Day 6 (Basswood)
We woke up ... to a bear dragging away our food pack. Let me interject that we don't hang our packs, opting instead for sealing up the pack liner and stashing the pack in an out of the way location. Well, this bear found our pack and was dragging it away as we woke up. I should say as Steve woke up... because he had his sandals on and was out of the tent in about 3 second. I didn't think a 44 year old guy could still move that fast! Steve has experience in chasing bears in his underwear, and he got to put it to use again here. By the time I figured out what was going on and got my Keens and glasses on and made it out of the tent, the bear had dropped the pack and was shuffling back into the woods. All was well that ended well and we were able to recover all of our food without any damage to the pack. All in all, an interesting 15 or so hours at this campsite on Crooked. It was actually my first bear experience in 15 or so trips to the BWCA.
We were out of camp and on the water around 6:40. The wind was calm and I was thankful for that after our adventures the day before. We were figuring on a long day, heading into Basswood. We paddled past Thursday Bay and headed south on Crooked. The current was a bit swift at times, but the scenery was very pretty. We stopped for a coffee break at Table Rock. There was a moose jaw along the shore of the water. We paddled further south and stopped for pictures at the pictograph:
We started seeing a few more people as we made our way out of Crooked and onto the Basswood River. We spotted an immature bald eagle that was very close to being 'bald'. The first few portages weren't bad, but we knew the 340 rod Horse Portage was coming up - our first long portage of the trip. The portage was in great shape, but I struggled with it. There were quite a few people on the portage, and that helped pass the time, but the second pack put a lot of weight on my shoulders and my back got really tight between my shoulder blades. This would be a problem for me on longer portages throughout the trip - especially later in the day when we had paddled some distance. I had to put the packs down and tried swapping the packs with each other as they were about the same weight. It helped a bit, but I was a little bummed that I put a pack down - I was hoping with all the training I had done that this 340 would be cake but the 2nd pack bothered me enough to make me put it down. Oh well. We took a few minutes after the portage to walk back to see the rapids. The end of the portage was very busy so we didn't take much time. We probably should have taken more time since we'd run out of steam later in the day.
Our paddling had definitely gotten stronger than the start of the trip. We had put some serious miles in already. Basswood put us on big water again. We had wanted to get through most of Basswood so once we cleared American Point we cut through the English Channel for a bit of a short cut. My upper back was sore from the paddling and portaging and we had wanted to go a bit further, so about 2pm we took a rest break for 30 minutes on a Quetico campsite. As we made our way east, we opted for a campsite just to the west of Beaver Island. The campsite was OK, but very buggy. Lots of loons, though. We saw as many as 20 in a raft. Our estimates for the day are probably conservative, but we tried not to count the same ones twice. We boiled up some water and ate 3 mountain house for supper, including one of the two sweet and sour porks I had been saving for special occasions. We had gone 25 miles and salvaged our food from a bear, so I considered it a special occasion. After supper we heated up some water and soap and took a sponge bath to clean up a bit and went to bed tired.
Final tally:
25 miles.
4 portages: 33 32 30 340
Wildlife: 38+ loons, 9 eagles, 3 herons, 1 deer, 1 bear.
Weather: cloudy all day, mid 60s. Wind out of north, calm to 10 mph.
High: 68, Low: 60
We were out of camp and on the water around 6:40. The wind was calm and I was thankful for that after our adventures the day before. We were figuring on a long day, heading into Basswood. We paddled past Thursday Bay and headed south on Crooked. The current was a bit swift at times, but the scenery was very pretty. We stopped for a coffee break at Table Rock. There was a moose jaw along the shore of the water. We paddled further south and stopped for pictures at the pictograph:
We started seeing a few more people as we made our way out of Crooked and onto the Basswood River. We spotted an immature bald eagle that was very close to being 'bald'. The first few portages weren't bad, but we knew the 340 rod Horse Portage was coming up - our first long portage of the trip. The portage was in great shape, but I struggled with it. There were quite a few people on the portage, and that helped pass the time, but the second pack put a lot of weight on my shoulders and my back got really tight between my shoulder blades. This would be a problem for me on longer portages throughout the trip - especially later in the day when we had paddled some distance. I had to put the packs down and tried swapping the packs with each other as they were about the same weight. It helped a bit, but I was a little bummed that I put a pack down - I was hoping with all the training I had done that this 340 would be cake but the 2nd pack bothered me enough to make me put it down. Oh well. We took a few minutes after the portage to walk back to see the rapids. The end of the portage was very busy so we didn't take much time. We probably should have taken more time since we'd run out of steam later in the day.
Our paddling had definitely gotten stronger than the start of the trip. We had put some serious miles in already. Basswood put us on big water again. We had wanted to get through most of Basswood so once we cleared American Point we cut through the English Channel for a bit of a short cut. My upper back was sore from the paddling and portaging and we had wanted to go a bit further, so about 2pm we took a rest break for 30 minutes on a Quetico campsite. As we made our way east, we opted for a campsite just to the west of Beaver Island. The campsite was OK, but very buggy. Lots of loons, though. We saw as many as 20 in a raft. Our estimates for the day are probably conservative, but we tried not to count the same ones twice. We boiled up some water and ate 3 mountain house for supper, including one of the two sweet and sour porks I had been saving for special occasions. We had gone 25 miles and salvaged our food from a bear, so I considered it a special occasion. After supper we heated up some water and soap and took a sponge bath to clean up a bit and went to bed tired.
Final tally:
25 miles.
4 portages: 33 32 30 340
Wildlife: 38+ loons, 9 eagles, 3 herons, 1 deer, 1 bear.
Weather: cloudy all day, mid 60s. Wind out of north, calm to 10 mph.
High: 68, Low: 60
posted by the.mrrr at 10:31 AM
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