Thursday, September 18, 2008

Day 10: 08-19-08 Tuesday


















Lakes / Rivers: Palisade River, Slim Lake and Scrag Lake

Distance: 12.75 km (8.0 miles)

Portages: 3

Swifts: 1

Pullovers: 1

Time: 3:12

It was a cooler morning this morning. When I got up at 0230 am, the moon was still shining bright preventing me from seeing all the stars that I know were up in the sky. I could only see a couple of them.

Pete got up five minutes after my alarm went off at 0525 am. He packed up his gear prior to getting out of the tent. I did the same once he was out of the tent.

When I walked down to the fire where I saw that the river was like glass. Dick was also up. A quick cool light breeze came up, but it stopped as fast as it came.

I walked down to the waters edge and took some photos of the early morning skies.

Like clock work as soon as Dave got up he began preparing breakfast. This morning’s menu was scrambled eggs with onion and mushrooms, potato pancakes and coffee.

Yesterday Pete was in a quiet mood. He slept in late, but when he came out for breakfast he never poured himself any coffee. He also stopped smoking a couple days ago.

It’s pretty quiet in camp this morning.

Pete and I were on the water at 0749 am. The mornings paddle had some coolness to it as the fog lifted off the water. I was the only one in a short sleeve shirt. The sun was up and I figured it wouldn’t take to long before it got warm out.

As I paddle down the Palisade I keep looking up on shore to the high ridges while commenting to myself what a special area. We passed the points of interest from yesterdays paddle.










We got to the first portage that I stepped off earlier at 96 steps. There are three boats cached here. Pete took his canoe across the portage, then Dave took his canoe. Dave told me that when Dick came across the portage with a pack that Dick fell head first down the steep rock face to the water with the pack on his back. Dick was very lucky he didn’t do any serious injury to his body. Dick did get some scrapes on his face and he lost the lens out of his glasses. Dick has been having problems on the portages on this trip. The decision was made that Dick was not to carry anymore packs across the portages to prevent him from receiving any further injuries that would cause us to end our trip prematurely.

We scraped the bottom of Pete’s canoe when we paddled the next swift. Next up was a portage that we had to walk coming upstream because of the fast moving water. We weren’t able to paddle up it. Going downstream we had no problem paddling through, but right after that we had to get out of the canoe and pretty much drag the canoe on its side through a small opening to the other side.

It wasn’t long after we got through this area that we were in new territory of Slim Lake. About 5 km was another 167 meter portage. There was a cairn marking the beginning of this portage. This portage is just to the right of the lowlands that went to the east. There were two cairns along the trail as well as a cairn at the end of the portage.

This portage took us to a small unnamed lake. We crossed the lake to the SE to get to the next portage that would take us to Scrag Lake.

The portage into Scrag Lake was 212 meters long. There were two new blazes and a rock cairn marking the beginning of this portage. There were three trees over the trail when we walked it. This portage starts with a very steep incline up a rock face, and then there were a few cairns marking the way. Further down the trail was a muddy section we had to go through.

The last two portages didn’t seem to have gotten the use as some of the other portages we’ve been on. Maybe more people are coming into Scrag Lake from the south through Little Scrag Lake.

There was a blaze and a rock cairn at the end of the portage as well.

The water at the end of the portage didn’t appear too deep. I stepped off into the water and immediately went up to the middle of my thighs. When Pete came back across the portage I told him not to walk in the water, but he did anyways. He walked in and he kept getting sucked into the muck before rescuing himself.





We knew of three campsites on this lake. We decided to check out the one that wasn’t on the route to Arril Lake. We headed SE to the site. We were there at 1101 am. This was a nice large site. We started doing our chores to set up camp for the night. A little more than an hour later we were having lunch. Today’s lunch was Pita bread with sausage, gorp and coffee. Don’t forget every meal we have had with pita bread we spend some time prying them apart after they have been glued together by the vacuum sealer.

Around 2 pm Pete went up to Dave’s tent where Dick was and asked him if he wanted to go exploring with us. He told Pete he wanted to stay at camp.

Dave’s canoe still had the third seat, so we all got in Dave’s canoe. Dave took the bow, Pete got the middle seat and I was in the stern. We headed off to the SE in search for another campsite. We thought we spotted it, but when we got out checking it definitely wasn’t it.

We paddled around the island and when we got out we found two canoes stashed in the woods. They were well used, sun faded Souris River 17 foot canoes. They had the words “Canoe Frontier” spray painted on them. One of the canoes had at one time the name “Peanut” and the other canoe possibly the name “Bubba”. I took some photos of the canoes.

We checked another area for the campsite and again that wasn’t it either. Well, on to look for something else. Dave was told there was an old outpost camp located on the south shore that had burned down in a forest fire. Dave was told he couldn’t miss it. Well, we looked, but never did see the debris he was told he couldn’t miss.

When we were paddling south toward the opening for the channel to Little Scrag I told Pete I saw some thing flashing in the sun. When we couldn’t find the burned down outpost we paddled over to where I saw the shining object. We found an aluminum boat cached in the woods.

We all noticed an eagle sitting in one of the trees on the south shore.

We paddled backed to the stashed canoes to take a better look at them. From there we paddled north to an island campsite. Access to this site is on the north side of the island and there are either 2 x4 or 4 x 2 tent areas.

Enough exploring for the day so back to camp we paddled. Dick was up and moving about. Pete put some more coffee on the fire. When it was done I noticed it was much weaker than before. He told me he just threw a few more grounds on top of the used grounds.









Pete caught two northern pike while fishing. He filleted them, but he didn’t take out the Y bones.

Dave got Dick more involved by having him cooking up the rice and the fish for dinner. When the dishes were done we all sat around the fire before heading to our tents. We all retired at 1025 pm.





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