Day 8 (Saganaga)
Up at first light. I don't think it was actually light out, yet. I woke up hungover - felt like I hadn't slept at all. When Steve told me it was the morning, I must confess I didn't believe him so I had to go check my GPS to confirm it was really 4:30AM. Ugh. He was being truthful. It was a wet night so we had a dry breakfast (oatmeal, dried fruit, and jerky) and were on the water by 6. It was another grey, wet day. Thankfully we had a while to paddle before our first portage. It could have been ugly otherwise...
The wind was strong out of the south. It helped early but would be a bane later. I was interested to see if there were truly monuments on the Monument Portage. There was! Three of them! The portage was in good shape, a little uphill at the start but not bad. We saw a bunch (10+) of eagles circling above the trees on Ottertail.
The day got really interesting when we got to Saganaga. Until now we were able to hug the southern shore was we headed generally NE. But now we had to cross Sagg (will always be a 4 letter word to me from now on) W-E with the wind out of the S/SW. And it was a wind. We got to American Point and were looking at 3 foot+ rollers. No way we can go straight across. The wind is blowing, the rain is pelting, and we have to cross a couple miles of rollers. Are we having fun yet???? Sagg is a motor boat lake. We saw two boats out the whole time we were on Sagg. Not canoes... boats. This was probably the time where our presence on the water was most questionable.
We started by trying to quarter into the wind but after some time we realized that this wasn't working so hot. The wind had several miles to build up waves on us and the rollers were making our route treacherous. So, we changed strategy and tried to quarter with the waves, heading towards the islands north of Munker Island. Now I must confess I had it easy. I just kept my head down and paddled hard on whichever side Steve told me to. Steve was the one in the stern keeping up from getting swamped (and watching the waves come oh so close on many occasions). We managed to reach some islands and get a bit of a break from the wind. We stopped at a campsite and got out and grabbed some lunch. It was cold and wet, though, so we didn't stay long. The weather wasn't getting any better and we wanted to be off the big water.
We got the maps out and decided to island hop as best we could to minimize our exposure to the waves from the south. And back at it we went.
In the middle of the wind and storm, we were taking shelter between some islands and trying to decide our next move for how were trying to get across, when a duck came from out of nowhere in front of us and flew directly at the canoe. It landed about 5 yards from the canoe, looked at us for a bit (probably thinking 'what the hell are you guys doing out in this weather??!!') and then flew off. It was our 'friendly duck.'
We ended up camping near the start of the Granite River. It wasn't a great site but it was more or less out of the wind. I peeled off the wet clothes and took a nap in the afternoon. The nap felt good. We had a long day of paddling in hairy conditions. This was the first day where I really thought about a hot shower, comfy bed, and indoor plumbing and how nice they are. All in all this was probably the nadir of the trip for my spirits. I had drank a little too much the night before (though by now had burned through the fogginess with all the paddling), everything was wet, the wind was still blowing strong (and I couldn't help but look at the downed trees on the site and think about the tree-tipping storms we'd seen twice before), and I was physically pretty beat.
Our tentsite:
Our camp had some nosy (and dumb) red squirrels. Unfortunately (for both us and the squirrel) one got into our lunch pack and ate some nuts and candy. I ensured that this would not happen again. It seems I'd discovered a talent on a previous trip with Steve on Lac La Croix: I'm not half bad at hitting red squirrels with a stick. Now while I may be an avid hunter, I don't normally believe in killing an animal if I'm not going to eat it (or in the unlikely scenario where I'm being charged by a rhino or something). But this was our food, and I felt it was my duty to protect it. So I found a suitable stick and proceeded to take a whack at this red squirrel that got into our food pack. One swing, one kill. Evidently the little guy's friend wasn't very bright, so soon he was sniffing around our packs. Another swing, another kill. My squirrel-dispatching ego is getting pretty big right now, so when a third one comes poking around, I take another swing... and kill our Nalgene canteen. Doh!!!! So, after taking care of the third one I grab the duct tape (which I will later forget at camp) and patch the canteen...
Lloyd, Lloyd, all null and void...
We had Mountain House for supper again (Pasta primavera and terayaki chicken) over the camp stove. Once we were off the water we weren't going back out for wood or water. Steve filtered some water from shore and we were good to go.
Final tally:
26 miles (by 2pm)
3 portages: 5, 80, 5
Wildlife:
25 loons, 17 eagles, 1 turtle, 1 friendly duck.
weather: crappy, rainy, windy, chilly. worst travelling weather of the trip. 3 foot rollers out of the south and southwest on Sagg
Ely: High: 62, Low: 57. Winds 10-15mph generally out of SW.
The wind was strong out of the south. It helped early but would be a bane later. I was interested to see if there were truly monuments on the Monument Portage. There was! Three of them! The portage was in good shape, a little uphill at the start but not bad. We saw a bunch (10+) of eagles circling above the trees on Ottertail.
The day got really interesting when we got to Saganaga. Until now we were able to hug the southern shore was we headed generally NE. But now we had to cross Sagg (will always be a 4 letter word to me from now on) W-E with the wind out of the S/SW. And it was a wind. We got to American Point and were looking at 3 foot+ rollers. No way we can go straight across. The wind is blowing, the rain is pelting, and we have to cross a couple miles of rollers. Are we having fun yet???? Sagg is a motor boat lake. We saw two boats out the whole time we were on Sagg. Not canoes... boats. This was probably the time where our presence on the water was most questionable.
We started by trying to quarter into the wind but after some time we realized that this wasn't working so hot. The wind had several miles to build up waves on us and the rollers were making our route treacherous. So, we changed strategy and tried to quarter with the waves, heading towards the islands north of Munker Island. Now I must confess I had it easy. I just kept my head down and paddled hard on whichever side Steve told me to. Steve was the one in the stern keeping up from getting swamped (and watching the waves come oh so close on many occasions). We managed to reach some islands and get a bit of a break from the wind. We stopped at a campsite and got out and grabbed some lunch. It was cold and wet, though, so we didn't stay long. The weather wasn't getting any better and we wanted to be off the big water.
We got the maps out and decided to island hop as best we could to minimize our exposure to the waves from the south. And back at it we went.
In the middle of the wind and storm, we were taking shelter between some islands and trying to decide our next move for how were trying to get across, when a duck came from out of nowhere in front of us and flew directly at the canoe. It landed about 5 yards from the canoe, looked at us for a bit (probably thinking 'what the hell are you guys doing out in this weather??!!') and then flew off. It was our 'friendly duck.'
We ended up camping near the start of the Granite River. It wasn't a great site but it was more or less out of the wind. I peeled off the wet clothes and took a nap in the afternoon. The nap felt good. We had a long day of paddling in hairy conditions. This was the first day where I really thought about a hot shower, comfy bed, and indoor plumbing and how nice they are. All in all this was probably the nadir of the trip for my spirits. I had drank a little too much the night before (though by now had burned through the fogginess with all the paddling), everything was wet, the wind was still blowing strong (and I couldn't help but look at the downed trees on the site and think about the tree-tipping storms we'd seen twice before), and I was physically pretty beat.
Our tentsite:
Our camp had some nosy (and dumb) red squirrels. Unfortunately (for both us and the squirrel) one got into our lunch pack and ate some nuts and candy. I ensured that this would not happen again. It seems I'd discovered a talent on a previous trip with Steve on Lac La Croix: I'm not half bad at hitting red squirrels with a stick. Now while I may be an avid hunter, I don't normally believe in killing an animal if I'm not going to eat it (or in the unlikely scenario where I'm being charged by a rhino or something). But this was our food, and I felt it was my duty to protect it. So I found a suitable stick and proceeded to take a whack at this red squirrel that got into our food pack. One swing, one kill. Evidently the little guy's friend wasn't very bright, so soon he was sniffing around our packs. Another swing, another kill. My squirrel-dispatching ego is getting pretty big right now, so when a third one comes poking around, I take another swing... and kill our Nalgene canteen. Doh!!!! So, after taking care of the third one I grab the duct tape (which I will later forget at camp) and patch the canteen...
Lloyd, Lloyd, all null and void...
We had Mountain House for supper again (Pasta primavera and terayaki chicken) over the camp stove. Once we were off the water we weren't going back out for wood or water. Steve filtered some water from shore and we were good to go.
Final tally:
26 miles (by 2pm)
3 portages: 5, 80, 5
Wildlife:
25 loons, 17 eagles, 1 turtle, 1 friendly duck.
weather: crappy, rainy, windy, chilly. worst travelling weather of the trip. 3 foot rollers out of the south and southwest on Sagg
Ely: High: 62, Low: 57. Winds 10-15mph generally out of SW.
posted by the.mrrr at 10:37 AM
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