Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Day Five. Another early beginning. We glided past mostly quiet campsites on what was to be our warmest and really nicest weather day of the trip. For some reason we had some trouble finding the portage entrance but we were just too eager. We kept traveling on and finally came up on it. This is a rocky portage but the end of it was showing another bright day ahead of us. After our hail and rain first day we really had much improved and warmer weather for travel the rest of our stay. We passed one full campsite after another. We passed a couple of slower canoes and decided to paddle through a small rapids while they portaged. This move got us the last open campsite on the Kawishiwi River all the way to EP 32. We passed some fishermen and since they didn't mind talking we found out that they were among the canoes we saw circling Clear Lake the night before. They had planned Clear Lake as their destination for a base camp but couldn't believe how far they had to travel as they continued on and took what they could find.

The next to last camp on the right side of the river before EP 32 was found to be open and we took it. A site with a large open fire grate and kitchen area with a flat “table” rock looked very appealing. We then found many nice tent pad spots and agreed this was the nicest spot we had found this trip. As we broke out lunch and sat in the shade of the tarp eating the canoes we had passed earlier cruised by and later we saw them come back heading in the other direction. We wished them luck because we saw no other places available. The rest of the afternoon was another procession of canoes looking for a campsite. While this trip was a beautiful one and overall enjoyable it is remembered by the numbers of people and canoes we saw and the competition for sites that was more than I had ever experienced.

Camp was set up and we chose to be a "bunch of bums" and take it easy with some swimming, fishing, napping and storytelling. Directly across the river we could see the browse line from deer the winter before. I remembered someone on BWCA.com had commented on it.

Cody had developed a bad cough early in the trip and was coughing worse today. We were concerned about how he was doing. It was a day early but the three older members agreed it would be better to leave the next day so Cody could get some medical attention. (This proved a great move because once he saw a Dr. he was diagnosed with an onset of pneumonia)