058: Heart O the Park II

Episode Transcript

[0:00:07 – 0:00:08] Erik: Previously on Tumble Home.
[0:00:10 – 0:00:16] Erik: A wildfire threatened the boys on Boulder.
[0:00:16 – 0:00:18] Erik: I like that.
[0:00:19 – 0:00:20] Erik: Good jam you just put in there.
[0:00:20 – 0:00:21] Erik: Yeah, that was pretty good.
[0:00:21 – 0:00:23] Erik: Who needs the free music archive?
[0:00:56 – 0:01:02] Erik: Hello and welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:01:03 – 0:01:08] Erik: Coming to you live from the Boundary Waters on Adams Lake.
[0:01:08 – 0:01:09] Erik: My name is Adam.
[0:01:10 – 0:01:11] Erik: It’s your lake.
[0:01:11 – 0:01:11] Erik: It’s my lake.
[0:01:12 – 0:01:12] Erik: I finally made it.
[0:01:13 – 0:01:14] Erik: We made it.
[0:01:14 – 0:01:14] Erik: Yes.
[0:01:14 – 0:01:16] Erik: Couldn’t have got here without you, Eric.
[0:01:17 – 0:01:22] Erik: And neither me for you, if that makes sense.
[0:01:23 – 0:01:29] Erik: I am Eric, and we did, in fact, it’s been like everything according to plan so far.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:32] Erik: Where we wanted to end up, we ended up.
[0:01:32 – 0:01:37] Erik: We had the island on Adams eyed up, and here we are.
[0:01:37 – 0:01:38] Erik: We gloated up.
[0:01:38 – 0:01:39] Erik: This thing’s beautiful.
[0:01:39 – 0:01:40] Erik: Yes.
[0:01:40 – 0:01:42] Erik: Sitting here in our lawn chairs in the sun.
[0:01:42 – 0:01:43] Erik: Got my feet out.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:45] Erik: Getting roasted.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:47] Erik: Getting a little roast, getting a little toasty.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:48] Erik: Yep.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:53] Erik: So, yeah, you heard the intro previously on Tumble Home.
[0:01:53 – 0:01:56] Erik: There was potential wildfire in the distance.
[0:01:57 – 0:02:03] Erik: And so we paddled across Boulder, kind of keeping our eye on it.
[0:02:04 – 0:02:06] Erik: And it was like, yeah, it’s right there.
[0:02:06 – 0:02:08] Erik: It looks like it’s just over that next horizon.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:10] Erik: Kind of…
[0:02:10 – 0:02:16] Erik: Went around a little island, which the island on Boulder actually looked like it might have been a nice place to stop.
[0:02:16 – 0:02:21] Erik: It was a beautiful looking site and somebody wood gnomed that island like a maniac.
[0:02:21 – 0:02:27] Erik: There was literally like a face card of stacked, cut, dried wood up on that island.
[0:02:27 – 0:02:30] Erik: Whoever did that, if you’re listening, amazing work.
[0:02:31 – 0:02:34] Erik: It was like for a second, I was like, maybe take a look.
[0:02:34 – 0:02:37] Erik: But the fire and the smoke was drawing us towards it.
[0:02:38 – 0:02:46] Erik: And so we got into what we thought was going to be like the last two little hops, skips and jumps between Boulder and Adams.
[0:02:46 – 0:02:52] Erik: On the map, it’s a 20 rod portage into a pond and then a 10 rod portage into Adams.
[0:02:53 – 0:02:59] Erik: And as it happens, every time you think you’re almost done with your last portage of the day,
[0:03:00 – 0:03:04] Erik: And then there’s like three more little ones and a beaver dam to pull over.
[0:03:04 – 0:03:13] Erik: And then, yeah, like they’re just, it was, I don’t know what it ended up being, but it took us like an hour to get through the last two little tiny portages and get actually on to Adams.
[0:03:14 – 0:03:20] Erik: Yeah, it was, it was, there was a kind of a false portage, which was like basically a carry down.
[0:03:20 – 0:03:23] Erik: And I was like, well, maybe that was the 20 or whatever.
[0:03:23 – 0:03:25] Erik: But then like all of a sudden it was like, oh no, this is.
[0:03:25 – 0:03:27] Erik: Before we go any further, we should say.
[0:03:28 – 0:03:33] Erik: The Tumble Home is sponsored by our good friends on Patreon.
[0:03:34 – 0:03:37] Erik: And thank you for those, our listeners.
[0:03:38 – 0:03:42] Erik: And also by Clearwater Historic Lodge and Outfitters.
[0:03:43 – 0:03:47] Erik: And today by Peter Vea.
[0:03:49 – 0:03:51] Erik: Bagged Merlot.
[0:03:52 – 0:03:52] Erik: Only the best.
[0:03:57 – 0:03:58] Erik: We still have some.
[0:03:58 – 0:03:59] Erik: Yes, we do.
[0:04:06 – 0:04:07] Erik: Very tasty.
[0:04:07 – 0:04:15] Erik: So yeah, we’re on the little junk portages between Boulder and Adams, and it was like…
[0:04:16 – 0:04:17] Erik: Yeah, we had had lunch.
[0:04:17 – 0:04:21] Erik: We were a little rejuvenated, but it’s been a long day.
[0:04:21 – 0:04:22] Erik: We’re ready to be done.
[0:04:22 – 0:04:31] Erik: Yeah, you know, it looked like it was just going to be real easy kind of getting through there, and it took a lot longer than we had anticipated.
[0:04:32 – 0:04:33] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:04:33 – 0:04:37] Erik: I was definitely getting a little tired and my feet were just needing to get out of the boots.
[0:04:37 – 0:04:39] Erik: And so we’re all eager to get here.
[0:04:39 – 0:04:44] Erik: And thankfully, the island here on my lake is open.
[0:04:44 – 0:04:46] Erik: There’s nobody on Adams Lake that we can see.
[0:04:47 – 0:04:48] Erik: We don’t know.
[0:04:48 – 0:04:54] Erik: We didn’t go down the western arm over by Smite.
[0:04:54 – 0:04:56] Erik: There’s a couple of sites over there, so who knows?
[0:04:57 – 0:04:59] Erik: There might be some weirdos camped out by Smite.
[0:05:00 – 0:05:05] Erik: But here on the main body, we see no evidence of any other people out here right now.
[0:05:06 – 0:05:09] Erik: And, yeah, we had been following this smoke plume.
[0:05:09 – 0:05:14] Erik: And even when we pulled in here, the wind was still going quite well out of the northwest.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:20] Erik: And so it wasn’t like black smoke or very powerful column of smoke.
[0:05:20 – 0:05:23] Erik: But when we pulled onto the island, you could still definitely see it.
[0:05:24 – 0:05:27] Erik: It’s not on Adams, as we had speculated.
[0:05:27 – 0:05:30] Erik: It is just south of here, though.
[0:05:31 – 0:05:32] Erik: And we could definitely see it.
[0:05:33 – 0:05:38] Erik: And then, like, as soon as we got our boots off and got out of the lawn chairs, like, the wind just died.
[0:05:38 – 0:05:40] Erik: I mean, there’s a whisper of a wind now.
[0:05:41 – 0:05:44] Erik: You know, the sun’s still high in the sky, but it is probably 5 or 6 now.
[0:05:45 – 0:05:51] Erik: And since then, it’s like we, I mean, you can’t even, if we would have not seen it on Boulder.
[0:05:51 – 0:06:16] Erik: yeah if we like you i wouldn’t even be able to tell that there was ever a potential smoke or i’m assuming a fire anywhere it’s like it’s completely cleared and gone it’s the it was like the weirdest thing it just disappeared so i don’t think we’re threatened by any uh wildfire at this point as we said it was maybe a little drier over here but it’s generally been pretty wet you’d said directly like
[0:06:17 – 0:06:23] Erik: You never thought in a million years you’d see any sort of wildfire out here on this trip because it’s been a pretty wet spring.
[0:06:24 – 0:06:24] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:24 – 0:06:26] Erik: And it’s post-greenup.
[0:06:26 – 0:06:27] Erik: There’s leaves on the trees.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:28] Erik: That helps.
[0:06:28 – 0:06:31] Erik: So it was surprising to see it.
[0:06:32 – 0:06:38] Erik: And then even thinking a little bit more on it, I was like, well, maybe it was maybe like a controlled thing.
[0:06:38 – 0:06:39] Erik: But we’re out in…
[0:06:40 – 0:06:59] Erik: so far like literally the heart of the like the main section of the park and it would have had to have been like probably something that was almost 10 miles away for it to be outside of the boundary waters even at that probably even closer to 15 and that would be they don’t do controlled burns in the boundary waters
[0:07:00 – 0:07:11] Erik: No, and then when we were messing around in the two little mini portages or three mini portages getting out of Boulder, we did see the seaplane go over again, kind of just back to the north.
[0:07:12 – 0:07:14] Erik: It must have been up north of Boulder.
[0:07:14 – 0:07:40] Erik: flying and so we’re like well maybe it’s going to circle over here and it never did and at the time we could still see the plume there and uh but i don’t know we got here we’re posted up on the island site so now we’ve got a different perspective and some observations to report but that’s the main one is that the wind died and then the wind was clearly driving the fire and the plume and so so at this point we’re
[0:07:41 – 0:07:44] Erik: Kind of thinking that it…
[0:07:44 – 0:07:50] Erik: I’m still on the side that it was started by a campfire based on the last week’s weather.
[0:07:51 – 0:07:52] Erik: Yeah, that would make the most sense.
[0:07:52 – 0:07:59] Erik: Which means I think there’s potential that we still might go by where it occurred down on the Koishui River.
[0:08:00 – 0:08:05] Erik: I think if it doesn’t look like there are active flames, that is our route out of here tomorrow.
[0:08:06 – 0:08:08] Erik: Beaver, Koishui River, east… Trapline.
[0:08:09 – 0:08:09] Erik: Trapline.
[0:08:09 – 0:08:10] Erik: Don’t forget about trapline.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:13] Erik: A little Trapline Lake deserves a mention.
[0:08:13 – 0:08:20] Erik: So, yeah, we’re going out Beaver Trapline to the Quishawee River, which at that point is just kind of a long lake.
[0:08:20 – 0:08:22] Erik: This is upstream from Alice still then.
[0:08:22 – 0:08:27] Erik: Yeah, if you pull up a map and you’ll find Adams on there, we’re on the island site there.
[0:08:27 – 0:08:34] Erik: If you draw a line almost directly straight south, that’s where we could see the smoke when we pulled in here.
[0:08:35 – 0:08:42] Erik: And so if you draw a line straight south on the map, there is one campsite where if you’re on a fissure, it’s right by the cay in Kawishui.
[0:08:43 – 0:09:10] Erik: on that little point there that would have been exposed to pretty heavy winds yesterday and that seems to be about right and you know but when we’re on boulder we were like pretty certain it was on adams yeah it looks close but obviously it wasn’t on adams so that’s kind of the next guess as to where we were seeing the smoke from but honestly maulberg is just south of there and there’s like three or four sites in there that would be kind of in the right
[0:09:11 – 0:09:33] Erik: range of the way we’re facing and where we’re seeing the smoke that maybe it could be off of one of those sites on maulberg again kind of frustrating that we’re out here and have no way to really look up what we’re what we’re seeing but all we can do is report what we’re witnessing here uh in camp and we’ll be able to figure out more once we get back uh you know to the internet
[0:09:34 – 0:09:37] Erik: And the home studio.
[0:09:37 – 0:09:39] Erik: But for now, that’s what we’ve seen.
[0:09:39 – 0:09:45] Erik: Yeah, we may… Because we are planning on going right past that campsite on the Kalishui tomorrow.
[0:09:46 – 0:09:48] Erik: And so maybe we’ll have more to report on it then.
[0:09:49 – 0:09:55] Erik: I don’t think the wind forecast is… We’re not expecting any greater winds to whip up here.
[0:09:55 – 0:09:56] Erik: Yeah, light…
[0:09:56 – 0:10:00] Erik: Which might drive the fire back to life, but… Lightly shifting to the south, maybe?
[0:10:01 – 0:10:01] Erik: Yeah.
[0:10:01 – 0:10:02] Erik: Southwest, which is…
[0:10:03 – 0:10:10] Erik: not going to be much of a threat for us on the water, and I don’t imagine much of one for a fire.
[0:10:10 – 0:10:22] Erik: I mean, if it’s not burning currently right now in the afternoon heat of the day, it probably was just something that kind of jumped into maybe a dry patch and burned up what it could and then kind of just snuffed itself out.
[0:10:22 – 0:10:23] Erik: That’s my best guess.
[0:10:24 – 0:10:27] Erik: Yeah, that’s probably what happened there, and it may have started this morning or…
[0:10:27 – 0:10:52] Erik: last night i who knows but it’s definitely a recent development so yeah we’ll be going uh up the or over on the cushway river slash lake tomorrow we may end up going right past it or it could be down on mallberg or if it is on that side on the cushway and it is proving like smoky and troublesome we could and then always deviate down into mallberg to kind of
[0:10:53 – 0:11:10] Erik: outflank it to the south yeah to get around and back up to uh kevin kevin daba and pan and back up to macwa eventually tomorrow is a kind of our outline so i i don’t think it’s really gonna affect anything about this trip at this point other than it was kind of a neat sighting
[0:11:10 – 0:11:19] Erik: It was kind of crazy just to come out, and it was, I mean, if we didn’t have the video and photo evidence, it’d be like, what are these guys talking about?
[0:11:19 – 0:11:22] Erik: So it’s kind of an anticlimactic cliffhanger.
[0:11:22 – 0:11:23] Erik: For now.
[0:11:23 – 0:11:24] Erik: For now, yeah.
[0:11:25 – 0:11:26] Erik: It is ongoing.
[0:11:27 – 0:11:31] Erik: Well, yeah, we will get there, and we’ll definitely have more to say about this.
[0:11:32 – 0:11:34] Erik: This will be episode 58, then, I think?
[0:11:34 – 0:11:35] Erik: Yeah.
[0:11:36 – 0:11:51] Erik: tons about right yeah we started with the first episode of this trip will be 57 up till boulder and then starting now it’ll be episode 58 i believe so yes we’ll probably have more to say on it tomorrow and uh you know later sections of this episode
[0:11:51 – 0:11:58] Erik: Yeah, we might be talking right now, and it’s two weeks away from when we’re out here, and we’ll get back and find out what the exact story is.
[0:11:58 – 0:12:00] Erik: But we’re live in the field.
[0:12:00 – 0:12:01] Erik: All we can do is tell you what we’ve been seeing.
[0:12:01 – 0:12:06] Erik: And, you know, in terms of most disappointing cliffhangers, I think we’re up there.
[0:12:06 – 0:12:07] Erik: It’s disappointing.
[0:12:07 – 0:12:09] Erik: I mean, we definitely – you know, that’s what we saw.
[0:12:09 – 0:12:10] Erik: I mean, it was –
[0:12:12 – 0:12:13] Erik: We still don’t know what’s going to happen there.
[0:12:13 – 0:12:19] Erik: But, yeah, I mean, when we were up on Boulder, we were literally like, we’re going to get down to Adams and be looking across the lake at a fire.
[0:12:20 – 0:12:21] Erik: That’s the way it looked.
[0:12:21 – 0:12:23] Erik: Well, I mean, not necessarily for the— That wasn’t being dishonest.
[0:12:23 – 0:12:29] Erik: That was just the best information we had from where we were sitting and looking at the map and trying to make sense of what the heck we’re seeing.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:34] Erik: Yeah, you see, like, smoke pluming in the distance like that at the time of day that it was.
[0:12:34 – 0:12:38] Erik: It was like, well, I wouldn’t just expect that to just disappear completely.
[0:12:38 – 0:12:39] Erik: And it has.
[0:12:39 – 0:12:44] Erik: And the wind forecast was supposed to keep blowing, you know, 10 out of the northwest all day into the night, I think.
[0:12:45 – 0:12:46] Erik: And I don’t know what happened.
[0:12:46 – 0:12:49] Erik: We got here and took off our boots and the wind just died.
[0:12:49 – 0:12:52] Erik: So that was kind of unexpected, too.
[0:12:52 – 0:12:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:52 – 0:12:55] Erik: So you never know what the park’s going to throw at you.
[0:12:55 – 0:12:55] Erik: Nope.
[0:12:56 – 0:12:59] Erik: All you can do sometimes is make your best guess and move forward.
[0:12:59 – 0:13:06] Erik: All you can do is take off your shoes after a long day when your feet are feeling like itchy jello.
[0:13:07 – 0:13:09] Erik: Get into some nice dry Chacos.
[0:13:10 – 0:13:25] Erik: I mean, we’ve been talking on this whole trip about how this spring up to this point has either been cold, cloudy, and rainy, or even the days where it’s been kind of nice, there’s been like this hazy smoke from some wildfires to like the west.
[0:13:25 – 0:13:27] Erik: The last two days have been like…
[0:13:28 – 0:13:35] Erik: Pure air with idyllic sky conditions, little clouds that kind of keep the sun off of you completely.
[0:13:36 – 0:13:39] Erik: I think we’ve still managed to halfway zap ourselves.
[0:13:39 – 0:13:40] Erik: I’m a little burned.
[0:13:41 – 0:13:49] Erik: I ended up spraying some suntan lotion right in my eye when we got here trying to get my face covered because I’m feeling a little hot under the collar.
[0:13:49 – 0:13:50] Erik: Yeah.
[0:13:50 – 0:14:01] Erik: Well, and we were coming across, uh, Boulder and it was just, the light was hitting the shoreline, perfect green, like just an entire ridge line of massive white pines.
[0:14:01 – 0:14:09] Erik: And it just felt like we like could have been on the cover of like a 1970s, like ad campaign for like, come visit the boundary waters.
[0:14:09 – 0:14:10] Erik: Absolutely.
[0:14:10 – 0:14:12] Erik: Boulder was a really pretty lake.
[0:14:12 – 0:14:17] Erik: And, um, I would highly recommend it if you’re ever in the neighborhood to get up there and just, uh,
[0:14:18 – 0:14:18] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:14:18 – 0:14:21] Erik: I’m very happy with how Adams is looking in this, uh, campsite.
[0:14:21 – 0:14:25] Erik: We’ll do, um, the actual review tomorrow morning after frittata breakfast.
[0:14:26 – 0:14:28] Erik: But, uh, we got a big dinner planned.
[0:14:28 – 0:14:30] Erik: We’re going to get out and do some fishing.
[0:14:30 – 0:14:32] Erik: There’s a cute little, uh,
[0:14:33 – 0:15:02] Erik: ground wren over here sparrow wren sparrow it seems like it’s a wren or a sparrow of some sort a little brown guy he’s kind of popping around in this little this little cedar and i don’t know i mean i can’t tell if we’re bothering him or if he’s just doing his own thing but he’s kind of been bouncing around tweeting at us but then he’ll just fly off and all of a sudden he’ll be back like 10 minutes later so um it is kind of oddly quiet though considering how much bird sounds we’ve been experiencing thus far
[0:15:03 – 0:15:09] Erik: Yeah, we saw maybe a peregrine falcon when we were coming through the creek down into Adams here.
[0:15:09 – 0:15:13] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:15:13 – 0:15:17] Erik: We did see that vulture at one point today, too, where we both saw the shadow go by.
[0:15:17 – 0:15:18] Erik: Oh, we thought it was a drogon?
[0:15:19 – 0:15:19] Erik: Yeah, we looked up.
[0:15:19 – 0:15:20] Erik: It wasn’t drogon.
[0:15:20 – 0:15:22] Erik: It was a vulture.
[0:15:22 – 0:15:24] Erik: He was coming, like, straight out of the sun, though.
[0:15:24 – 0:15:26] Erik: He could have, like, pecked an eye if he wanted.
[0:15:26 – 0:15:28] Erik: Yeah, he could have got us for sure.
[0:15:29 – 0:15:32] Erik: So that’s a report from the island site on Adams.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:33] Erik: It’s a beautiful site.
[0:15:34 – 0:15:34] Erik: I’ll just say that.
[0:15:34 – 0:15:35] Erik: We’ll preview.
[0:15:35 – 0:15:37] Erik: And that’s not a cliffhanger.
[0:15:37 – 0:15:39] Erik: Like, we’re going to give this site a good grade.
[0:15:39 – 0:15:40] Erik: I can guarantee it.
[0:15:40 – 0:15:42] Erik: But we’ll get into the details of that in the morning.
[0:15:42 – 0:16:07] Erik: yeah we haven’t even set anything up yet we’re just no we just basically dragged all our gear up the up the and put it by the fire pit and then got up our chairs and we’re sitting on this beautiful like flat grassy knoll just drinking merlot out here talking about life and uh well we just wanted to let you know what was happening so you weren’t worried about us for the whole last week yeah i hope you weren’t because we know what we’re doing we’re professionals yeah
[0:16:08 – 0:16:11] Erik: And what do we got in store for the rest of the day here?
[0:16:11 – 0:16:18] Erik: We have pork tenderloin lined up for dinner and various other side dishes and snacks, but we’re hoping for a surf and turf.
[0:16:19 – 0:16:24] Erik: Yes, we were… A hog and… A land hog and water hog.
[0:16:24 – 0:16:25] Erik: Yes.
[0:16:25 – 0:16:25] Erik: Yeah.
[0:16:25 – 0:16:27] Erik: Land hog, water hog.
[0:16:27 – 0:16:28] Erik: We’re going to go out and…
[0:16:29 – 0:16:29] Erik: I mean…
[0:16:30 – 0:16:39] Erik: We struggle with bringing leeches, but I could almost guarantee you if we had slip bobbers and leeches right off of this point right here, we’d be…
[0:16:39 – 0:16:41] Erik: It would be so perfect for throwing a slip bobber right here.
[0:16:41 – 0:16:47] Erik: But over the course of four days just to set up for an afternoon, it’s a pain.
[0:16:47 – 0:16:47] Erik: Not worth it.
[0:16:47 – 0:16:47] Erik: Yeah.
[0:16:48 – 0:16:51] Erik: So we’re going to drag some X-Wraps, some…
[0:16:52 – 0:16:54] Erik: I got that musky jerk.
[0:16:54 – 0:16:59] Erik: I believe we’re calling it Royal Cobalt Minnow, or the Cobalt Minnow.
[0:16:59 – 0:17:00] Erik: I wish I knew the name of that pattern.
[0:17:00 – 0:17:03] Erik: It’s a classic Rapala pattern.
[0:17:03 – 0:17:08] Erik: The cobalt top with the chartreuse stripe and white belly.
[0:17:08 – 0:17:11] Erik: That thing is dynamite, and the water in here is pretty clear.
[0:17:11 – 0:17:12] Erik: And…
[0:17:14 – 0:17:21] Erik: I think that’s in the sun is still, it’s mostly sunny with partial clouds, kind of fluffy little clouds floating over.
[0:17:21 – 0:17:26] Erik: So I think a more natural pattern, uh, Rapala will be the thing to do.
[0:17:26 – 0:17:32] Erik: Um, but we’re going to go up back, like kind of into the narrows coming down from Boulder.
[0:17:32 – 0:17:35] Erik: There’s a lot of large, large boulders.
[0:17:35 – 0:17:37] Erik: And like maybe some moving water even.
[0:17:37 – 0:17:38] Erik: Yeah.
[0:17:38 – 0:17:41] Erik: There’s a, if you’re looking at your maps with us here, um,
[0:17:42 – 0:17:46] Erik: Yeah, kind of off of Adams to the west is a little lake called Treasure Lake.
[0:17:47 – 0:17:54] Erik: And there is, I’m going to say there is definitely a little creek, and it looks to me like Treasure flows in to Adams.
[0:17:55 – 0:17:57] Erik: So I think that’s kind of the objective.
[0:17:57 – 0:18:01] Erik: We’re going to head back up into those narrows here in a bit.
[0:18:01 – 0:18:09] Erik: You know, the sun’s still pretty high in the sky, and being walleyes, we’re going to try and wait a little bit more just to get that sun a little lower, but…
[0:18:10 – 0:18:33] Erik: yeah go up there see what the treasure creek if anything stacked underneath there you know those shallows and the narrows there with the big boulders it looked very promising and try up in there and then maybe we’re gonna troll along that western shore there’s two campsites just west of us here from the island that are both unoccupied so we might just go check them out and
[0:18:33 – 0:18:57] Erik: see if we can get reverse wood gnomed gobble some wood yeah we’re gobblers today we we left a lot of nice cedar on site 20 on little seg so yeah so if you’re listening to this stuff here but we could definitely use some more wood so we’ll be kind of we’ll bring the saw with us if you see any like promising driftwood or we may try and collect some wood get a little fishing in hopefully get a walleye
[0:18:58 – 0:19:03] Erik: Yeah, the surf and turf is definitely our goal, but I’ll leave you with this thought.
[0:19:04 – 0:19:12] Erik: Maybe this is a thing, but so there’s surf and turf, but is there surf, turf, and sky?
[0:19:13 – 0:19:15] Erik: That could be a thing for like a restaurant, right?
[0:19:15 – 0:19:19] Erik: I was just saying you just go with like surf and turf and turf.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:25] Erik: We got to get the shotgun out.
[0:19:25 – 0:19:26] Erik: The coots are around.
[0:19:26 – 0:19:29] Erik: Yeah, let’s just grab this little brown guy that we were talking about.
[0:19:30 – 0:19:30] Erik: No.
[0:19:31 – 0:19:39] Erik: What’s that dish where it’s like a French thing and it’s like a little songbird and you put the blanket over your head and eat the bird whole?
[0:19:39 – 0:19:40] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:19:41 – 0:19:41] Erik: It’s supposed to be like a full.
[0:19:41 – 0:19:44] Erik: Buddy Matt told me about this and he would know if he’s listening.
[0:19:44 – 0:19:46] Erik: He’s probably shouting it out right now.
[0:19:46 – 0:19:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:19:47 – 0:20:06] Erik: that well that’s what we should do with this little wren he’s really being obnoxious yeah no he’s not and we’re not going to touch the little brown bird eat the songbird no but you know if a loon shows up you know yeah surf and turf and earth it’s not even i wouldn’t even think that that uh a loon would be that’s more surf yeah right then earth yeah
[0:20:09 – 0:20:11] Erik: That’s a good place to stop.
[0:20:11 – 0:20:12] Erik: Yeah, we’ll leave it there for now.
[0:20:12 – 0:20:15] Erik: We’ll just put a bookmark in it, folks, and we’ll be back.
[0:20:15 – 0:20:19] Erik: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Tumble Home in the field.
[0:20:20 – 0:20:21] Erik: We’re pumped to be here.
[0:20:21 – 0:20:27] Erik: It’s day two, and we’re finally starting to get them day two legs and arms and shoulders going.
[0:20:27 – 0:20:28] Erik: So I’m feeling good.
[0:20:28 – 0:20:29] Erik: And hair grease.
[0:20:29 – 0:20:30] Erik: Yeah, Eric’s looking good.
[0:20:31 – 0:20:31] Erik: Thank you.
[0:20:31 – 0:20:33] Erik: I haven’t seen myself in two days.
[0:20:33 – 0:20:52] Erik: yeah did you bring a mirror uh just your sunglasses nice well you’re gonna have to and we could take pictures you know and then look at them that way so yes all right so yeah we’re gonna catch another like hour of sun here and um get a little more wine in us and then it’s back into the boat for the afternoon sesh we’ll catch you later folks
[0:21:13 – 0:21:14] Erik: Goes off to the side.
[0:21:15 – 0:21:17] Erik: Guten Morgen.
[0:21:18 – 0:21:19] Erik: Day three.
[0:21:21 – 0:21:23] Erik: Out here in the heart.
[0:21:23 – 0:21:24] Erik: Oh, the park.
[0:21:25 – 0:21:32] Erik: Adam is tending to our… Hungry man’s frittata.
[0:21:33 – 0:21:34] Erik: Which may…
[0:21:34 – 0:21:38] Erik: We’re each getting three portions each this morning.
[0:21:38 – 0:21:40] Erik: Yeah, hey, there’s… Six-person frittata.
[0:21:40 – 0:21:41] Erik: There is also still…
[0:21:41 – 0:21:42] Erik: I know one recipe.
[0:21:42 – 0:21:44] Erik: It’s a six-person frittata.
[0:21:44 – 0:21:45] Erik: I can’t reduce it.
[0:21:45 – 0:21:46] Erik: I can’t cook less.
[0:21:47 – 0:21:49] Erik: Yeah, so, uh… Ooh, look at that.
[0:21:49 – 0:21:50] Erik: That’s a big bag of ham.
[0:21:52 – 0:21:52] Erik: Yikes.
[0:21:53 – 0:21:53] Erik: Yeah.
[0:21:53 – 0:21:54] Erik: That’s all going in.
[0:21:56 – 0:21:57] Erik: Pre-cubed.
[0:21:57 – 0:21:58] Erik: Yeah, very nicely done.
[0:21:59 – 0:21:59] Erik: Oh, man.
[0:22:00 – 0:22:01] Erik: The potatoes are car-baked.
[0:22:02 – 0:22:03] Erik: The, uh…
[0:22:04 – 0:22:08] Erik: But I did have to slice them up this morning, but the ham is precubed and froze.
[0:22:10 – 0:22:18] Erik: There actually isn’t onions in here, which is kind of a travesty, but it’s a variety of bell peppers and some stewed tomato.
[0:22:19 – 0:22:19] Erik: And no dill.
[0:22:20 – 0:22:20] Erik: No dill.
[0:22:20 – 0:22:23] Erik: I couldn’t find fresh dill in town before the trip.
[0:22:23 – 0:22:24] Erik: Yeah, that is a shame.
[0:22:24 – 0:22:25] Erik: There’s no jalapenos.
[0:22:25 – 0:22:27] Erik: There’s nothing really spicy about this one.
[0:22:27 – 0:22:28] Erik: Oh, we’ve got the Tabasco.
[0:22:29 – 0:22:31] Erik: We do have Tabasco packets.
[0:22:31 – 0:22:37] Erik: So yeah, I just cut up the peppers and onions usually and then put them in a bag and freeze them before the trip.
[0:22:37 – 0:22:41] Erik: So they were pretty thawed this morning, obviously, but just makes everything a lot easier.
[0:22:41 – 0:22:45] Erik: And then, of course, the remnants of our eggs and the Nalgene.
[0:22:46 – 0:22:48] Erik: Yeah, still got some whole yolks in there.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:49] Erik: Still got some.
[0:22:49 – 0:22:50] Erik: The yolks always hold together.
[0:22:50 – 0:22:54] Erik: You get this frothy from the shaking of the egg whites.
[0:22:54 – 0:22:54] Erik: Yes.
[0:22:55 – 0:22:56] Erik: But that’ll go in later.
[0:22:56 – 0:22:58] Erik: And we did have some butter.
[0:22:59 – 0:23:02] Erik: And we still have cheese and some cilantro we can put on top.
[0:23:02 – 0:23:03] Erik: No dill, but we do have cilantro.
[0:23:03 – 0:23:04] Erik: Yes.
[0:23:05 – 0:23:07] Erik: So, day three.
[0:23:07 – 0:23:09] Erik: We’ve got overcast skies.
[0:23:09 – 0:23:12] Erik: Kind of unexpectedly overcast.
[0:23:12 – 0:23:15] Erik: We’ve kind of been getting baked, though, a little bit the last two days.
[0:23:15 – 0:23:20] Erik: So, I think we’re both fine with a little bit of a reprieve from that kind of beating sun.
[0:23:21 – 0:23:23] Erik: Especially when that wind died down yesterday afternoon.
[0:23:23 – 0:23:27] Erik: It was just kind of panting.
[0:23:29 – 0:23:53] Erik: like a dog we weren’t panting like dogs but you know it was hot it was hot i was out there just kind of got a little red in the face yeah i don’t know if i did or not but you got a little side i feel like the my crappy little child’s life vest has been rubbing me right here i gotta make some adjustments or just not wear it today yeah well you gotta be safe though
[0:23:53 – 0:23:54] Erik: Got to be safe.
[0:23:54 – 0:23:55] Erik: All right, I’ll wear it.
[0:23:55 – 0:23:55] Erik: All right.
[0:23:56 – 0:23:59] Erik: So do we have a little bit of time to maybe do our campsite review?
[0:24:00 – 0:24:01] Erik: Yeah, this is going to take a bit here.
[0:24:02 – 0:24:05] Erik: So we can go ahead and get to the campsite review.
[0:24:05 – 0:24:07] Erik: So I think we should start with this.
[0:24:07 – 0:24:15] Erik: And I like the fact that we have the video so we can show you what is so frustrating about getting into a beautiful campsite like this.
[0:24:16 – 0:24:19] Erik: And if you’re just listening, you know, you’ve seen this.
[0:24:19 – 0:24:21] Erik: It’s the random…
[0:24:22 – 0:24:28] Erik: and pointless hacking of cedar trees or any trees in general.
[0:24:28 – 0:24:40] Erik: And that’s one of the things that I think is the best about this site is you have access to this big open shelf down on the lake, but then the main site is up in this beautiful grove of cedars.
[0:24:40 – 0:24:43] Erik: There are a lot of big, beefy cedars in here.
[0:24:43 – 0:24:46] Erik: I got my hammock set last night on two jumbo cedars.
[0:24:46 – 0:24:47] Erik: That’s always a treat.
[0:24:48 – 0:24:55] Erik: And I don’t know about anybody else, but I usually do give my hammock trees a gentle kiss when I’m putting the straps on.
[0:24:55 – 0:24:57] Erik: Yeah, that’s all you should do.
[0:24:57 – 0:25:00] Erik: That’s the only thing you should ever do to a cedar of that magnitude.
[0:25:00 – 0:25:04] Erik: But yeah, I mean, we’ve got, I think, just about every one.
[0:25:04 – 0:25:05] Erik: And I don’t know what the thinking is.
[0:25:06 – 0:25:06] Erik: Every one of them.
[0:25:07 – 0:25:08] Erik: There’s at least one little hatchet mark.
[0:25:09 – 0:25:10] Erik: Just bored?
[0:25:10 – 0:25:10] Erik: Or what?
[0:25:11 – 0:25:12] Erik: Like, these ones are really bad.
[0:25:13 – 0:25:18] Erik: I mean, they’re not, like, dead or anything, but it’s just kind of a pointless scar to put on a tree.
[0:25:20 – 0:25:28] Erik: And then there’s the obvious, like, I mean, these are, I mean, yes, pointless and dumb, but at the same time, like, almost impressive.
[0:25:28 – 0:25:33] Erik: Like, this is a, like, I don’t know, how big a round of a tree is that, do you think?
[0:25:34 – 0:25:36] Erik: Just a flush stump.
[0:25:36 – 0:25:39] Erik: It’s a 12-inch, 13-inch diameter stump.
[0:25:39 – 0:25:41] Erik: Yeah, it’s, like, at least a foot thick.
[0:25:42 – 0:26:10] Erik: diameter and it’s just flushly cut it almost looks like it was like a forest service thing but i mean and then there’s this one that was just clearly hacked by bobby and his uncle rex and then there’s yeah and then there’s the the the four feet up cut tree like that’s just i mean it’s the same width if you cut i mean if you’re gonna cut down a tree at least cut it down at the base but i mean don’t don’t cut trees like jeez
[0:26:12 – 0:26:15] Erik: But besides that, all right, rant, rant over.
[0:26:15 – 0:26:25] Erik: Well, yeah, and so we were talking, you know, these are things that are in our minds a minor deduction when you’re giving out a grade.
[0:26:25 – 0:26:27] Erik: However, it’s not the site’s fault.
[0:26:27 – 0:26:27] Erik: No.
[0:26:27 – 0:26:31] Erik: We’re trying to grade the site, not the behavior of the idiots who were camped here before.
[0:26:32 – 0:26:32] Erik: Right.
[0:26:32 – 0:26:39] Erik: But it’s hard not to take it into consideration when you’re sitting here making breakfast looking around at all these hack marks.
[0:26:39 – 0:26:39] Erik: Right.
[0:26:40 – 0:26:42] Erik: I don’t know, bozos be bozo-ing.
[0:26:42 – 0:26:53] Erik: I know, and it’s like, we feel like we’re out in the middle here, and we kind of said it before we started recording, like, I don’t think you would see this up on that campsite on Ledge.
[0:26:53 – 0:26:54] Erik: No.
[0:26:54 – 0:27:00] Erik: But this is just accessible enough, I guess, by people who just don’t care, or I don’t know what it is.
[0:27:01 – 0:27:02] Erik: You know, in July, you gotta…
[0:27:02 – 0:27:25] Erik: big group of bored teens and you got a week you can get out here no problem it’s not a strenuous journey from the south or from the west no you know if you don’t have to go through the v v uh little chain right it’s not that hard to get here it just takes more time which you know if you got a week-long trip or a 10-day trip in summer sure you can make it happen
[0:27:25 – 0:27:30] Erik: The other thing we noted, there was a little red squirrel this morning, like, clearly been fed.
[0:27:30 – 0:27:31] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:27:32 – 0:27:32] Erik: He’s been hounding us.
[0:27:33 – 0:27:33] Erik: Right in camp.
[0:27:34 – 0:27:37] Erik: And the other thing we did find was down by the lakeshore.
[0:27:37 – 0:27:41] Erik: We’re sitting down for our afternoon wine yesterday, and I go, what is that?
[0:27:41 – 0:27:42] Erik: Eric goes over there.
[0:27:42 – 0:27:44] Erik: It’s like a shredded pair of…
[0:27:46 – 0:27:49] Erik: Like the cheapest kind of boxer briefs money can buy.
[0:27:49 – 0:27:50] Erik: That’s gross.
[0:27:50 – 0:27:54] Erik: Yeah, everything about that statement, I almost just puked having to say it out loud.
[0:27:54 – 0:27:54] Erik: Yeah.
[0:27:54 – 0:27:57] Erik: So that also is another like litter deduction.
[0:27:57 – 0:27:57] Erik: Right.
[0:27:57 – 0:27:59] Erik: But again, not the site’s fault.
[0:27:59 – 0:28:05] Erik: So, you know, these are just the kinds of things that, you know, makes a difference between an A and an A plus maybe for me.
[0:28:06 – 0:28:06] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:28:07 – 0:28:14] Erik: Yeah, it’s kind of hard to say, well, you know, this is just the results of people versus, you know, the campsite itself.
[0:28:14 – 0:28:18] Erik: The layout and the infrastructure here is still solid.
[0:28:19 – 0:28:25] Erik: So while you’re checking in on the frittata there, maybe we’ll get into the grade of the fire grate.
[0:28:25 – 0:28:27] Erik: I’ve kind of mentioned it already.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:34] Erik: I like the double aspect of having the out and the open.
[0:28:35 – 0:28:40] Erik: availability to get some of that sun or do some fishing if you want.
[0:28:41 – 0:28:46] Erik: But then you’ve got this nicely surrounded by majestic cedars.
[0:28:46 – 0:28:50] Erik: Cool, shady kind of grove.
[0:28:50 – 0:28:52] Erik: And the fire grate is right in the middle of it.
[0:28:53 – 0:28:53] Erik: And…
[0:28:54 – 0:29:04] Erik: That was, you know, one thing you could say about the site we were at yesterday on Little Sag is if you’re there like all day, we had the wind blowing, so we didn’t really feel it.
[0:29:04 – 0:29:11] Erik: But in the summer, there was not much for shade or like, you know, a respite from that beating sun.
[0:29:12 – 0:29:14] Erik: So you could kind of get blasted in that site, I bet.
[0:29:14 – 0:29:43] Erik: yeah like we were set up out on the point in our chairs yesterday enjoying the afternoon sun but then yeah you could just come back here and get in the shade it’s beautiful like juxtaposition yeah it gives you every every range you would be looking for and uh yeah the fire grade itself is an old style wide gauge wide gauge we’re talking last night i i assume that means it’s older i think so i think these are the rare wide gauge old ones but it’s in really good shape
[0:29:44 – 0:29:46] Erik: Yeah, it is in good shape.
[0:29:46 – 0:29:54] Erik: And it’s kind of actually this little, I don’t know, sometimes the camp furniture that people build is like not really even worth a dang.
[0:29:54 – 0:29:58] Erik: But this is a nice little corral, a nice little squared off corral.
[0:29:58 – 0:30:00] Erik: Yeah, we were able to fit both our chairs in here.
[0:30:00 – 0:30:00] Erik: You know what I mean?
[0:30:01 – 0:30:03] Erik: If we both had the jumbo deluxe chair, maybe not.
[0:30:03 – 0:30:08] Erik: But then it’s also got a nice backing of rock for kind of setting things.
[0:30:08 – 0:30:16] Erik: And it’s not, it wasn’t like ridiculously over stuffed with old logs and ash, which again is just a person thing.
[0:30:17 – 0:30:19] Erik: But I’ll give this a solid A fire grade area.
[0:30:19 – 0:30:20] Erik: It’s nice and flat.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:21] Erik: Good moving around.
[0:30:22 – 0:30:24] Erik: And then just the realm that you’re in here.
[0:30:25 – 0:30:29] Erik: I mean, it feels like you’re amongst a bunch of old wise friends who have been hacked.
[0:30:30 – 0:30:59] Erik: hacked at slightly hacked by bobby bozo yeah so let’s uh i think all right yes a let’s take a walk down to the uh the lanai the waterfront area slash landing which is uh immaculate smooth on all sides you’ve got multiple options for landing a canoe great places for hanging the uh zsu life jacket that’s
[0:31:03 – 0:31:24] Erik: so yeah this is the first landing that we came upon right here but this whole rocky slab continues around this entire site so you’ve got the sky’s the limit out here on this waterfront area and then you’ve even got a nice little grassy knoll up here the rocks get too hot
[0:31:26 – 0:31:38] Erik: And then yesterday, last night, and a little bit this morning, we were fishing, and we can tell, like, if we would have brought leeches and slip bobbers, we’d probably have about two dozen walleyes on a stringer.
[0:31:38 – 0:31:42] Erik: Yeah, it just drops off nice off here, and the way the wind was just kind of blowing away yesterday.
[0:31:43 – 0:31:45] Erik: You know, the bobbers would have been well-behaved.
[0:31:45 – 0:31:49] Erik: We could have been sitting down there in our lawn chairs just watching the show.
[0:31:49 – 0:31:54] Erik: But yeah, we didn’t really feel like hauling in a bunch of leeches just for that opportunity.
[0:31:54 – 0:31:56] Erik: We were happy to try our luck with the Rapalas.
[0:31:57 – 0:31:59] Erik: And Eric did manage to get a
[0:32:00 – 0:32:00] Erik: Pretty nice pike.
[0:32:01 – 0:32:01] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:32:02 – 0:32:03] Erik: 21 and 22-inch pike.
[0:32:03 – 0:32:05] Erik: You have some video, I believe, of that landing.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:06] Erik: I have no idea how it turned out.
[0:32:07 – 0:32:08] Erik: If it’s decent, I’ll throw it in the show notes.
[0:32:08 – 0:32:13] Erik: You can watch me landing a two-foot-long pike in the beautiful sunlight in the afternoon.
[0:32:13 – 0:32:15] Erik: Yeah, very healthy-looking, fat little pike.
[0:32:15 – 0:32:15] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:16 – 0:32:16] Erik: It was nice.
[0:32:16 – 0:32:21] Erik: It was nice to feel some weight on a fishing rod for the first time in, like, a year.
[0:32:21 – 0:32:23] Erik: Got a fish, so that’s nice.
[0:32:24 – 0:32:26] Erik: Not the walleye we were looking for, but still.
[0:32:27 – 0:32:31] Erik: But, yeah, you can also tell it would be an amazing jumping-off point for some swimming.
[0:32:32 – 0:32:36] Erik: So the recreation on the waterfront and the landing here boosts the overall grade.
[0:32:36 – 0:32:39] Erik: I think this is back-to-back A’s.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:47] Erik: The landing for canoes is you’ve got multiple options, whether you want more of a ledge, less of a ledge, if you’re a wet footer or a dry footer.
[0:32:48 – 0:32:51] Erik: Options abound on the island on Adams.
[0:32:51 – 0:32:53] Erik: And I’m going solid A overall.
[0:32:53 – 0:32:55] Erik: On the landing and overall?
[0:32:55 – 0:32:55] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:55 – 0:32:55] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:55 – 0:32:58] Erik: Yeah, I don’t think there’s any point in delaying and giving out the A.
[0:32:58 – 0:33:00] Erik: It’s obviously an A site.
[0:33:01 – 0:33:02] Erik: Could be an A+.
[0:33:03 – 0:33:08] Erik: Like, had I caught a walleye this morning on my five casts, I usually like to go out in the morning and take five casts.
[0:33:08 – 0:33:12] Erik: So, you know, if we had plucked a walleye out of here, you know, maybe that bumps it up.
[0:33:12 – 0:33:14] Erik: Or if we didn’t find the shredded underwear, maybe that bumps it up.
[0:33:14 – 0:33:15] Erik: Right.
[0:33:15 – 0:33:38] Erik: overall it’s a beautiful sight and we don’t want to dwell on the negatives i just counting it in my head i believe this is adam’s five out of seven yes because you’ve got those ones down the uh smite wing smite wing yes smite wing two one and two in the smite wing then there’s uh two more over here on the western shore we did visit one yesterday and it has a very funny like
[0:33:38 – 0:33:59] Erik: perfectly square rock with the fire grate sitting on it and doesn’t look like it’s been camped at in 10 years yeah and i wouldn’t have believed the way you were describing that unless you would have shown me that picture because you were the only one that got out it looks like it was like somebody poured a slab of cement yeah it’s very funny so then yeah we get over here this is the fifth site according to our system on the island and we’ll give it an a um
[0:34:00 – 0:34:01] Erik: Back to back A’s.
[0:34:01 – 0:34:03] Erik: Did we talk about the tent padding?
[0:34:03 – 0:34:04] Erik: I mean, there’s plenty of open spots.
[0:34:04 – 0:34:05] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:34:05 – 0:34:06] Erik: Tent pads.
[0:34:06 – 0:34:06] Erik: Tent pads.
[0:34:06 – 0:34:07] Erik: Forever.
[0:34:07 – 0:34:08] Erik: And hammocks forever.
[0:34:09 – 0:34:10] Erik: Hammocks and tent pads unlimited.
[0:34:11 – 0:34:11] Erik: Yes.
[0:34:11 – 0:34:15] Erik: So that’s through the roof grade on A plus for sleeping accommodations.
[0:34:15 – 0:34:19] Erik: And then lastly, I think we should mention the latrine, which is.
[0:34:19 – 0:34:20] Erik: You haven’t seen it.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:20] Erik: I have not.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:20] Erik: Yeah.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:22] Erik: At this point, it’s been unused.
[0:34:23 – 0:34:28] Erik: But I did walk back that away just looking for birch bark and kind of poking around yesterday.
[0:34:29 – 0:34:31] Erik: And it has a lid.
[0:34:32 – 0:34:32] Erik: Ah.
[0:34:32 – 0:34:34] Erik: A famous lidded latrine.
[0:34:34 – 0:34:37] Erik: A lidded latrine, which is a rare one, too.
[0:34:37 – 0:34:40] Erik: So you’ve got an old-style fire grate and a lidded latrine.
[0:34:40 – 0:34:41] Erik: Very nice.
[0:34:42 – 0:34:45] Erik: With everything else going for this thing, it’s an easy A.
[0:34:46 – 0:34:48] Erik: It’s not even a question.
[0:34:49 – 0:34:49] Erik: All right.
[0:34:49 – 0:34:50] Erik: Stamping it.
[0:34:50 – 0:34:51] Erik: Yeah, let’s do it.
[0:34:51 – 0:34:51] Erik: It’s an A.
[0:34:53 – 0:34:53] Erik: A.
[0:34:53 – 0:34:57] Erik: That’s a… Tumble stamped.
[0:34:57 – 0:34:57] UNKNOWN: What?
[0:34:58 – 0:34:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:34:58 – 0:34:59] Erik: All right.
[0:34:59 – 0:35:00] Erik: Well, that’s the campsite review.
[0:35:00 – 0:35:06] Erik: We’re going to go make sure our ham scramble is not getting scorched.
[0:35:06 – 0:35:10] Erik: And for those of you watching, you get to see the underwear on the way on the ground there.
[0:35:11 – 0:35:14] Erik: And we’ve got a little bit of packing up, and we’re…
[0:35:17 – 0:35:41] Erik: ambitious in our destination hopeful today um we’re kind of making a little bit of an on the fly game changer decision at the very least we’re trying to swing back around up to little sag and then from there we were kind of talking we really don’t want to do that tuscarora portage again so i think i’ve done that one like five times in the last year and a half i feel like yeah
[0:35:41 – 0:35:42] Erik: Timber a different route.
[0:35:43 – 0:36:00] Erik: So we want to kind of maybe do a figure eight route home where we kind of pivot from Little Sag and go up to Gabba, Michigami and kind of take the little lakes through Lake Peter and some of those smaller ones down in through Brant home.
[0:36:01 – 0:36:01] Erik: So…
[0:36:02 – 0:36:05] Erik: Best case scenario, we end up on Gabby tonight if our arms fall off.
[0:36:06 – 0:36:06] Erik: Makwa.
[0:36:07 – 0:36:11] Erik: And I would still be happy with even a west end of Little Sag.
[0:36:12 – 0:36:13] Erik: And the eggs are in.
[0:36:13 – 0:36:14] Erik: That’s how you plop them.
[0:36:14 – 0:36:15] Erik: They’ve been plopped.
[0:36:15 – 0:36:17] Erik: The eggs now need some tending.
[0:36:18 – 0:36:20] Erik: And we will check back in with you.
[0:36:20 – 0:36:21] Erik: How are you feeling?
[0:36:21 – 0:36:22] Erik: Three days in.
[0:36:22 – 0:36:23] Erik: You’re looking good still.
[0:36:23 – 0:36:25] Erik: You don’t got that camp face on yet.
[0:36:25 – 0:36:26] Erik: No, I feel good.
[0:36:26 – 0:36:28] Erik: And I said yesterday even I felt like we were on day three.
[0:36:29 – 0:36:36] Erik: And now I feel like we’re on day four or five of this trip just at how far we’ve gone and the long days and staying up till midnight.
[0:36:36 – 0:36:38] Erik: And then the sun’s back up super early.
[0:36:38 – 0:36:40] Erik: So, oh yeah, we had some amazing stars last night.
[0:36:40 – 0:36:42] Erik: Done longer paddling trips.
[0:36:42 – 0:36:47] Erik: You know, I feel like that’s day three is usually when you wake up with a little bit more of a spring in your step.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:53] Erik: So we’re going to try and squash that down with like 15 portages today, get ourselves nice and tired again for tonight’s dinner.
[0:36:53 – 0:36:54] Erik: So, yeah.
[0:36:54 – 0:36:55] Erik: Yeah, I feel good.
[0:36:55 – 0:36:56] Erik: Everything’s systems go.
[0:36:56 – 0:36:57] Erik: The toe is not that bad.
[0:36:58 – 0:37:02] Erik: My feet stayed warm last night with the water bottle and the hammock.
[0:37:02 – 0:37:05] Erik: So overall, I feel really good and I’m ready for a big day.
[0:37:06 – 0:37:06] Erik: All systems go.
[0:37:07 – 0:37:07] Erik: Yep, yep, yep.
[0:37:31 – 0:37:32] Erik: So we’re out.
[0:37:32 – 0:37:39] Erik: We’re back on Little Sag, and this is probably just going to turn into a rant track, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before.
[0:37:40 – 0:37:44] Erik: Every day we have been flown over by a plane, and here it is again.
[0:37:44 – 0:37:46] Erik: You might be able to hear it.
[0:37:46 – 0:37:53] Erik: You for sure will in minutes here because it’s going to go right over our MFing heads for the third day in a row.
[0:37:53 – 0:37:56] Erik: I mean, I thought that…
[0:37:56 – 0:38:01] Erik: Unless there was, like, some kind of an emergency, the U.S. Forest Service wasn’t allowed to just, like, fly around.
[0:38:02 – 0:38:02] Erik: Yeah.
[0:38:03 – 0:38:03] Erik: Yeah.
[0:38:04 – 0:38:07] Erik: I’ve been out here a long time, and I’ve, like, seen a plane once, like, in the distance.
[0:38:08 – 0:38:10] Erik: You’re like, oh, I wonder what’s going on.
[0:38:10 – 0:38:11] Erik: I hope somebody’s not hurt.
[0:38:12 – 0:38:13] Erik: Every day today we’ve seen them.
[0:38:14 – 0:38:15] Erik: Every day on this trip we’ve seen it.
[0:38:16 – 0:38:18] Erik: And now it’s been, like, twice the last two days.
[0:38:18 – 0:38:21] Erik: I don’t know what to make of this.
[0:38:22 – 0:38:25] Erik: Is it like a training session or what the hell is going on?
[0:38:25 – 0:38:32] Erik: But it’s also like we… Just an update on the ghost fire that we saw yesterday.
[0:38:32 – 0:38:41] Erik: The smoke never saw anything on the way over today on the loop back over from Adams to indicate a fire of any sort.
[0:38:41 – 0:38:48] Erik: So there is maybe a higher percentage chance that it was like a weird interior Boundary Waters…
[0:38:49 – 0:39:05] Erik: controlled burn but they don’t ever really seem like they were flying towards it even when it was happening yesterday that’s the thing we’ve seen a lot of planes but they’ve never gone in the direction of where we saw the smoke our best guess at this point on that is that it was over by malberg possibly yeah so there you go
[0:39:06 – 0:39:11] Erik: Here’s your Boundary Waters experience just flying back and forth, back and forth every day.
[0:39:11 – 0:39:18] Erik: This thing has been flying over our heads, and it might not seem like a big deal to you, but I am giving the finger to this plane right now.
[0:39:19 – 0:39:19] Erik: Yep.
[0:39:19 – 0:39:20] Erik: Can you see it?
[0:39:20 – 0:39:21] Erik: Can you see it?
[0:39:22 – 0:39:25] Erik: Take your plane and fly somewhere else.
[0:39:26 – 0:39:28] Erik: Burn, got him.
[0:39:28 – 0:39:29] Erik: Burn, double fingers.
[0:39:30 – 0:39:31] Erik: Oh, he’s coming back around.
[0:39:31 – 0:39:32] Erik: Oh, no.
[0:39:33 – 0:39:35] Erik: He’s going to circle.
[0:39:35 – 0:39:36] Erik: They’re putting him in a holding pattern.
[0:39:36 – 0:39:37] Erik: What the hell, though?
[0:39:38 – 0:39:38] Erik: Yeah.
[0:39:38 – 0:39:39] Erik: Very weird.
[0:39:39 – 0:39:40] Erik: And I don’t know.
[0:39:40 – 0:39:43] Erik: They’re just slowly flying around in circles, I guess.
[0:39:43 – 0:39:45] Erik: It’s very odd.
[0:39:45 – 0:39:46] Erik: I want to look into it when we get back.
[0:39:47 – 0:39:53] Erik: Yeah, maybe we’re down here giving the bird probably something that’s a good cause and needing to happen.
[0:39:54 – 0:40:00] Erik: But if they need to be out here flying around, they should do it in May when the ice right goes out or do it in October.
[0:40:00 – 0:40:01] Erik: This is June.
[0:40:01 – 0:40:05] Erik: To me, that’s considered the prime paddling season.
[0:40:05 – 0:40:09] Erik: There’s a ceiling on the park for a reason, so we don’t have to listen to this kind of thing go over.
[0:40:10 – 0:40:11] Erik: And yet, there they are.
[0:40:11 – 0:40:15] Erik: It’s the official government plane flying around, just breaking their own rules.
[0:40:15 – 0:40:20] Erik: I mean, maybe they do have a legit thing to do, but I don’t know.
[0:40:20 – 0:40:21] Erik: It doesn’t look good.
[0:40:21 – 0:40:21] Erik: No.
[0:40:22 – 0:40:22] Erik: Very poor optics.
[0:40:23 – 0:40:24] Erik: Poor optics out here.
[0:40:24 – 0:40:27] Erik: Meanwhile, we’re down here on, we’re not sure what site.
[0:40:27 – 0:40:29] Erik: Well, we’ll do a full deep dive into this site.
[0:40:29 – 0:40:30] Erik: We literally just got here.
[0:40:31 – 0:40:34] Erik: It is weird being back on the campsite.
[0:40:34 – 0:40:37] Erik: Kind of looking across to where we were on…
[0:40:38 – 0:41:00] Erik: saturday night we can’t quite see it no but it’s just around the corner i think it’s like uh that’s about a mile away still but um the day kind of got cool drizzly and we’re just i mean what 12 portages today yeah 12 mars i think we’re around 32 for the trip right now and we still got a a long day out tomorrow we had talked about maybe going for gabba michigami
[0:41:01 – 0:41:03] Erik: Um, but that’s two more portages.
[0:41:03 – 0:41:12] Erik: You got to get up in the rattle and I don’t know, we, we had said, you know, we wanted to get out to little sag and try some fishing, but we got here and I got a really nice campsite and.
[0:41:13 – 0:41:18] Erik: But it was just real windy just to the point where we didn’t want to get back in the boat and try fishing in that.
[0:41:18 – 0:41:19] Erik: It’s not that important to me to fish.
[0:41:20 – 0:41:20] Erik: Yeah.
[0:41:20 – 0:41:21] Erik: But look what happens.
[0:41:22 – 0:41:22] Erik: Now we’re back.
[0:41:22 – 0:41:26] Erik: We’ve got a second chance at Little Sag and it’s almost glass calm.
[0:41:26 – 0:41:30] Erik: There’s a riffle of wind maybe out of the straight south.
[0:41:31 – 0:41:36] Erik: And for now, the drizzle has gone back to like almost non-existent.
[0:41:37 – 0:41:40] Erik: It’s still sort of a, it’s a remnant of a drizzle.
[0:41:40 – 0:41:40] Erik: Yeah.
[0:41:40 – 0:41:41] Erik: It’s a…
[0:41:41 – 0:41:44] Erik: It’s a whisper of a drizzle out here right now.
[0:41:44 – 0:41:48] Erik: So I think we’re going to try and set up some rainflies right now while we can.
[0:41:49 – 0:41:53] Erik: Take a little break on shore, stretch our legs, and then we’re definitely going out trolling.
[0:41:54 – 0:41:57] Erik: And just sitting here on this campsite, we’ll talk about it more in the review, but…
[0:41:58 – 0:41:59] Erik: There’s some really good opportunities.
[0:41:59 – 0:42:05] Erik: We’re in kind of a narrows on an island here, and there’s some really good spots to just do some casting from shore, too.
[0:42:06 – 0:42:09] Erik: I would be shocked if we don’t end up catching something today.
[0:42:10 – 0:42:11] Erik: You never know.
[0:42:11 – 0:42:17] Erik: The lake numbers were a little low, but that was almost 10 years ago, and netting a huge lake is always weird.
[0:42:18 – 0:42:24] Erik: But one of the things that they said was that the main reason that they didn’t get very large is because of poor forage.
[0:42:24 – 0:42:28] Erik: So maybe if we get some spoons out there, they might be excited to see them.
[0:42:28 – 0:42:29] Erik: Yeah, I’m going to switch.
[0:42:29 – 0:42:33] Erik: I was going with the FZ Slim just from shore on Sunday morning.
[0:42:33 – 0:42:35] Erik: But I have that dimpled…
[0:42:35 – 0:43:01] Erik: little cleo in my arsenal of three lures so the other two lures have gotten their shot and failed today is the day for the dimpled little cleo grandpa would be proud he would have just said just throw that all day every day what are you doing messing around these other lures yeah so that’s all he ever threw he literally would like jig for crappies or throw a little cleo and he caught a lot more fish than i do so there’s something to it
[0:43:01 – 0:43:02] Erik: Yep, well, there you go.
[0:43:03 – 0:43:06] Erik: So, I don’t know what the planes are doing, but they can frig off.
[0:43:07 – 0:43:13] Erik: Sod off, you dirtbags.
[0:43:16 – 0:43:23] Erik: Welcome back to Little Sag, a campsite we have determined in our own system.
[0:43:25 – 0:43:36] Erik: We’re going to do a little rundown of what brought us here from Adams, and then we’re doing a nighttime campsite review for a few different reasons, but we’ll get to that later.
[0:43:39 – 0:43:43] Erik: So, started the morning up on the island on Adams.
[0:43:45 – 0:43:55] Erik: Made our way down to the portage over to Beaver, which I think we both determined is the MVP most valuable portage.
[0:43:56 – 0:43:56] Erik: Absolutely.
[0:43:57 – 0:44:01] Erik: It’s definitely the most valuable portage on this trip.
[0:44:02 – 0:44:07] Erik: And one of the coolest portages I’ve been on in my life.
[0:44:08 – 0:44:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:44:08 – 0:44:09] Erik: There was snow.
[0:44:09 – 0:44:09] Erik: Yes.
[0:44:10 – 0:44:14] Erik: For one, it kind of is nestled in this little valley.
[0:44:15 – 0:44:38] Erik: more of a canyon almost uh running down from adams into beaver and so you’re kind of following along this moving water but it’s in a very steep valley slash canyon and then like halfway and there’s lots of like like plate like mason steps like somebody took the time to like find the proper rocks to like actually make steps throughout it like both going up and downhill
[0:44:40 – 0:45:05] Erik: and that was pretty neat and then like halfway through it you’re just in this little canyon with big rock like cliffs on both sides of you and then there’s just this kind of uh field of boulder erratics they’re like the sizes of houses some of them they were massive just like just in a jumble and you’re walking right next to them and then down in the crevices there was still like ice and snow yeah i just came around a corner and i was out in front and i just stopped and i looked
[0:45:05 – 0:45:07] Erik: And I looked again, and then I yelled back to Eric.
[0:45:07 – 0:45:08] Erik: I’m like, there’s snow.
[0:45:08 – 0:45:10] Erik: He goes, what?
[0:45:11 – 0:45:12] Erik: I go, there’s snow down here.
[0:45:12 – 0:45:13] Erik: He’s like, huh?
[0:45:14 – 0:45:16] Erik: I got up there, and it’s like, yeah, there’s snow.
[0:45:16 – 0:45:20] Erik: There’s a couple little pockets, like, underneath these boulders where you can still see, like,
[0:45:20 – 0:45:47] Erik: glaciated snow pack slash ice you could physically feel it like drop by like five degrees through there too it was dark and cool and then immediately after that we just went into this like gnome like ridden cedar grove for like the last 20 rods was super man chain-esque yeah only cedars it was just the one of the biggest cedar forests i’ve seen besides like up on the man chain
[0:45:47 – 0:45:56] Erik: Yeah, and then you get down to Beaver, and you just kind of pop out of that cedar forest underneath this huge flat rock face.
[0:45:57 – 0:45:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:45:58 – 0:45:59] Erik: And then you’re on the lake.
[0:45:59 – 0:45:59] Erik: Yeah.
[0:46:00 – 0:46:03] Erik: And so just imagine coming at it from the other way.
[0:46:03 – 0:46:05] Erik: You’d be paddling right at this major cliff.
[0:46:05 – 0:46:05] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[0:46:05 – 0:46:11] Erik: And then you just kind of stop and get out and then just kind of skirt along the bottom of the cliff until you enter a cedar forest.
[0:46:11 – 0:46:12] Erik: It would be cool going either way.
[0:46:13 – 0:46:13] Erik: Yeah.
[0:46:13 – 0:46:18] Erik: As I said, one of my favorite portages we’ve ever done, despite the fact that I fell at the beginning of it.
[0:46:19 – 0:46:19] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:46:19 – 0:46:22] Erik: The first unloading of the day was, yeah, we were in like, man.
[0:46:23 – 0:46:23] Erik: Feeling good.
[0:46:24 – 0:46:48] Erik: yeah one of the themes of this trip so far has been like this like mother nature like foam all the pollen that’s just like gathering everywhere and i don’t think we’ve specifically mentioned it but i don’t know if there’s ever been a trip i’ve done before where it’s like borderline hazardous at some of the landings because you can’t see you can take your paddle and kind of sweep at it and you just can’t get rid of it so it’s just it’s like stepping blind basically
[0:46:48 – 0:46:49] Erik: Yeah, exactly.
[0:46:49 – 0:46:50] Erik: I have no idea what’s down there.
[0:46:50 – 0:46:57] Erik: So you have to kind of take your pack off and then like get your footing and then you can’t just go pack right into a canoe.
[0:46:58 – 0:47:01] Erik: So I was kind of like half one foot up and one foot down in the water.
[0:47:01 – 0:47:06] Erik: And Eric was kind of helping me pull the big pack out of the front front compartment of the canoe.
[0:47:06 – 0:47:10] Erik: And I as we were swinging it up, I just kind of slipped on that rock.
[0:47:11 – 0:47:13] Erik: just kind of as we were trying to, as I was twisting.
[0:47:13 – 0:47:17] Erik: And so then it was like pretty quickly apparent I was going to fall.
[0:47:17 – 0:47:21] Erik: So I kind of just like took the pack with me and like lunged up onto the shore.
[0:47:21 – 0:47:22] Erik: So you didn’t get into the foam?
[0:47:22 – 0:47:24] Erik: Yeah, I didn’t want to fall into that pollen-y foam.
[0:47:24 – 0:47:25] Erik: The yellow milk?
[0:47:25 – 0:47:30] Erik: It looks like a mixture of Mountain Dew and milk and like heavy whipping cream.
[0:47:30 – 0:47:31] Erik: It’s gross.
[0:47:31 – 0:47:33] Erik: And now it’s been around for long enough.
[0:47:33 – 0:47:35] Erik: It smells like an outhouse.
[0:47:35 – 0:47:39] Erik: Sometimes it smells like an outhouse, but like a couple landings it smelled like cookies almost.
[0:47:39 – 0:48:01] Erik: i don’t know i never got the cookie smell yeah that was uh very odd too bad for me so either anyways despite the fact that it was the only fall of the trip really and it wasn’t much of a fall but no it wasn’t they really blemished my perfect record there um but still like got up and brushed it off and kept going and then like whoa there’s snow and cool boulders and
[0:48:02 – 0:48:06] Erik: neat steps, and it was just overall a really cool portage to start the day with.
[0:48:06 – 0:48:08] Erik: So start of the day on a real positive note.
[0:48:09 – 0:48:12] Erik: And, yeah, Beaver was a really beautiful lake.
[0:48:12 – 0:48:19] Erik: Yeah, the north arm up towards Smite Lake had, like, some really cool, like, classic cliff, white pine hills.
[0:48:20 – 0:48:25] Erik: The one campsite we went by seemed maybe so-so, but just the lake overall.
[0:48:25 – 0:48:31] Erik: I would say so far the stars of the trip have been just the Boulder, Adams, and Beaver chain.
[0:48:31 – 0:48:38] Erik: I would have to think Smite would be also a very pretty and amazing lake just by being in proximity to those lakes.
[0:48:39 – 0:48:41] Erik: On the other hand, then we moved from Beaver.
[0:48:41 – 0:48:43] Erik: We started to kind of turn south then.
[0:48:43 – 0:48:46] Erik: Well, we were already, yeah, but really making that turn.
[0:48:47 – 0:49:05] Erik: on beaver to the south and then we got to trap line lake which was a real um piece of work connoisseur’s campsite this is a connoisseur’s campsite over there like it was like kind of like somebody had told sergeant bob to go put a campsite on trap line and he was like i don’t think you should and they’re like just do it bob
[0:49:06 – 0:49:10] Erik: And then he’s like, well, fine, I’m putting it in the worst possible spot.
[0:49:10 – 0:49:12] Erik: It was a smite move.
[0:49:12 – 0:49:13] Erik: He was smoted.
[0:49:13 – 0:49:14] Erik: Spited.
[0:49:14 – 0:49:15] Erik: Spited, yes.
[0:49:16 – 0:49:18] Erik: Yeah, it’s a spite campsite.
[0:49:18 – 0:49:20] Erik: Can’t say I’d recommend the site on Trapline.
[0:49:20 – 0:49:21] Erik: No.
[0:49:21 – 0:49:26] Erik: But then Trapline did offer us a gift in that there is a 60-rod portage on a trap site.
[0:49:27 – 0:49:30] Erik: into the Kawishui River Lake system.
[0:49:31 – 0:49:34] Erik: Not really a river, but, you know, that’s what it’s labeled as.
[0:49:34 – 0:49:37] Erik: We’re going to just go with that to not confuse people.
[0:49:38 – 0:49:43] Erik: But we kind of pulled up to the portage landing and we’re looking and I don’t know, we may be able to just run this.
[0:49:44 – 0:49:45] Erik: It’s not that bad.
[0:49:45 – 0:49:47] Erik: Maybe the water was extra high or something.
[0:49:47 – 0:49:50] Erik: And yeah, we were able to just run that.
[0:49:50 – 0:49:51] Erik: So we stole one back.
[0:49:52 – 0:49:55] Erik: So we were kind of planning a 13 portage day.
[0:49:55 – 0:49:57] Erik: I believe that cut it back to 12.
[0:49:58 – 0:50:21] Erik: yes that sounds right so we had to skip a 60 rod portage which i don’t think it would have been a 60 anyways but save the uh effort of pulling packs out of the canoe which is always that adds up so yeah from there we’re into the kawishui river lake system our farthest western point yeah that’s about as far west as we got there and then uh
[0:50:21 – 0:50:24] Erik: Moved a little farther south, and that was as far south as we got.
[0:50:25 – 0:50:29] Erik: Turned the corner there, and there’s a little campsite on that point.
[0:50:30 – 0:50:38] Erik: And then as we’re coming around that campsite, we ran into a trio of boats, a very strange trio of boats.
[0:50:39 – 0:50:40] Erik: It was an odd situation.
[0:50:40 – 0:50:48] Erik: I don’t know if it’s interesting or not, but I thought it was interesting because it was like two brand new Kevlar’s and an aluminum.
[0:50:48 – 0:50:52] Erik: One Kevlar had Voyager canoe stickers on it and the other one had Rockwood stickers.
[0:50:53 – 0:50:58] Erik: So either way, there’s questions as to they’re pretty far away from either of those outfitters and…
[0:50:59 – 0:51:00] Erik: Why are they two different outfitters?
[0:51:00 – 0:51:07] Erik: Yeah, and the aluminum fam over there was clearly just their own.
[0:51:07 – 0:51:08] Erik: Yeah, I have my own boat.
[0:51:09 – 0:51:11] Erik: I’m bringing my old Grumman.
[0:51:11 – 0:51:11] Erik: Yes.
[0:51:12 – 0:51:18] Erik: So then we made the run down the rest of the Kawishawi, quote-unquote, river.
[0:51:18 – 0:51:29] Erik: Yeah, there’s another campsite in there, and we didn’t see any action on there, so we assumed the people we saw had come from, like, the Malberg area or maybe going to fish some current.
[0:51:29 – 0:51:53] Erik: farther down the kawishui uh we’re not sure what they were doing we did give a friendly wave and a good morning even though it was probably close to 11 at that point still morning it still is morning technically yeah uh we got our way up to the 40 rod portage going uphill into the last section of the kawishui river lake system and it was here where we were uh anticipating
[0:51:53 – 0:52:03] Erik: That one more campsite on that section, right after that portage, if you’re following along at home, that one is directly south of the island site on Adams.
[0:52:04 – 0:52:12] Erik: And so we were thinking, you know, maybe this was a source of the smoke and a large fire we had witnessed the day before.
[0:52:13 – 0:52:14] Erik: Nothing.
[0:52:14 – 0:52:15] Erik: We didn’t see anything in there.
[0:52:15 – 0:52:18] Erik: That whole section, though, is like weird, like,
[0:52:19 – 0:52:36] Erik: prairie meadow almost like there is some trees on the north shore but like really open suspiciously like open and just like very short undergrowth yeah considering some of the the lakes that we had just been on which were like bang on like boreal
[0:52:37 – 0:52:40] Erik: White pine, big exposed outcrop rocks.
[0:52:40 – 0:52:49] Erik: Within an hour of where we had just been, there were times where I was like, you could take a picture of that shoreline and tell somebody that we just did a trip in Wisconsin.
[0:52:49 – 0:52:56] Erik: Because it was a lake with just like open kind of grassy with some like light bushes.
[0:52:57 – 0:52:59] Erik: Just a big open meadow, honestly.
[0:52:59 – 0:53:01] Erik: Big wide game trails coming down to the lake there.
[0:53:02 – 0:53:02] Erik: Just odd.
[0:53:03 – 0:53:03] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:03 – 0:53:06] Erik: And then, you know, and then that was our longest paddle of the day.
[0:53:07 – 0:53:12] Erik: Just pure paddle, maybe three miles down that section of the Koishui River Lake.
[0:53:12 – 0:53:14] Erik: So, yeah, I don’t know.
[0:53:14 – 0:53:20] Erik: It was just an odd part of the day because it was just further added to the mystery of what the heck do we see the other day.
[0:53:20 – 0:53:20] Erik: Yes.
[0:53:21 – 0:53:21] Erik: Almost certain.
[0:53:21 – 0:53:28] Erik: I think we mentioned on an earlier track that we’re pretty certain then that, like, the smoke we were seeing had to have come off Malberg.
[0:53:28 – 0:53:30] Erik: But I don’t know.
[0:53:30 – 0:53:31] Erik: Honestly, at this point, I’m baffled.
[0:53:31 – 0:53:32] Erik: It’s still a mystery.
[0:53:32 – 0:53:32] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:32 – 0:53:32] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:33 – 0:53:56] Erik: i i really hope when we get home we’re able to like find out something about that yeah but there’s like after maulberg there’s really nothing straight south in that line where where it would have been like there’s nothing down there you know coma is down there but that’s too far over to the east and if it was a northwest wind all the sites are on the north side of the lake it would be very hard pressed unless it was the one on the east here that maybe blew into the woods so
[0:53:58 – 0:54:19] Erik: every time every moment today that we didn’t find an answer the percentage that it was just like a quick spot like controlled burn got higher and higher i don’t know possible but just unusual for them to be doing that kind of activity well maybe they looked at the forecasts with the little rain today the longer days and they the green up and they staged a little quick i don’t know
[0:54:19 – 0:54:20] Erik: Maybe.
[0:54:20 – 0:54:20] Erik: Who knows?
[0:54:20 – 0:54:21] Erik: Who knows?
[0:54:21 – 0:54:24] Erik: We’ll probably be talking to people who know exactly what happened.
[0:54:24 – 0:54:30] Erik: But this was right about the time we portaged into Kiva Neva that the… We’re heading back north now.
[0:54:30 – 0:54:40] Erik: Yes, straight north on a line of small lakes and small portages that the Saturday going out, I think, was…
[0:54:41 – 0:55:08] Erik: mostly sunny monday after monday and then like a chance of rain tuesday and then even yesterday the weather radio was like 20 chance of rain monday night yeah maybe going into tuesday yeah you have a very slight chance of rain and then we checked we cranked it up this morning at breakfast and it was like chance of rain 50 and then even then it was like all right well it’s not that that was the finland weather radio at that time like we’re quite a bit north from there and
[0:55:09 – 0:55:13] Erik: You know, the earlier forecast we had gotten said very low chance or whatever.
[0:55:14 – 0:55:19] Erik: Um, but yeah, as we, as we’re like approaching that portage up to Kiva Neva.
[0:55:19 – 0:55:21] Erik: Yep, here comes the little sprinkles.
[0:55:21 – 0:55:28] Erik: Yeah, and then we just, we were in pretty persistent, at the worst, it was like a heavy drizzle.
[0:55:29 – 0:55:39] Erik: Never like fully rained, I don’t think, because I think if it would have started fully raining, we may have considered protecting ourselves, because neither of us brought rain gear.
[0:55:39 – 0:55:40] Erik: Yeah, why would you?
[0:55:40 – 0:55:43] Erik: There was a 0% chance of rain until like Tuesday night, really.
[0:55:44 – 0:55:44] Erik: Yeah.
[0:55:45 – 0:55:47] Erik: and figure we’d be off the water by then.
[0:55:47 – 0:55:48] Erik: So I don’t know.
[0:55:48 – 0:55:49] Erik: We were trying to pack light.
[0:55:49 – 0:55:58] Erik: I was basically like, well, I could bring a rain jacket or I could bring this nice big comfy wool sweater, which has brought me lots of warmth on this trip, especially on those first couple of nights.
[0:55:59 – 0:55:59] Erik: Yeah.
[0:55:59 – 0:56:00] Erik: Um, so.
[0:56:00 – 0:56:04] Erik: But it was never at the point where it was really making us wet.
[0:56:05 – 0:56:10] Erik: It was just kind of one of those things where it’s like, all right, well, I guess we’re just paddling in this drizzle now.
[0:56:10 – 0:56:15] Erik: So made it up through pan, panhandle, and then, which they’re fine.
[0:56:16 – 0:56:16] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:56:16 – 0:56:18] Erik: They’re nothing special.
[0:56:19 – 0:56:23] Erik: But the rock wall on Makwa is just amazing.
[0:56:23 – 0:56:30] Erik: You come around the corner, and it’s like this zebra-striped, like, 45-degree angle, like, ridgeline of a straight, sheer cliff.
[0:56:30 – 0:56:31] Erik: Yeah, I go, what is that?
[0:56:31 – 0:56:33] Erik: Because it’s, like, wet right now from this drizzle?
[0:56:33 – 0:56:34] Erik: And he’s like, no, no.
[0:56:34 – 0:56:37] Erik: Eric goes, it’s always striped like that, like a zebra.
[0:56:37 – 0:56:37] Erik: Yeah.
[0:56:38 – 0:56:41] Erik: So I don’t know how you say zebra in Anishinaabe.
[0:56:41 – 0:56:43] Erik: They probably don’t have a word for the zebra.
[0:56:44 – 0:57:10] Erik: wouldn’t really make much sense for them too but there is a campsite right next to it which is like i mean it looked so so from a distance but next to being next to that big wall it was definitely like one of the cooler campsites we saw that we had no intentions of stopping at that point in the day but like yeah if you’re gonna make it to makwa get down to that farthest one to the west by the zebra wall yeah highly recommend it is a very cool lake uh makwa too like
[0:57:10 – 0:57:18] Erik: after getting through that small string of lakes, then kind of got back out to some bigger water and it was, you know, pretty nice.
[0:57:19 – 0:57:20] Erik: It was Makwa where we saw the
[0:57:22 – 0:57:22] Erik: The snow geese?
[0:57:23 – 0:57:39] Erik: No, that was the only redeeming factor to Elton, which I think we’ve mentioned before, has, like, weird low water and, like, a bunch of, like, cedar stumps or some kind of tree stumps that are just, like, it almost looks like they were logged or, like, cut off.
[0:57:39 – 0:57:40] Erik: Real weird.
[0:57:40 – 0:57:41] Erik: Really weird and, like.
[0:57:41 – 0:57:46] Erik: None of the sites are kind of junky, but I have a video of these.
[0:57:46 – 0:57:47] Erik: So we were coming around the corner.
[0:57:48 – 0:57:51] Erik: We saw them like an hour earlier.
[0:57:51 – 0:57:55] Erik: We saw them flying over just two white huge birds.
[0:57:55 – 0:57:59] Erik: We weren’t sure if they were some sort of swan or maybe a snow geese, you know, obviously.
[0:58:00 – 0:58:03] Erik: very big and majestic creatures going over, heading north.
[0:58:03 – 0:58:16] Erik: Yeah, so we’re closing in on the 19-round portage out of Elton, and there they are, just hanging out in this little bay, and we’re getting closer and closer, and they’re kind of starting to be like… Hey, what are you doing?
[0:58:17 – 0:58:28] Erik: So I’ll definitely attach the video, but I think I was mentioning even in that video that those GoPros are so super wide-angle that they barely even showed up in it, but then they did like…
[0:58:29 – 0:58:32] Erik: We, I mean, stressed them out enough, I guess.
[0:58:32 – 0:58:33] Erik: We weren’t, like, chasing them down.
[0:58:33 – 0:58:40] Erik: We were just kind of generally heading in their direction that they, like, fired up the, you know.
[0:58:40 – 0:58:41] Erik: The afterburner?
[0:58:41 – 0:58:42] Erik: Yeah, like, what is it?
[0:58:42 – 0:58:47] Erik: They got V2’d and had to take off, and they started flapping at us.
[0:58:47 – 0:58:49] Erik: But I’ve never been that close to that large of a bird taking off.
[0:58:50 – 0:58:50] Erik: Oh, my God.
[0:58:50 – 0:58:51] Erik: That’s incredible.
[0:58:51 – 0:58:58] Erik: And I really hope that the very least that that video I took captured the noise of them, like, you could hear, like, their feathers, like, clacking.
[0:58:59 – 0:59:01] Erik: It was one of the coolest wildlife experiences.
[0:59:01 – 0:59:05] Erik: It wasn’t until they went by us then it was like very goose-like heads.
[0:59:05 – 0:59:09] Erik: We’re like, okay, we’re certain they’re snow goose or snow geese, I guess.
[0:59:09 – 0:59:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:59:10 – 0:59:11] Erik: A nice pair of snow geese.
[0:59:11 – 0:59:12] Erik: Huge.
[0:59:12 – 0:59:13] Erik: Massive birds.
[0:59:13 – 0:59:16] Erik: Huge the size of a Min-2 canoe flying right past us.
[0:59:16 – 0:59:17] Erik: Yeah.
[0:59:17 – 0:59:18] Erik: So that was awesome.
[0:59:18 – 0:59:22] Erik: And I really hope that at the very least that sound came through because it was a very like.
[0:59:22 – 0:59:27] Erik: Yeah, the sound of their wings, like the feathers vibrating like on liftoff.
[0:59:27 – 0:59:28] Erik: They’re like basically like.
[0:59:28 – 0:59:46] Erik: got off the water going right past us yeah then went up off to the south and we’re just like wow that was pretty cool very unique like i mean seeing moose and everything is awesome but like i’ve seen a bunch of times i’ve never seen anything like that with like massive birds taking off right like basically like perpendicular to us so
[0:59:47 – 0:59:47] Erik: Yeah.
[0:59:47 – 0:59:49] Erik: This whole time it’s still pretty sprinkly.
[0:59:49 – 0:59:53] Erik: And like, you know, the nice thing about it was we were going through a lot of portages in that section.
[0:59:53 – 0:59:55] Erik: So it was keeping us warm.
[0:59:55 – 0:59:55] Erik: Yeah.
[0:59:55 – 0:59:58] Erik: But like my feet have been like wet most of this trip.
[0:59:58 – 1:00:00] Erik: And yesterday it was hot.
[1:00:00 – 1:00:01] Erik: Day before it was pretty pleasant.
[1:00:01 – 1:00:03] Erik: But like today it was just generally cold.
[1:00:04 – 1:00:08] Erik: And so, yeah, we’re moving and going through a lot of portages, keeping us warm that way.
[1:00:08 – 1:00:13] Erik: But then we finally got out on Little Sag and it’s like, let’s just try and get to one of these sites.
[1:00:14 – 1:00:17] Erik: We’re thinking now that we’re going to take a different way out.
[1:00:17 – 1:00:22] Erik: So we’re like, well, let’s try and get on a site that’s like the west side, but maybe a little closer to the north.
[1:00:22 – 1:00:25] Erik: So we can stage ourself for tomorrow’s move.
[1:00:26 – 1:00:30] Erik: Like, let’s just get on a site and set up a rain fly and, like, get out of these boots for a little bit.
[1:00:30 – 1:00:32] Erik: Like, my feet were, like, getting real cold.
[1:00:33 – 1:00:34] Erik: Yeah, same with mine.
[1:00:34 – 1:00:35] Erik: I mean, mine were getting cold, too.
[1:00:35 – 1:00:38] Erik: And yours are, like, kind of meant to drain a little bit more.
[1:00:38 – 1:00:41] Erik: And mine were just, like, hiking boots soaked.
[1:00:41 – 1:00:42] Erik: You got pool in your boot.
[1:00:42 – 1:00:43] Erik: Yeah.
[1:00:44 – 1:00:50] Erik: Yeah, so we dried out and set up a rain fly, and it kind of sprinkled a little bit, and then it, I think, pretty much stopped, and it’s been dry.
[1:00:50 – 1:00:53] Erik: The nice thing was that during the rain, like, there was zero wind.
[1:00:53 – 1:00:54] Erik: It was almost glass.
[1:00:54 – 1:00:55] Erik: It was flat, calm.
[1:00:55 – 1:00:55] Erik: Yeah.
[1:00:55 – 1:01:04] Erik: And so if it had been, like, sprinkling and windy, it would have been pretty cold, because, like, we have, I had lots of gear, like, stowed away, but I didn’t want to get it wet.
[1:01:04 – 1:01:07] Erik: Like, I didn’t want to pull out my long underwear and my wool sweater.
[1:01:08 – 1:01:11] Erik: Um, that’s for night, you know, I got to keep that dry.
[1:01:11 – 1:01:15] Erik: So I was like down to my, everything else I had was on me, but it was still pretty cold.
[1:01:16 – 1:01:17] Erik: So it was nice to get into camp.
[1:01:18 – 1:01:20] Erik: Probably got up here about three 30 or four.
[1:01:21 – 1:01:23] Erik: We probably left maybe at 10.
[1:01:24 – 1:01:24] Erik: Yeah.
[1:01:25 – 1:01:29] Erik: We called it about a five hour run from Adams down and around through the coalition.
[1:01:29 – 1:01:32] Erik: We back up through the pan system.
[1:01:33 – 1:01:33] Erik: Elton.
[1:01:34 – 1:01:42] Erik: Yeah, well, while it was, like, kind of sprinkling, we were joking, like, man, if this just keeps up, we could just, like, shoot on out of here.
[1:01:42 – 1:01:47] Erik: But then, like, we got to Little Sag, and it was just, like, boat back was, like, setting in.
[1:01:47 – 1:01:53] Erik: I was just kind of feeling like, I don’t know, like, that would be a husk tomorrow if we tried to shoot on out.
[1:01:53 – 1:01:59] Erik: So, yeah, we’ve done, we did seven portages on Saturday morning.
[1:02:00 – 1:02:29] Erik: to get to little sag and then getting down to adams we counted that as 12 and so that was putting us to 19 and then today i think it was another 12 another 12 today because we were able to skip the one yeah so now we’re at 31 portages on the trip and uh looking uh ahead we’re we’re probably going to put another you know double digit amount of portages on tomorrow maybe we’ll just
[1:02:30 – 1:02:36] Erik: We’ll deal with that later, but we just want to talk about… Or do we want to get into that right now?
[1:02:36 – 1:02:37] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:02:37 – 1:02:41] Erik: I think we… We can kind of just give a general preview.
[1:02:41 – 1:02:43] Erik: We’re not going to go back through Terry.
[1:02:43 – 1:02:46] Erik: No, and we’re not doing the Tuscarora to missing link portage again.
[1:02:46 – 1:02:47] Erik: It’s just I can’t mentally handle it.
[1:02:47 – 1:02:49] Erik: The last time I did the ferns and gillis and all that was 2011.
[1:02:57 – 1:02:58] Erik: It was crazy that it’s been that long.
[1:02:58 – 1:03:04] Erik: So I think we’re just going to pop north into Virgin and West Fern and kind of head her back that way.
[1:03:04 – 1:03:07] Erik: It’s a lot more portages, but they’re all short.
[1:03:07 – 1:03:10] Erik: And they’re going to be in pretty good shape, we expect.
[1:03:11 – 1:03:14] Erik: And so that’s our general plan for tomorrow.
[1:03:14 – 1:03:16] Erik: It’s looking like another 12 to 13 portages, I think.
[1:03:19 – 1:03:21] Erik: And of course, the forecast for wind is out of the east.
[1:03:21 – 1:03:29] Erik: Somehow it switched to the east, even though there is literally not even a speck of east wind mentioned in the 10-day forecast when we left.
[1:03:29 – 1:03:35] Erik: Somehow it’s going to spin around an east wind on our last day in which we are heading almost all east.
[1:03:35 – 1:03:45] Erik: Yeah, see, one of the more rare winds, it’s like once you can get out, headed out toward the west, it’s always like, well, we make it west, then it’s usually a tailwind on the way home.
[1:03:45 – 1:03:45] Erik: No.
[1:03:45 – 1:03:49] Erik: It’s literally going to, yeah, but it’s supposed to only be 5 to 10.
[1:03:49 – 1:03:56] Erik: But another good reason just to avoid Tuscarora in general, if you’re going to be any sort of east wind, we just stay off the big water gillis.
[1:03:57 – 1:03:59] Erik: You know, it’ll be our biggest lake tomorrow once we get off a little sag.
[1:03:59 – 1:04:09] Erik: And, you know, even if there’s a 10-mile-an-hour east wind, we’ll just kind of, we’re probably going to come in from French and just hug that north shore and we’ll be fine.
[1:04:09 – 1:04:10] Erik: It’s not a big deal.
[1:04:11 – 1:04:15] Erik: Our arms are willing to handle almost any wind they can throw at us.
[1:04:15 – 1:04:16] Erik: It’s just more of a.
[1:04:17 – 1:04:19] Erik: A feeling that the weather is smoting us at this point.
[1:04:19 – 1:04:22] Erik: Yeah, I mean, we’ve had a little bit of everything.
[1:04:22 – 1:04:24] Erik: I’m kind of glad we got a little cool day with the rain.
[1:04:24 – 1:04:28] Erik: I don’t know if I could have handled another zapper day with the beating sun.
[1:04:28 – 1:04:31] Erik: Honestly, I’m glad we weren’t being hit by the sun all day.
[1:04:31 – 1:04:35] Erik: And honestly, when we came out here, my biggest concern by a lot was bugs.
[1:04:36 – 1:04:36] Erik: Yeah.
[1:04:36 – 1:04:40] Erik: Because of the blackfly situation we were encountering at home just before the trip.
[1:04:41 – 1:04:43] Erik: And they’ve been almost a non-factor.
[1:04:43 – 1:04:47] Erik: And so I’ll take a little bit of weird east wind and some sprinkles that were unexpected.
[1:04:48 – 1:04:49] Erik: Some colder nights.
[1:04:49 – 1:04:52] Erik: The colder nights to not have to deal with black flies.
[1:04:53 – 1:04:53] Erik: Absolutely.
[1:04:54 – 1:04:54] Erik: It has been great.
[1:04:54 – 1:05:03] Erik: There’s been like maybe one pond that we were on where it was like, eh, it’s a little fly-ridden in here, but I haven’t seen a mosquito.
[1:05:03 – 1:05:05] Erik: And the black flies have been pretty much non-existent.
[1:05:05 – 1:05:06] Erik: So…
[1:05:06 – 1:05:19] Erik: With that being said, I feel like once things do get rolling with warmth and some sunny days, I think it’s going to be one for the record books, considering how wet the spring has been and just everything’s poised for a bumper crop.
[1:05:20 – 1:05:25] Erik: Not that that’s what you necessarily want to hear right now, but that’s just my opinion.
[1:05:25 – 1:05:29] Erik: Whenever the bugs get bad, the fishing will get a lot better, too, because we did head out.
[1:05:30 – 1:05:33] Erik: We got in here and set up the rain fly and had some snackage.
[1:05:34 – 1:06:01] Erik: and warmed up a little bit and then we’re like well you know we didn’t we weren’t able to really fish the first day in here so let’s get out it’s nice and calm and we went out and did some trolling and uh kind of scoped out some of the other campsites in the neighborhood and i’m pretty sure we got the best campsite in this neighborhood i mean we didn’t go look at all of them but yeah no luck on the fishing we trolled all the way up and around almost all the way up to the virgin lake portage and kind of back around those islands and
[1:06:02 – 1:06:08] Erik: Just nothing doing, um, Eric, you maybe had like a tip tip tippy tap at one point.
[1:06:09 – 1:06:12] Erik: There was nothing, there was definitely no like shallow water in that neck of the woods.
[1:06:13 – 1:06:16] Erik: And then I finally was like, I’m not getting anything trolling.
[1:06:16 – 1:06:20] Erik: I had the spoon on the dimpled little Cleo and you were rolling an X wrap.
[1:06:20 – 1:06:25] Erik: So then we came around this Island and we’re in this little narrows and I was like, I’m going to just try casting off the front.
[1:06:26 – 1:06:29] Erik: And like, sure enough, like my third cast off the front, I like felt something.
[1:06:30 – 1:06:35] Erik: And then it was like the telltale sign of like, it felt like I was on a underwater tree or something.
[1:06:35 – 1:06:38] Erik: And like I pulled and it just instant snapped.
[1:06:39 – 1:06:41] Erik: So, and I have pretty decent braided line on there.
[1:06:41 – 1:06:46] Erik: So I am pretty sure it wasn’t a fish and I lost my beautiful dimpled spoon.
[1:06:46 – 1:06:51] Erik: So, yeah, I’m 0 for 0 for on all fish, and I lost a lure now.
[1:06:51 – 1:06:58] Erik: That’s why we are Bonjewater’s enthusiasts slash experts, and this is not a fishing podcast.
[1:06:58 – 1:07:00] Erik: I mean, I used to be good at fishing.
[1:07:00 – 1:07:01] Erik: I don’t know what happened.
[1:07:01 – 1:07:05] Erik: I guess it’s just I lost a bit of a passion for it, and I just don’t spend nearly enough time fishing.
[1:07:06 – 1:07:25] Erik: on it to still be good at fishing well things change we have obviously different passions and people that come out here and just want to fish that’s the way they do it and uh we’re i think more travel centric at this point yeah i don’t know i mean i’m just glad we got out and did a little fishing today that’s all that really matters
[1:07:25 – 1:07:27] Erik: We did actually get time to do it, which felt fun.
[1:07:27 – 1:07:30] Erik: And there was the opportunity to run into something.
[1:07:30 – 1:07:35] Erik: And it’s been nice because a lot of times most of our trips are just like, leave the rods behind.
[1:07:35 – 1:07:36] Erik: We need to cover some ground.
[1:07:36 – 1:07:38] Erik: Lately, we’ve been just leaving them behind.
[1:07:38 – 1:07:41] Erik: So we actually had them and we had them strapped in the canoe really nicely.
[1:07:41 – 1:07:42] Erik: So I don’t know.
[1:07:42 – 1:07:46] Erik: I don’t think they’re too big of a burden for you pulling the canoe through the portages.
[1:07:47 – 1:07:47] Erik: I didn’t even notice them.
[1:07:48 – 1:07:49] Erik: Shout out Bungie Dealey Bob’s.
[1:07:49 – 1:07:52] Erik: Bungie Dealey Bob’s really keeping them locked down.
[1:07:52 – 1:07:56] Erik: And we were very pro as far as like putting the packs in and out of the canoe.
[1:07:56 – 1:07:58] Erik: So we didn’t like damage any rod tips on this trip.
[1:07:59 – 1:08:01] Erik: So far, rod tips are in good shape.
[1:08:01 – 1:08:03] Erik: Oh man, it’s starting to feel really good though.
[1:08:03 – 1:08:07] Erik: First trip of the year and like today with all those portages, like I just, we’d get to a landing.
[1:08:07 – 1:08:11] Erik: I’d like, I’d walk down first and just like walk into the lake where I…
[1:08:11 – 1:08:18] Erik: Figured Eric was going to throw the canoe, and he’d come down and throw the canoe, whip the bear barrel in, and I’d drop the big pack in.
[1:08:18 – 1:08:22] Erik: And we’re a really well-oiled machine on the portages today.
[1:08:22 – 1:08:22] Erik: Yeah.
[1:08:22 – 1:08:26] Erik: I was saying earlier, I doubt that there was many people who could run from Adams
[1:08:27 – 1:08:44] Erik: down through beaver and the kushui system and up through the pan system and up through macwalk and elton up to where we got as fast as we did it today we were moving and we were very efficient so that felt good like it’s classic day three thing where you’re just kind of putting it all together
[1:08:44 – 1:08:52] Erik: Yeah, which makes tomorrow, you know, it does, yeah, 13 portages sounds like a lot, but, you know, our food pack is going to be pretty much empty.
[1:08:53 – 1:09:03] Erik: And then the overall feelings and knowing how to get in and out of the canoe the way that we are, you know, it’s going to be pretty quick.
[1:09:03 – 1:09:05] Erik: And they’re all short and…
[1:09:06 – 1:09:29] Erik: yeah besides the east wind um i’m anticipating a early to mid-afternoon lunch at trail center yeah we’ll probably get out of here a little earlier than we have the last couple mornings um just because we’re not like doing a big to-do over breakfast it’ll just be kind of like eating up all the snack pack lunch leftovers at this point as we move so we’ll probably get up have a little coffee and get packed up and
[1:09:30 – 1:09:34] Erik: Yeah, I figure we’ll be at a trail center for lunch, no problemo.
[1:09:35 – 1:09:46] Erik: And then it’s always nice to get home and have an afternoon and evening to kind of unwind and clean yourself up and kind of get the pack and gear kind of put away and out to dry or what have you.
[1:09:46 – 1:09:50] Erik: And I usually just leave my pack in the back of the Tribute for like three weeks.
[1:09:50 – 1:09:56] Erik: Yeah, you almost want to let that pack ferment a little bit just to let it start to cook, if you will.
[1:09:57 – 1:09:58] Erik: Yeah, it’s like camp food.
[1:09:59 – 1:10:00] Erik: Camp kombucha.
[1:10:00 – 1:10:04] Erik: Yeah, you got to make a little scoby in that bear barrel on the bottom.
[1:10:04 – 1:10:08] Erik: Yeah, then you can really get into it and trade it with your friends.
[1:10:08 – 1:10:10] Erik: Then you can just make the staff clean it later.
[1:10:10 – 1:10:11] Erik: Yeah.
[1:10:12 – 1:10:13] Erik: No, guys.
[1:10:13 – 1:10:13] Erik: I would never.
[1:10:13 – 1:10:14] Erik: No.
[1:10:14 – 1:10:15] Erik: I would never.
[1:10:15 – 1:10:15] Erik: All right.
[1:10:15 – 1:10:21] Erik: Well, we’re going to take a break, and we’re going to do an evening campsite review.
[1:10:21 – 1:10:22] Erik: We are for a couple of reasons.
[1:10:22 – 1:10:24] Erik: One being we just want to kind of get moving in the morning.
[1:10:26 – 1:10:27] Erik: Two being the sun’s kind of popped out now.
[1:10:27 – 1:10:29] Erik: We’re going to get the video going.
[1:10:29 – 1:10:30] Erik: It’s really pretty out here.
[1:10:31 – 1:10:39] Erik: And three being we’ve got everything set up really nice, and so it will be kind of a reverse of what we’ve been showing is just,
[1:10:39 – 1:10:43] Erik: Here’s what camp looks like all set up and ready to go.
[1:10:43 – 1:10:51] Erik: We’re going to come back at you in a bit after a break with our Little Sag 9 campsite review.
[1:10:51 – 1:10:52] Erik: It won’t be staged.
[1:10:59 – 1:11:07] Erik: Welcome to Saginaga, Little Saginaga, Little Sag 9.
[1:11:08 – 1:11:09] Erik: Little Saganaga.
[1:11:10 – 1:11:32] Erik: review it’s a little sebastian’s favorite campsite and and one of mine i would say um just generally pulling up to this thing we’re out on the big rock point and that’s the first thing you see and uh it’s quite a striking campsite and look at this view also another nice view
[1:11:32 – 1:11:37] Erik: We’ve had two campsites on Little Sag with very nice views.
[1:11:37 – 1:11:44] Erik: We’re not going to give the grade right away, but we’re fortunate campers on this trip.
[1:11:44 – 1:11:48] Erik: Yeah, I still can’t believe we haven’t really seen anybody else out here.
[1:11:48 – 1:11:55] Erik: The first night we saw a fire over yonder, we never saw another boat on the water on Little Sag so far.
[1:11:55 – 1:11:57] Erik: And today we were out fishing.
[1:11:57 – 1:11:58] Erik: We paddled in from Elton.
[1:11:59 – 1:12:00] Erik: No activity.
[1:12:00 – 1:12:02] Erik: Every campsite we’ve seen is empty.
[1:12:02 – 1:12:06] Erik: No campers, like not even a canoe, just kind of around.
[1:12:06 – 1:12:07] Erik: So I don’t know.
[1:12:07 – 1:12:08] Erik: It’s early.
[1:12:08 – 1:12:10] Erik: It is a Monday, the first Monday in June.
[1:12:10 – 1:12:11] Erik: It’s still June.
[1:12:12 – 1:12:13] Erik: Yeah, it is June.
[1:12:13 – 1:12:14] Erik: But, you know.
[1:12:14 – 1:12:19] Erik: This campsite seems like it just generally doesn’t get as much use.
[1:12:19 – 1:12:28] Erik: There was literally a birch tree with birch bark hanging off of it in, like, arm’s distance to the latrine.
[1:12:28 – 1:12:32] Erik: And, like, usually those things you would just be, like, stripped down to the wood.
[1:12:32 – 1:12:33] Erik: And it was nice.
[1:12:33 – 1:12:34] Erik: You could just, like…
[1:12:34 – 1:12:36] Erik: I didn’t even have to, like, touch it.
[1:12:36 – 1:12:38] Erik: It was just, like, scraps on the ground I grabbed.
[1:12:38 – 1:12:38] Erik: So…
[1:12:40 – 1:12:47] Erik: The main reason that we’re starting down at the tip of this point here is one of the most interesting things I’ve seen at a campsite.
[1:12:47 – 1:12:48] Erik: Absolutely.
[1:12:48 – 1:12:52] Erik: Is, by all accounts, an old fire grate.
[1:12:52 – 1:12:54] Erik: Let’s take a look at this thing.
[1:12:54 – 1:12:56] Erik: It’s clearly an old fire grate.
[1:12:57 – 1:13:01] Erik: You got your four post corners, which I don’t know if they jackhammer that in.
[1:13:02 – 1:13:05] Erik: I mean, it’s like, I don’t know, do they drill those in?
[1:13:06 – 1:13:06] Erik: Huge holes.
[1:13:06 – 1:13:10] Erik: Like, this seems like a little, I mean.
[1:13:10 – 1:13:11] Erik: It’s crazy.
[1:13:11 – 1:13:13] Erik: A little aggressive for a fire break set.
[1:13:14 – 1:13:15] Erik: I mean, look where it is.
[1:13:15 – 1:13:17] Erik: I mean, we’re on either side.
[1:13:17 – 1:13:19] Erik: What were you sitting?
[1:13:19 – 1:13:22] Erik: Sitting right here, I assume, and it was facing that way.
[1:13:22 – 1:13:26] Erik: It must have been like an intern who was like, ooh, yeah, let’s put it right next to the light.
[1:13:26 – 1:13:42] Erik: so then somebody came out here and overruled this because yeah like you’re just all your ash is just gonna go right into the lake well yeah at the end of the day like you’re all right so you put your fire on there’s some ash or whatever and then it rains and it’s just gonna like slick down this cliff and it’s also not flat
[1:13:42 – 1:13:45] Erik: It’s just kind of a crazy thing.
[1:13:45 – 1:13:49] Erik: You maybe get a couple of seats right here, but then like, watch out.
[1:13:49 – 1:13:52] Erik: Somebody’s going to tip backwards off the cliff here.
[1:13:52 – 1:13:54] Erik: I mean, it’s not safe.
[1:13:54 – 1:13:57] Erik: So, I don’t know, pretty comical.
[1:13:58 – 1:14:06] Erik: I’ve never seen a like, you’ve kind of like seen spots where like, yeah, maybe the fire grate used to be over here, but I’ve never seen one where it’s just sawed off like this.
[1:14:06 – 1:14:09] Erik: They just came in here and I don’t know how you get that out of there.
[1:14:09 – 1:14:12] Erik: Steel fire grate, you just cut it out.
[1:14:12 – 1:14:13] Erik: How do they even get it out?
[1:14:14 – 1:14:14] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:14:14 – 1:14:15] Erik: Do you got to weld that out?
[1:14:15 – 1:14:16] Erik: Like, just blast it?
[1:14:17 – 1:14:17] Erik: I have no idea.
[1:14:17 – 1:14:18] Erik: I have no idea.
[1:14:18 – 1:14:20] Erik: Are welders allowed in this place?
[1:14:20 – 1:14:23] Erik: No, but neither are seaplanes, and they’re in here all over the place.
[1:14:23 – 1:14:35] Erik: So, yeah, we’ll just give you a quick little tour down to the water gathering hole over here slash lake trout alley casting point.
[1:14:35 – 1:14:36] Erik: Yeah, yeah.
[1:14:44 – 1:14:45] Erik: Nice little ledge here.
[1:14:45 – 1:14:47] Erik: You can… Easy scooping.
[1:14:47 – 1:14:49] Erik: Scoop your water.
[1:14:49 – 1:14:51] Erik: Maybe even do some swimming in the summer.
[1:14:51 – 1:14:53] Erik: That looks like a pretty nice drop.
[1:14:53 – 1:14:54] Erik: Oh, it’s dropping off pretty good.
[1:14:54 – 1:14:56] Erik: And it’s nice and deep in this channel here.
[1:14:57 – 1:15:04] Erik: The distant hills, the distant burnt-up hills of Gabi, Michigami, from a different view.
[1:15:04 – 1:15:10] Erik: Yeah, and I think with a nice big spoon, you could easily just cast right across this Narrows.
[1:15:11 – 1:15:17] Erik: Especially the way the wind’s blowing in here, I definitely think we’ll try some casts tonight and for sure in the morning.
[1:15:18 – 1:15:20] Erik: Got to give it your five casts in the morning just to see.
[1:15:21 – 1:15:28] Erik: We’re gonna walk up and continue reviewing the campsite, but also look at, for at least the viewers,
[1:15:29 – 1:15:38] Erik: What our campsite typically looks like, I would say, in all honesty, probably a little bit cleaner than usual.
[1:15:38 – 1:15:41] Erik: Not necessarily cleaner, but not quite as strewn.
[1:15:41 – 1:15:42] Erik: Well, we got here.
[1:15:42 – 1:15:47] Erik: Everything, you know, we put up that green, the big CCS 10×10 rainfly right away.
[1:15:47 – 1:15:53] Erik: And then we had everything just kind of puked out of our bags underneath there, and our chairs were there for a while.
[1:15:53 – 1:15:57] Erik: So we’ve gotten a chance now to just kind of get all set up for the night.
[1:15:57 – 1:15:57] Erik: Yeah.
[1:15:58 – 1:16:03] Erik: Yeah, it’s kind of looking a little cleaned up, but I don’t know where stuff is.
[1:16:03 – 1:16:06] Erik: Yeah, it wasn’t like I was up there vacuuming or something.
[1:16:06 – 1:16:07] Erik: You weren’t raking?
[1:16:07 – 1:16:08] Erik: I didn’t rake either, yeah.
[1:16:08 – 1:16:17] Erik: I mean, it looks like it was raked, and everybody knows you want to rake the forest floor just to make it nice and to prevent forest fires.
[1:16:17 – 1:16:20] Erik: Anybody who knows anything knows you’ve got to rake the forest floor.
[1:16:21 – 1:16:25] Erik: But this one actually looks, I’m kind of joking, but this one looks like somebody was up here raking.
[1:16:25 – 1:16:26] Erik: It’s really in nice shape.
[1:16:26 – 1:16:41] Erik: We did come in, and it was – I mean, we’ve been at awesome sites just, like, infrastructure-wise, but they’ve also been besides the Bobby and Rex hackings of Cedars on Adams yesterday, this morning.
[1:16:41 – 1:16:46] Erik: Like, they’ve been, like, actually not bad, like, where there’s not a ton of crap in the fire grate.
[1:16:46 – 1:16:51] Erik: I mean, I guess we found some underwear, but this – That was – yeah.
[1:16:51 – 1:16:52] Erik: That was unacceptable.
[1:16:52 – 1:16:53] Erik: Unacceptable.
[1:16:53 – 1:16:59] Erik: And this site, though, it was like the fire grate looked like it was like it had like one fire in it.
[1:16:59 – 1:17:03] Erik: It was crazy because they just took it out of the rock over here and moved it up there.
[1:17:04 – 1:17:05] Erik: And maybe, who knows?
[1:17:05 – 1:17:05] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:17:06 – 1:17:07] Erik: But, yeah, it looks really nice.
[1:17:07 – 1:17:11] Erik: And then you’ll see, too, the way that like the logs are set up.
[1:17:11 – 1:17:13] Erik: It’s really interesting.
[1:17:14 – 1:17:16] Erik: I’ve never seen a fire grate area set up this way.
[1:17:16 – 1:17:18] Erik: So let’s go up and have a look.
[1:17:18 – 1:17:18] Erik: Let’s do it.
[1:17:20 – 1:17:21] Erik: Too excited.
[1:17:22 – 1:17:24] Erik: Let’s do it.
[1:17:24 – 1:17:25] Erik: Yeah.
[1:17:25 – 1:17:31] Erik: Some nice gravel on the way up here.
[1:17:32 – 1:17:34] Erik: Again, we’re going to be sitting up high above the lake.
[1:17:34 – 1:17:40] Erik: But, of course, we’ve got some randomly hacked shrubs.
[1:17:40 – 1:17:42] Erik: I don’t know why.
[1:17:42 – 1:17:44] Erik: Why would you do that to these poor little witch shrubs?
[1:17:44 – 1:17:46] Erik: It looks like somebody had some whoppers out here.
[1:17:46 – 1:17:47] Erik: It does.
[1:17:47 – 1:17:48] Erik: Maybe they did.
[1:17:49 – 1:18:15] Erik: so yeah two big two big long logs um with the fire grate in between and uh yeah i’ve never seen this form before i love it it is a nice form and for anybody watching uh you can clearly see uh the discrepancy in chairs it’s kind of ridiculous
[1:18:15 – 1:18:20] Erik: It is comical and ridiculous how much bigger that chair is compared to yours.
[1:18:21 – 1:18:21] Erik: Yes.
[1:18:22 – 1:18:23] Erik: But they’re both comfortable.
[1:18:24 – 1:18:24] Erik: Whatever.
[1:18:24 – 1:18:26] Erik: Yours packs down a lot smaller.
[1:18:26 – 1:18:26] Erik: Yes.
[1:18:28 – 1:18:28] Erik: Clearly.
[1:18:30 – 1:18:36] Erik: But just the way that this is perched and how flat everything is and, like, seriously clean.
[1:18:37 – 1:18:37] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:37 – 1:18:44] Erik: That’s a nice, like, we’ve obviously got a little firewood pile here.
[1:18:45 – 1:18:51] Erik: But when we walked up here, it was just, like, a little tiny pile of, like, twigs for kindling.
[1:18:51 – 1:18:51] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:51 – 1:18:55] Erik: And then, like, a nice neat little stack of, like, perfect little burning logs.
[1:18:55 – 1:18:55] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:55 – 1:19:00] Erik: Do you see the big thing of, we got to get this birch horn out here.
[1:19:01 – 1:19:02] Erik: Oh, yes, and then there’s a large.
[1:19:02 – 1:19:06] Erik: So this is right after we did the track with the airplane flying over, and I found this.
[1:19:07 – 1:19:07] Erik: Look at this thing.
[1:19:11 – 1:19:16] Erik: Welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[1:19:17 – 1:19:19] Erik: Quit flying airplanes around here.
[1:19:19 – 1:19:20] Erik: Get out and get it.
[1:19:21 – 1:19:24] Erik: Yeah, so it came with a natural megaphone.
[1:19:25 – 1:19:25] Erik: Crazy.
[1:19:25 – 1:19:28] Erik: Got to give that extra points for the natural megaphone.
[1:19:28 – 1:19:34] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know if we can bring ourselves to actually use that, but it’s right there for us if we need it.
[1:19:34 – 1:19:36] Erik: Ruining somebody else’s wilderness.
[1:19:36 – 1:19:37] Erik: There’s nobody else out here.
[1:19:37 – 1:19:39] Erik: We’ve already established that.
[1:19:41 – 1:19:43] Erik: Yeah, so look at the way the fire grate’s set up, too.
[1:19:43 – 1:19:46] Erik: I love these rocks they’ve picked out for it.
[1:19:47 – 1:19:49] Erik: Look at this back rock in particular.
[1:19:50 – 1:19:53] Erik: Like this thing was made to be on the back of a fire grate.
[1:19:54 – 1:19:58] Erik: And we have our maps and rum on top of this thing.
[1:19:59 – 1:20:02] Erik: But you can see it is a new style, thin fire grate.
[1:20:03 – 1:20:05] Erik: You could definitely pizza bite around this, no problem.
[1:20:06 – 1:20:08] Erik: Any kind of frozen goods, yeah.
[1:20:08 – 1:20:14] Erik: Any kind of frozen oil-filled tube you could easily cook on the fire grate here.
[1:20:14 – 1:20:16] Erik: Yeah, this fire grate’s in immaculate shape, though.
[1:20:16 – 1:20:19] Erik: These rocks on all sides are just perfect.
[1:20:19 – 1:20:25] Erik: You got this, not a lot of rock for, like, you know, a table rock, but this thing is really nice and perfect.
[1:20:25 – 1:20:27] Erik: Oh, and it came with a couple of the bobby sticks.
[1:20:27 – 1:20:30] Erik: Couple extra bobby sticks just for poking at the fire later.
[1:20:30 – 1:20:41] Erik: But, I mean, like, I think part of the reason why it looks so neat is there’s only, like, four rocks surrounding the whole fire grate instead of, like, that kind of jumble.
[1:20:41 – 1:20:42] Erik: Right.
[1:20:42 – 1:20:43] Erik: No jumble.
[1:20:44 – 1:20:47] Erik: So the fire grate for me is an A.
[1:20:47 – 1:20:47] Erik: A.
[1:20:48 – 1:21:10] Erik: no problem for sure for sure a and it didn’t come with this but um at this point and you can’t smell it i know but it is next to the fire grate a very nice very aromatic let me get that in there that’s some nice split cedar there boy i can’t wait to get a fire going
[1:21:11 – 1:21:13] Erik: Yeah, we got a really nice pile of firewood here.
[1:21:14 – 1:21:18] Erik: We’re going to be well set up, so no complaints there.
[1:21:19 – 1:21:21] Erik: High grades for the fire grade, and then you got this beautiful view.
[1:21:21 – 1:21:25] Erik: Nicely elevated again over the lake.
[1:21:25 – 1:21:29] Erik: We’re almost looking back on 20, where we stayed on Saturday night.
[1:21:29 – 1:21:31] Erik: It’s just around the corner.
[1:21:32 – 1:21:36] Erik: When we were out fishing, you could actually see it, and it doesn’t look like there’s anybody over there, so…
[1:21:36 – 1:21:41] Erik: We were joking about camping at the campsite that we saw people having a fire at on night one.
[1:21:42 – 1:21:42] Erik: Yeah.
[1:21:42 – 1:21:48] Erik: And then we also ended up talking about how it could be like a coherence situation.
[1:21:48 – 1:21:48] Erik: Right.
[1:21:48 – 1:21:49] Erik: If you’ve seen that movie.
[1:21:50 – 1:21:58] Erik: We’re going to be camped out and then look across and there’s going to be people on the other campsite with blue glow sticks and we’re going to also have red glow sticks and
[1:21:58 – 1:22:02] Erik: Who are those crazy guys over there having a wild campfire?
[1:22:02 – 1:22:06] Erik: I mean, there’s at least a 5% chance that it was us over there somehow.
[1:22:07 – 1:22:08] Erik: Maybe another dimension.
[1:22:09 – 1:22:12] Erik: Yeah, another dimension or from, like, in the future or in the past.
[1:22:12 – 1:22:13] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:14 – 1:22:14] Erik: Who knows?
[1:22:15 – 1:22:18] Erik: Yeah, solid A on the fire grade for many reasons.
[1:22:18 – 1:22:24] Erik: I’ve never done a trip where we’ve stayed on the same lake twice but not in consecutive nights.
[1:22:25 – 1:22:32] Erik: It’s been very unique, and the figure eight trip style is maybe going to be something that happens more in the future.
[1:22:32 – 1:22:33] Erik: Yeah, interesting.
[1:22:33 – 1:22:33] Erik: I like it.
[1:22:34 – 1:22:35] Erik: I’m really liking it, too.
[1:22:35 – 1:22:36] Erik: I’m glad we got back to Little Sag.
[1:22:36 – 1:22:37] Erik: The double helix style.
[1:22:38 – 1:22:39] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:40 – 1:22:40] Erik: Absolutely.
[1:22:40 – 1:22:42] Erik: All right, let’s check out these hammock sets.
[1:22:42 – 1:22:43] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:43 – 1:22:45] Erik: I’m pretty proud of these hammock sets.
[1:22:45 – 1:22:56] Erik: So yeah, we put up the 10×10 here right away and then laid the hammock in underneath it later once we were done using it as like a snacking portfolio.
[1:22:57 – 1:22:58] Erik: We got the party lights back.
[1:22:58 – 1:23:03] Erik: I know earlier in this trip I said we were packing light and I had left the party lights at home.
[1:23:04 – 1:23:09] Erik: Well, they were actually in the pouch of the hammock.
[1:23:09 – 1:23:11] Erik: They aren’t real party lights.
[1:23:11 – 1:23:12] Erik: They’re more of a fairy light.
[1:23:13 – 1:23:22] Erik: They’re not very long, but trust me, once it gets a little darker here, the ambiance is going to be well worth the zero ounces of weight they cost us.
[1:23:22 – 1:23:23] Erik: All right.
[1:23:26 – 1:23:29] Erik: I think these are from our wedding, but I’m not sure.
[1:23:29 – 1:23:32] Erik: They don’t look like they take up any room or weight.
[1:23:32 – 1:23:33] Erik: I can’t believe the batteries still work.
[1:23:33 – 1:23:38] Erik: It’s like a single wire with a tiny little light like every inch and a half.
[1:23:39 – 1:23:39] Erik: Yeah.
[1:23:39 – 1:23:42] Erik: They were very nice that night, though, just a little accent.
[1:23:42 – 1:23:43] Erik: Just a little charm.
[1:23:43 – 1:23:43] Erik: Yeah.
[1:23:44 – 1:23:47] Erik: So, yeah, I got a really nice spot here right at the edge.
[1:23:48 – 1:23:49] Erik: Got the fly up.
[1:23:49 – 1:23:54] Erik: You know, there is a good chance of rain tonight and in the morning, so it’s just nice to have it up.
[1:23:55 – 1:23:56] Erik: Got the pro set.
[1:23:56 – 1:23:59] Erik: People are like, maybe this hammock set a little too tall.
[1:24:00 – 1:24:00] Erik: Nonsense.
[1:24:01 – 1:24:02] Erik: Nonsense.
[1:24:02 – 1:24:05] Erik: This is right where you want it, and it’s perfectly level.
[1:24:05 – 1:24:09] Erik: You want to check that the carabiner at that end is also at the same level.
[1:24:10 – 1:24:14] Erik: On that end, you don’t want to have a situation like I did night one where I had one side a little too high.
[1:24:14 – 1:24:19] Erik: It was a real bozo maneuver, and then you’re kind of like sliding in your hammock all night.
[1:24:20 – 1:24:26] Erik: You want to just be level so you can sit with your hot water bottle and sweet, sweet dreams.
[1:24:27 – 1:24:30] Erik: The acoustics and the lighting is going to be odd in here.
[1:24:31 – 1:24:32] Erik: The custom sewing.
[1:24:33 – 1:24:34] Erik: Yeah, it’s a fine product.
[1:24:34 – 1:24:35] Erik: Very nice.
[1:24:35 – 1:24:38] Erik: Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve actually had to set this up.
[1:24:38 – 1:24:46] Erik: Usually I, like, tie all the little P-cord ropes up and have them in nice, like, bunches for cleanliness and just ease of deployment.
[1:24:46 – 1:24:49] Erik: But we pulled this thing out, and it was just a jumbled mess of knots.
[1:24:50 – 1:24:52] Erik: It was like, wow, pack up, we got to go.
[1:24:52 – 1:24:56] Erik: Having two people working on this, it was up pretty quick.
[1:24:56 – 1:24:57] Erik: Got a nice rock here.
[1:24:57 – 1:25:00] Erik: I can have a… You can almost do, like, a shelf.
[1:25:01 – 1:25:01] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[1:25:01 – 1:25:07] Erik: For easy reaching of late night, early morning drink.
[1:25:07 – 1:25:10] Erik: Who knows what you’re going to need.
[1:25:10 – 1:25:12] Erik: Oh, man.
[1:25:12 – 1:25:14] Erik: I was snoring it up pretty hard last night.
[1:25:15 – 1:25:16] Erik: We’ve got a nice tree here.
[1:25:17 – 1:25:22] Erik: Obviously, podcast listeners wanted to see the life jacket slash water hanging tree.
[1:25:22 – 1:25:26] Erik: But we’ve got a nice little station here for that.
[1:25:26 – 1:25:32] Erik: And then you can also, again, see the juxtaposition between somebody who takes their life seriously on the water.
[1:25:34 – 1:25:58] Erik: what is this this child this life jacket is i’m so embarrassed by it and honestly on this trip it’s i’ve come to realize like i need to invest in a reasonable life uh jacket at this point yeah for many reasons the uh front little pockets that keep things from getting crushed you throw stuff in there and it’s right there this thing’s not worth a damn except for you can put little carabiners on it and then you can attach water bottles to it so i’ve been a really good
[1:25:58 – 1:26:13] Erik: water mule you have been mulling it very nicely for us i mean it keeps riding up and rubbing on my neck while i’m paddling this thing’s a joke honestly uh i feel again i’m a little embarrassed by having this is my life jacket at this point in my paddling career
[1:26:14 – 1:26:14] Erik: Pretty sad.
[1:26:14 – 1:26:15] Erik: It makes you who you are.
[1:26:16 – 1:26:24] Erik: But yeah, so I think if you wanted to, you could maybe say that where your hammock is would be a tent pad, and I think you could say the same thing for where mine is.
[1:26:24 – 1:26:30] Erik: Yeah, even in front of the fire grate area is flat enough, you could pop one out there on the point.
[1:26:30 – 1:26:30] Erik: Yeah, maybe.
[1:26:30 – 1:26:33] Erik: And then there is also one way back in the woods.
[1:26:33 – 1:26:38] Erik: So four, for sure, three tent pads, probably four.
[1:26:39 – 1:26:42] Erik: And then, yeah, basically the same thing happening here.
[1:26:42 – 1:26:50] Erik: But this is just my hammock set with a little bit of the same thing going on, just a little bit different.
[1:26:51 – 1:26:53] Erik: I’ve got the Therm-a-Rest in there.
[1:26:53 – 1:26:57] Erik: So it looks like there, if you’re watching, maybe a human of some sort is in there.
[1:26:57 – 1:26:58] Erik: It’s just a Therm-a-Rest.
[1:26:58 – 1:26:58] Erik: Don’t worry.
[1:27:00 – 1:27:04] Erik: Yeah, again, pretty much as many hammocks as you want to get in here.
[1:27:05 – 1:27:11] Erik: I think if you’re watching again, you can clearly see there are multiple options for nice trees.
[1:27:11 – 1:27:12] Erik: We’re nice and elevated here.
[1:27:14 – 1:27:16] Erik: Do we want a quick walk down to the…
[1:27:17 – 1:27:25] Erik: I think when we came up on this spot, it looked like, hey, this looks cool, but the landing’s a little shady.
[1:27:25 – 1:27:27] Erik: I don’t know how we’re going to get up there.
[1:27:27 – 1:27:30] Erik: Where we started, that’s what we saw at first.
[1:27:30 – 1:27:34] Erik: It was like, yeah, we could land there, but then we got to carry the canoe up this rock shelf.
[1:27:34 – 1:27:35] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:27:35 – 1:27:37] Erik: Not ideal, but it could work.
[1:27:37 – 1:27:41] Erik: But then we came around the backside, and I think we should walk down there.
[1:27:41 – 1:27:43] Erik: It’s a beautiful little marina down there.
[1:27:43 – 1:27:45] Erik: I think it’s what makes it what it is.
[1:27:46 – 1:27:52] Erik: I love it when there’s like a little backdoor marina on it where it’s not just coming into the front of the camp.
[1:27:52 – 1:27:56] Erik: You kind of park back there, and then you walk back up to the prominence.
[1:27:56 – 1:27:56] Erik: Yeah.
[1:27:57 – 1:28:00] Erik: No, it’s like basically it’s like the garage of the site.
[1:28:00 – 1:28:00] Erik: Yeah.
[1:28:01 – 1:28:05] Erik: On our way down there, I haven’t made it over to the latrine yet.
[1:28:06 – 1:28:07] Erik: What do you got to say about it?
[1:28:07 – 1:28:09] Erik: Is it in reasonable shape at least?
[1:28:10 – 1:28:10] Erik: You said there was no lid.
[1:28:10 – 1:28:11] Erik: Yeah.
[1:28:11 – 1:28:12] Erik: No lid.
[1:28:12 – 1:28:14] Erik: I don’t know if I necessarily need to go back to the latrine.
[1:28:15 – 1:28:16] Erik: We’re not going back there.
[1:28:18 – 1:28:20] Erik: So it’s not taking points away from the site.
[1:28:20 – 1:28:21] UNKNOWN: No, not at all.
[1:28:30 – 1:28:30] Erik: Perfect.
[1:28:31 – 1:28:54] Erik: individual sandy marina landing yeah which i don’t know how many times this has happened and i think people that are listening to this show people even if they’re not listening have probably seen my campsite reviews on clearwater
[1:28:55 – 1:29:00] Erik: I’m not handing out high grades on those just because.
[1:29:00 – 1:29:03] Erik: I think I probably actually grade them a little bit harsher.
[1:29:03 – 1:29:10] Erik: You’re a tough grader, and there’s a lot of reviews out there where you get low grades for various aspects of a campsite.
[1:29:11 – 1:29:16] Erik: When it doesn’t deserve a high grade, you’re not afraid to give out the correct grade.
[1:29:16 – 1:29:21] Erik: Right, and I’m not doing this because we are out here talking about them.
[1:29:22 – 1:29:26] Erik: But I think we’ve gotten three A campsites in a row.
[1:29:27 – 1:29:28] Erik: Yeah, triple A.
[1:29:29 – 1:29:35] Erik: The fact that nobody else is out here, we would have paddled around until we found a campsite that was probably an A.
[1:29:35 – 1:29:37] Erik: But you never really know until you move into one.
[1:29:37 – 1:29:38] Erik: Yeah, right.
[1:29:39 – 1:29:43] Erik: We did pass a couple, and it was like, oh, that one’s kind of up on a little perch.
[1:29:43 – 1:29:46] Erik: That one looks okay, and we could make it work.
[1:29:46 – 1:29:52] Erik: But all of a sudden, like, we found this spot, and it kind of looked like it had potential on the map.
[1:29:54 – 1:29:59] Erik: You know, we’ll, I guess we can maybe, we’ll point it out on a map and throw it in the show notes.
[1:29:59 – 1:30:04] Erik: I don’t think we specifically said where we are, but we’re kind of on the island in basically the middle.
[1:30:05 – 1:30:06] Erik: Middle Western.
[1:30:06 – 1:30:13] Erik: Middle Western, about a mile northwest of where we spent night one, which we did a really good job of describing where that was.
[1:30:13 – 1:30:13] Erik: I think so.
[1:30:13 – 1:30:13] Erik: But.
[1:30:14 – 1:30:19] Erik: So yeah, just to say, we’re not just saying we’re camping at A campsites.
[1:30:19 – 1:30:24] Erik: These are three solid campsites that we’ve spent three nights at.
[1:30:24 – 1:30:28] Erik: I feel incredibly fortunate, and I don’t think there’s…
[1:30:30 – 1:30:38] Erik: too many intangibles to really apply to this site yet, you know, where you can say, like, well, there are fresh blueberries growing in the site or anything like that.
[1:30:38 – 1:30:41] Erik: Just, like, all year long, this seems like a solid spot.
[1:30:41 – 1:30:42] Erik: I think so.
[1:30:42 – 1:30:47] Erik: I mean, you might be a little hard-pressed to…
[1:30:48 – 1:30:53] Erik: get four canoes pulled up here, but if you did it right, you just have one person land at a time.
[1:30:53 – 1:30:57] Erik: It’s kind of like this perfect little, like I said, it seems like it’s like a garage, like a ramp.
[1:30:58 – 1:30:58] Erik: It is.
[1:30:58 – 1:31:06] Erik: Just to pull up, and then you walk up, and you’ve got a nice little elevated, flat, well-kept campsite, and not too much…
[1:31:08 – 1:31:30] Erik: uncle rexing going on up there with the hatcheting uncle rex and bobby uh characters that have just been developed on this trip they’re character characters of very real people who are in the boundary waters at all times so yeah i don’t think a lot of people that are listening to this show are uncle rex’s or bobby’s themselves but i think we all maybe know one
[1:31:31 – 1:31:31] Erik: Right, yeah.
[1:31:31 – 1:31:33] Erik: So, like, that’s another part of it.
[1:31:33 – 1:31:38] Erik: Like, we didn’t want to take too much away from the site on Adams for a lot of that.
[1:31:38 – 1:31:38] Erik: Yeah.
[1:31:38 – 1:31:47] Erik: But the one nice thing about this site is it doesn’t seem to have any of that, like, heavy… Yeah, no deductions are necessary here.
[1:31:47 – 1:31:48] Erik: Heavy, dumb cuttings.
[1:31:49 – 1:31:49] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[1:31:49 – 1:31:50] Erik: Not really any of it.
[1:31:50 – 1:31:53] Erik: It’s overall really clean and just a beautiful sight.
[1:31:53 – 1:31:55] Erik: So, yeah, I think we’ve already said it.
[1:31:55 – 1:31:56] Erik: It’s getting an A.
[1:31:56 – 1:31:58] Erik: Three A’s in a row.
[1:31:58 – 1:31:59] Erik: Three A’s in three nights.
[1:31:59 – 1:32:00] Erik: Triple A trip.
[1:32:01 – 1:32:03] Erik: That’s a new way of putting it.
[1:32:03 – 1:32:03] Erik: It’s a AAA trip.
[1:32:03 – 1:32:04] Erik: Yeah, nice.
[1:32:04 – 1:32:05] Erik: Exactly.
[1:32:05 – 1:32:10] Erik: So, yeah, I think that’s it for the campsite review, and we’re going to get a little fire going here.
[1:32:11 – 1:32:19] Erik: If there is any additional comments on the site, maybe we’ll come back around the campfire, but every time we say that, it never happens.
[1:32:19 – 1:32:19] Erik: Wow.
[1:32:20 – 1:32:35] Erik: We’ll probably check back on the move tomorrow to end out the show here, but I think we got a lot of material on this episode, and it’s been a big couple days on our way into Adams and then getting all the way back out here, so big trip overall.
[1:32:36 – 1:32:36] Erik: Yeah.
[1:32:36 – 1:32:37] Erik: But I’m feeling great.
[1:32:38 – 1:32:40] Erik: Double helix, amen.
[1:32:41 – 1:32:44] Erik: All right, thanks for being here, and we’ll check you tomorrow morning.
[1:32:45 – 1:32:46] Erik: Bye.