Outward Bound Journal - Day 4
The least pleasant day to date. Woke, had breakfast, and paddled about 100 meters across to a portage trail. For the blissfully ignorant: portaging is when you have to get your canoe from one body of water to another, over land. It entails unpacking all the canoes, beaching them, flipping them over, and carrying them on your shoulders, along with 50 pound personal packs, food packs, and the gear bag (pots, fry-bake, stoves, gas, etc).
Our portage in this case 1.2 miles of rock-plagued, root-laden path. Because of the way the canoes are built (a single wooden yoke in the center), only one person can carry a canoe at a time. About the longest anyone could take it was 4 or 5 minutes, so there was frequent switching off. Once we got the canoes to the other end, we had to go back and make a second trip, for the packs. When everything was transported, with many aching backs, we sat on the rocks and made lunch. By 2:30 or so, we were loading the canoes back up and then on our way. Paddling seemed much easier, after that.
We were, however, behind schedule, thanks to our slow pace doing the portage. As we paddled along, it began to get dark rapidly. We broke out the headlamps and started scanning the shore as best we could. Thunder was heard; we had no choice but to pull over right there and camp in a random spot in the mud. (Later, we found out that we had passed by 3 usable campsites in the dark.) It was too windy and wet to use our stoves, so we had cold Cheerio mix for dinner, and tried our best to get some sleep.
(Post script, unrelated: I apologize for being slow to transcribe these entries. Have been busy with the first few days of school, and other things. Should be able to catch up this weekend.)