We woke up this morning at 5:30, grabbed a quick shower, and headed down to the conference center for breakfast before leaving out on the water.
For breakfast we had pancakes, milk, and orange juice. After breakfast I went down to the lodge to buy my fishing license. After buying my license we loaded up all our gear into the outfitter's canoe trailer, loaded up the boys, and headed out.
The van took us to the entry point. The way it works in the Boundary Waters is there are certain entry points that you have to enter at. They stagger the times that people enter so that not too many people enter at the same time. Our entry time was 9:00 am. You are also only allowed to have a maximum in each group of 9 people. Since we only had 8 in our crew everything was okay.
They dropped us off at the entry point at around 8:45 am, and by 9:00 am we had the canoes loaded and were leaving out onto the lake. We soon hit our first portage. It was the longest and roughest portage that we would have on this trip. We unloaded our gear and started carrying everything across the portage. It was tough, but we did it. We hit the 2nd lake and paddled for a while before hitting our 2nd portage. The 2nd portage wasn't as long as the first, so it didn't take us as long to get across it. We were now on Ham Lake.
We paddled down Ham Lake for a while and then stopped at a campsite for lunch. It was around 1:00 pm when we stopped for lunch. For lunch we had bagels, Velveeta cheese, summer sausage, fruit snacks, and Gatorade. We decided that we were going to stay at this campsite for the night. When you're still close to the entry point it is sometimes hard to find a campsite, so we just decided that this was far enough to go for the night. We unloaded our gear and set up camp. The boys wanted to do a little exploring in the area, so we took our canoes out and paddled further down Ham Lake. We found the portage to get to our next lake too. It wasn't too far away from where we were camping.
The boys decided to do a little fishing, so while they were fishing I started our dinner. For dinner we had red beans & rice with lil' smokies, Oreo cookies, pretzels, and water with drink mix added. The boys got to pump some water, which they thought was a lot of fun. Some of them had never drank filtered water before.
After dinner, the bugs started getting bad, so I got in my tent around 8:30 pm. While I was laying in my tent reading my magazine, the boys were doing some fishing. Vince caught a small Northern Pike, and Tommy caught a small mouth bass. Neither one was big enough to keep, but the boys had a good time fishing for them..
After the boys got done fishing they sat around the fire for a while, and then finally turned in for the night around 10:00 pm.
The other big event for the night is that most of us got to use the wilderness toilet for the first time. The toilet is just a big open pit toilet sitting right out in the open. For those that have never seen one, I've added a picture of it. I will admit, it was a little strange sitting right out in the open doing my business.
Our first day on the water was really enjoyable. I'm really looking forward to the coming days.
This is my 100 Days Strong. Whats yours?
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