Day five started with a beautiful pink glow that caused me to literally JUMP out of my hammock to grab the camera as soon as I woke up and saw it. While the clouds weren't particularly organized, the colors were truly spectacular and provided a really nice way to wake up!

While having our dehydrated breakfasts, we looked at weather forecasts. It seems that today would be sunny but windy, with gusts up to 30mph – a great day to hang out at camp and maybe go for an exploratory paddle if able to stay mostly protected from wind. However, the following three days looked like rain and thunderstorms, with winds still gusting in the 30s. After a half-hearted “we could move today” suggestion, the group decided that’s what we were going to do. While I wanted to spend some more time on Gebe after my 2019 trip, it seems it was still not in the cards for this trip. We also did not see a moose on Gebe which others have reported. Bummer. Probably just not getting up early enough.

We packed up and got on the water shortly after 10am, which wasn’t bad considering we had planned on a layover day so we weren’t being particularly quick about anything. We knew the travel day to Hustler wouldn’t be as long as the previous day, so we had hopes of having time to get firewood before sunset.

The portages from Gebe to Oyster were not that difficult themselves, but the landings were absolute trash – low enough water for most of the rocks in the obvious landing path to be shallow enough to stop/scratch the canoe, but not low enough to provide suitable alternatives, so you had to scratch the boat a little in order to not get out in knee deep water. Also, each landing was, IMO, suited to only a single canoe if you want to be able to load/unload safely (i.e. not precariously perched on a single slippery rock/log). Traveling with two canoes definitely slowed us down a lot on this trip where most landings only had decent spots for a single canoe. I think the most difficult portage of the three from Gebe to Oyster was Gebe to Green, as it had some elevation. Still, I don’t remember much besides a very large white pine close to the Green landing. All of them were tricky due to poor landings.

The wind was really starting to build, and we had to put some effort into paddling across Green, pretty much going straight into a south wind. Things changed when we hit Oyster though – we were going to be slammed by the south wind when passing the “opening” on Oyster that separates its northern channel from the southern bowl of the lake. We stopped and assessed our options. A new weather forecast showed that the wind was going to continue for the next 6 hours, so there was no point in trying to wait it out.

I got some help loading from the guys in the other canoe, and we shoved off into the bay keeping station while we waited for the other guys to get loaded up, which took them a hot minute with the waves slapping up against the canoe. When we all finally pushed into the lake, we quickly had to quarter against the waves to safely ride over them. It took us 50 minutes to go a little under 2 miles, so we really struggled to get across. The waves coming through the opening were pretty sizeable, but the gusts were just as challenging, occasionally requiring the bow paddler to quickly switch sides to help keep the bow pointed in the right direction. Thankfully we made it to the Hustler portage landing without incident after getting behind a point that shielded us from 90% of the wind.

You know, maps aren’t always accurate, so it’s not a surprise that the Voyageur map had some errors in portage lengths, but given how long the ones from Hustler-Oyster and Lynx-Ruby have been around, I’m a little miffed that Voyageur had these so wrong at 240 rods each. They’re listed much closer to 300 rods everywhere else, and my Garmin watch tracked us at 0.94 miles for the Hustler-Oyster portage, which is pretty much 300 rods dead on. I told my group I thought these were longer than 240 but didn’t quite know, and I was right. Thankfully this portage wasn’t actually that tough, just long. Some sections were straight and flat for 20-30 rods at a time which was appreciated. The landing on the Hustler size is absolutely massive (big smooth rock) but in a bit of a boggy area.

My group was fairly spent from fighting poor landings and strong headwinds, and ready to grab the first site available, which is right next to the portage. I had read many good things about a 5star site on the northern shore of Hustler, and it was only a 15 minute paddle away. I nearly begged my group to check it out as we had come so far, and it was the only site of the trip I actually had a vested interest in staying at. Sure enough it was open and gorgeous, and we were running out of daylight, so everyone just went about setting up shelters, with very little chatter.

The clouds were rolling in and it looked like rain wasn’t far off. Unfortunately, the wind had not let up. This site is so beautiful largely in part due to it being right on the water, with towering red pines that give the campsite a very spacious feel. The downside is that, with the amazing 270 degree views of the lake, you also get 270 degrees of wind, and it was blowing straight into our site all night. Thankfully I stayed warm but my hammock tarp was flapping pretty strongly throughout the night, and I legitimately worried about tarps failing during the night. They all held up (and stakes in the ground!) so we were glad to see that in the morning. Our night was uneventful; we didn’t have firewood and we were beat from the days of travel, especially the mild sunburn and windburn we all had. We had a moderately nice sunset despite the clouds, but night fell quickly and we all had some unspoken anxiety about the wind overnight. Sleep came easy but I didn't get much rest with the wind flapping and stressing tarps all night long.

~Green Lake, Rocky Lake, Oyster Lake, Hustler Lake