Thursday, day five.
So this was our last morning and another short travel day so I was planning on sleeping in. I woke up at dawn and was feeling very comfortable and relaxed in my sleeping bag. Just as I was dozing off there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. Then I started worrying about the food and equipment packs getting all wet and was unable to go back to sleep. I decided I'd go out quick and gather everything up and put it under the tarp so it would stay dry. And then I could get back in the tent and sleep until the storm blew over. Just then it started sprinkling so I decided I better hurry. Running out in my underwear I started grabbing stuff and throwing it under the tarp, the mosquitoes had not decided to sleep in and were happily searching for places to bite that I couldn't reach. Soon I was back in the tent only slightly damp and moderately bitten up. I got back in my sleeping bag and was just getting my heart rate slowed down when I heard Rob and Carrie moving around in their tent. Pretty soon it became apparent that they were packing up. I told them to go back to sleep but they were having none of it. So rather than sleeping in we started packing up our stuff too.

We ate our oatmeal under the tarp trying to stay out of the light rain. Soon we were packed up and heading east toward the portage, the rain stopped before we started the portage. The air was warm and incredibly humid as we started hiking, throw in all the water dripping off the trees and brush and a few dozen mosquitoes and it was kind of unpleasant. But after a portage or two the wind started picking up and that helped a lot, it was still warm though. We had a 300 rod portage for a warm up and then the 480 from Zenith down to Lujenida Lake, it's a killer no matter what the conditions.

There's nothing worse (on a canoe trip) than carrying a canoe while hot, tired, uncomfortable with about 12 mosquitoes buzzing your arms, head and neck and knowing that you still have 20 minutes or so before you get to the end of the portage. At one point Rob stumbled and almost fell, that probably would have been worse… Even Lucy was having a hard time with her pack, it was heavier on one side than the other so it was hanging crooked. Every once in a while she'd stop and give me a look but I was just as irritated so she eventually stopped to wait for Sandy, maybe hoping that she'd fix it.

By the time we got to Lujenida the sun was coming out and there was a nice breeze and all the frustration was immediately forgotten. We stopped to look at the "Viking dolmen" which Rob and Carrie seemed unimpressed by. As we left Rob and Carrie managed to get their canoe stuck on a rock he got a little testy while trying to get them unstuck, Carrie just said "serenity now" and ignored him. Here's a picture of Rob trying to peel out to get them off the rock.


As we cruised down Kelso there were suddenly people everywhere, we must've seen five or six groups on Kelso alone. With the wind coming out of the south Alton was kind of rough which seemed to make Rob and Carrie a little edgy but once we got across to the east side of the lake it was a little more sheltered. We pulled into the portage and decided to have one last wilderness meal so we parked all our stuff and hiked up to the big rock next to the Alton side of the portage.

It was a very leisurely lunch, we had to finish off the Skittles, Peanut M&Ms and jerky among other things. We were entertained by 3 people in pith helmets paddling around near the portage. It seemed that they were nervous about the wind and waves out past the peninsula that protects the portage so they just went back and forth randomly. It doesn't sound that amusing now, maybe we had been away from civilization too long.…

Anyway, we portaged across to Sawbill and fought the wind all the way down to the landing then made the last portage up to the store. Where we found Betsy and Pete in the bathroom changing Henry's diaper.

They had just picked up my car from Kawishiwi and transported it to Sawbill and were getting ready to go out for Henry's first canoe paddle. We sent them out on their adventure and unpacked our stuff, took the obligatory end of trip picture and then headed down to Thomsonite Beach to take some showers.