Another beautiful day was in store for Matthias and me in the Boundary Waters. Our easy goal today was to return to Angleworm Lake in order to best position ourselves to get up and get out very early the following morning. We thoroughly enjoyed our oatmeal and tea around the campsite prior to departure and took our time on the trip. I was sorry to say goodbye to Gull Lake as we had the best campsite on it and the lake to ourselves. Our packs felt considerably lighter as we returned across two lakes and two portages to Angleworm. Once there, we just settled in and read our books. I went for a very short stroll up to the top of the small hill above our campsite. We finished the last of our Mountain House packages for dinner as we shooed the pesky squirrels that tried to grab some scraps. We had eaten well in the Boundary Waters; beef stroganoff, Mexican beans and rice, and pasta for dinners.
As always when I’m in the Boundary Waters, my legs started feeling a little squirrelly on the third day. There is always a lot of exercise for the upper body (paddling and carry the canoe), but there aren’t many hiking trails. So after a couple of days of sitting in the canoe and sitting reading my book, I had a lot of energy stored up. Matthias and I decided to paddle a little more around Angleworm. We paddled to the very south end of the lake to locate (again) the trailhead that would lead us back to the car the next day. When we entered the lake two days prior, we noticed a camp set up near the entry/exit point. It wasn’t marked on the map… As we approach the site in our canoe, a woman hailed us and we made small talk about the weather and such. She explained that she was in the woods by herself. She had planned to come with one other woman, but the other woman backed out at the last minute. So it seemed this woman carried all of her gear along the two-mile portage and set up camp at the entry/exit point to the lake. And she decided that’s as far as she’d go. And she planned on staying there for another 6 days in case her friend came back. It was all very strange and when she asked Matthias and me where we were camped I just waved down the lake and told her we were a couple of campsites down just in case she turned out to be a serial killer or something.
Matthias and I spent some time watching a loon on the lake. It was diving for fish. I did my best to anticipate where it would surface after each dive in order to position Matthias for a good picture. It paid off; he snapped off a few great shots.
We returned to camp and I began to get a little nostalgic about how this was the last night of my trip. Suddenly, I wished I had brought along a little whiskey to make a toast or something. Damn, it’s been a good trip.
We crawled into the tent early and set our alarms for 5:00 AM. The next day, we needed to return the equipment to the outfitters and I wanted us to have plenty of time to stop along the north shore of Lake Superior (if desired) on our way back to Minneapolis. I also thought it would be nice if we had a little down time in Minneapolis prior to getting Matthias on the plane the following day.
As always when I’m in the Boundary Waters, my legs started feeling a little squirrelly on the third day. There is always a lot of exercise for the upper body (paddling and carry the canoe), but there aren’t many hiking trails. So after a couple of days of sitting in the canoe and sitting reading my book, I had a lot of energy stored up. Matthias and I decided to paddle a little more around Angleworm. We paddled to the very south end of the lake to locate (again) the trailhead that would lead us back to the car the next day. When we entered the lake two days prior, we noticed a camp set up near the entry/exit point. It wasn’t marked on the map… As we approach the site in our canoe, a woman hailed us and we made small talk about the weather and such. She explained that she was in the woods by herself. She had planned to come with one other woman, but the other woman backed out at the last minute. So it seemed this woman carried all of her gear along the two-mile portage and set up camp at the entry/exit point to the lake. And she decided that’s as far as she’d go. And she planned on staying there for another 6 days in case her friend came back. It was all very strange and when she asked Matthias and me where we were camped I just waved down the lake and told her we were a couple of campsites down just in case she turned out to be a serial killer or something.Matthias and I spent some time watching a loon on the lake. It was diving for fish. I did my best to anticipate where it would surface after each dive in order to position Matthias for a good picture. It paid off; he snapped off a few great shots.
We returned to camp and I began to get a little nostalgic about how this was the last night of my trip. Suddenly, I wished I had brought along a little whiskey to make a toast or something. Damn, it’s been a good trip.
We crawled into the tent early and set our alarms for 5:00 AM. The next day, we needed to return the equipment to the outfitters and I wanted us to have plenty of time to stop along the north shore of Lake Superior (if desired) on our way back to Minneapolis. I also thought it would be nice if we had a little down time in Minneapolis prior to getting Matthias on the plane the following day.
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