Sunday, July 22, 2007

The meadows portages have been called a mile long rock garden. Yep, that about sums it up. Flat and fairly wide, the tumbled glacial debris left here makes for portages that are not only lengthy, but almost every step must be carefully placed and considered.

Fortunately at least our food pack was light, so I redistributed some of the load, grabbed a canoe and headed over. At least I think I did - I suspect my nephew carried more than his share of the load over these rocky portages.

We found our way to Singing Brook Portage,

had a light lunch (out of necessity) and found the 'Yellow Brick Road' portage over to Bayley Bay.

As the first load was placed on the beach a Minnesota 4 came rolling in - with a sharp and practiced female bow paddler, this aircraft carrier of a canoe came up neatly to the sandy shore. In an instant a family of four piled out, and they single portaged over. I spoke briefly with the mother - who had the nifty moves in the bow. They were heading up to some of the Poets Lakes - we compared a few notes on water levels and they were off. At a trot. Very impressive.

When we got out onto Bayley we had to deal with some rollers, wind and chop, but nothing serious.

We made it back to Prairie Portage and soon enough our tow driver(s) showed up - somehow they sent two boats, not one, so we were able to really stretch out for the return leg back to the world.

Willie had our vehicles pulled up and waiting for us at the dock. Now that's service!

We journeyed back to VNO for showers and had dinner at the Ely Steakhouse.

Remember Hunter the Scout who lost his fanny pack on the Falls Chain? It was mailed back to him from Charlotte a few days later.