some wind protection, get out of the waves, and get things trimmed out a little bit. There were a lot of pelicans on Kabetogama. We wouldn't see any the rest of the trip, but we probably saw a dozen or more on Kabetogama. The temperature rose into the mid 80s by mid morning and the sun was hot. I ended up getting some sunburn as I didn't get sunscreen on soon enough.
We saw a fair number of houseboats on Kabetogama - looked like a great time on one of those. It's a pretty lake.
We stopped for lunch/break around 10AM (20 miles in) at an old forest service camp
that's no longer in use. There was a nice beach 
and I was happy to stop and relax for a bit. We ate some jerky, stretched out for a while.We paddled into Namakan in the afternoon. Passed through the Namakan Narrows which was very pretty after being on big water all day. We camped on in island just south of the narrows. Pretty campsite. The Nat'l Park campsites had metal bear proof lockers which was kinda slick. Other than that looked just like a BWCA site.
Note the intact rain fly in the pictures here...
After a supper of cheeseburgers (tasty!) we were wiped out from the heat and long day so thankful that the weather held out for us we jumped in the water for a bit to cool off and were in the tent to sleep around 7pm.
Around 8 or 8:30 that evening the impending storm approached out of the W/NW. We figured it would be a doozy with what the radar had looked like the day before the hot humid air coming out of the south. Well, it was that and more. Neither Steve or I had ever gone through anything like that before in our 90+ trips combined before this and I hope never to again. You hear talk about when a tornado hits that they here what sounds like a train approaching. Well, they're right. It was straight line winds and we were on the lee side of the island, but it was pretty hairy in the tent to hear that sound. When it hit, all we could do was hold onto the tent poles and the tent to keep it from collapsing on us. We get some winds down here in Rochester, but not like this. I would guess it hit us between 60 and 70 mph. I remember just holding on to the tent and poles and hoping the trees on the island would stay standing. They did (but we saw trees down not far from our island). Luckily it was short lived. The nasty winds died down to a level we could handle and we got the rain and lightning from the storm. When it felt safe to go outside Steve through on the raingear and assessed the damage. Our tent poles were very bent and our rain fly had two huge tears in it. I came out as well - luckily the canoe was fine, our gear didn't blow around and we were alive and pretty much unscathed and had all our gear. Kudos to Steve for doing a fine job prepping camp that night. We rigged up a tarp to cover the tent and tried to calm the nerves and get some sleep.
After the storm blew through we had the most orange sunset I'd ever seen. I wish now I had gotten out and taken a picture, but the mosquitos were horrid and we were wet and rattled. Oh well.
Final tally:
31 miles
0 portages
Wildlife:
8 loons
1 eagle
1 turtle
1 deer (doe)
lots of pelicans
Supper:
Garlic/onion cheeseburgers
Misc.
Nasty storm
Torn rain fly and bent tent poles
Final weather report from International Falls:
High of 91
Low of 67
It listed a high wind gust of 35 mph which obviously grossly understated what we saw, so we'll have to go with our guess of 60-70 mph.
posted by the.mrrr at 9:36 AM
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