Day 13 (Fort Charlotte)

With a relatively short day ahead of us we slept in. It was cool and cloudy when we woke up:


We started the day with the Fowl Portage (which we will now refer to as the Foul Portage). It began with a steep uphill climb to start. Like most of the portages on the Canadian side, it was pretty rugged. More than the others, though, this one involved some bushwhacking. I lost count how many fallen trees we had to go over/under. With the constant off/on with the packs and canoe to get them over the fallen trees, we never got a rhythm going. It was listed at 393 but felt a lot longer. Steve took a fall climbing over some trees and took a nasty hit to his knee/leg. No cut, but a pretty serious contusion. After some recovery time he (rather impressively) shouldered on. It would (probably luckily) be the worst injury of the trip. There wasn't much of a trail and I wondered if we were still on the portage but we were at least heading in the right direction and eventually we were at the river.

We had maps of the river but didn't know how accurate they would be as to rapids and portages. We knew of the portage at Partridge Falls but didn't know if we'd have to look for others along the way. But, with the current in our favor and only about 12 miles to go we could take our time. I don't think the Pigeon gets much traffic so it felt adventurous and I hoped we'd see some wildlife. It was pretty; no wind, calm water made for some quiet paddling.

We hadn't gone too far when we spotted what looked to be a moose in the water ahead:



Yep... that's a moose!
he let us get pretty close before he lumbered off. You really get a feel for how big they are when you see them rumble off like that...
We hit a couple of rapids caused by narrows in the river and dams from the beavers. There were no good portages around them so we ran the rapids. I almost fell out of the canoe on one rapids when we took a good hit on a hidden rock. Penelope took some dings this day but made it through (though much more scratched and beat up than she started).

We had a heron with us for a good strech:

We also had several duck hens trying to lead us away from their chicks as we'd pass by:

One of them stayed in front of us for several miles.

I had the GPS on so knew when we were getting close to Partridge Falls. We got to the top of the falls and pulled into the portage. I went ahead and scouted the portage to see what we had in store. It was actually in very good shape for what I expected. It looked to be about 100 rods or so. There were some large moose tracks on the portage. It was a good place to stop and take some pictures as the falls were beautiful (and doesn't get much traffic):

Base of falls:

Side view of falls:


Steve at falls:
Matt at falls:

The crew at base of falls:
Crew at side of falls:
wildflowers above falls:
Steve looking at falls:
Boundary marker at top of falls:

Froth from the falls:

The Pigeon River below the falls:

There wasn't much at Fort Charlotte National Monument, but it worked perfectly for our needs. There was a register there so we were able to sign in for our camping. The Monument has two campsites, each had picnic tables. The Fort did have a really cool outhouse. After 12 days in the BWCA, an enclosed toilet was high class!

The sun came out when we got to Ft. Charlotte and we were able to dry everything out for the Grand. We spread out our gear and figured out what food we could burn off to lighten the packs for the Grand...

Steve got a little zealous with the remainder of the white gas... luckily he managed not to burn off all the hair on his legs. It was nice to camp here and have just the Grand to do in the morning. There were nice rocks along the river so we sat down there and finished our journaling. We also ate our supper along the river:
It was quiet, calm, and serene way to end our last night of the trip. Tomorrow we would be sleeping in our beds at home. It was a cool night, the sky was clear, and we'd have the rapids to sing us to sleep that night. Steve broke out a list of French names he had brought and I finally got my Voyageur nomiker. I settled on Gaspard (French for Jasper). I was bittersweet about the trip ending. I was excited to go home, clean up, sleep in my comfy bed, see friends, etc. But I would miss the quiet, the simple work, the company of my brother. The great weather at the end of the trip had greatly renewed my spirits and made the ending all the more difficult. 2 weeks is a long time away from everything... it felt longer... and shorter. I had really dialed into the rhythm of the woods the last few days and knew I would start to lose that the minute I got home. But I wasn't done yet - I still had the Grand to tackle tomorrow...


Final tally:
14 miles
2 portages (393, ~100)

wildlife:
3 loons, 1 moose (bull), 1 otter, 1 deer, 1 beaver, 4 herons, and lots of mama ducks leading us away from her chicks

Supper:
Mountain House terayaki chicken
Mountain House lasagna
garlic butter rice dish