Dawn on Rawn
The plan for today was to daytrip to Buckingham Lake, which was our fallback destination if we hadn’t found a good campsite on Rawn. The route to Buckingham runs through Art Lake. The short carryover portage is almost directly south of us. The plan was to take off early so that we could be back before the winds picked up in the afternoon. Mark, Nate and I were up by 6, had coffee and granola. Nate says, "I'd murder a banana right now!". Kos rolled out at about 8. Oh well, we’ve got all day.
The water was relatively calm. The portage at Art Lake is short and mostly flat so we carried the canoes with the gear inside. I should say that Nate and Kos carried the canoes. The youngsters are taking pity on the grandpas and do all of the canoe portaging. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so great!
The second portage was barely 100 yards away. This was also a shorty. The terrain on this portage was amazing, almost fairly tale with beautiful white pines perfectly spaced and no undergrowth. Just a perfect canopy over a thick bed of pine needles.
Our final portage into Buckingham was longer, rockier and more challenging with a few stretches of sharp random rocks and some up and down. We negotiated it efficiently and were in Buckingham. On Buckingham, there are several islands, some with campsites. Our plan was to explore and fish. Any fish we caught on Buckingham we would release, hoping that on the way back, we would catch enough for a shore lunch. I caught a frisky smallmouth, Nate nailed a smallie and Kos caught a couple. Otherwise it seemed to be too warm and windy for much action.
We took a long break at one of the campsites. It sits on a peninsula with 270° views over the water. There is a beautiful canopy of white pines and a huge open area for tents.
There is also a campsite on the other side of the island and trails that provide great views from the top of an outcrop high above the water. Mark got up there and had Nate and Kos cruise back and forth on the water looking for that money shot.
We took a long break, had snacks and did some exploring. Kos spotted a school of young smallmouth at the foot of a low granite outcrop and kept teasing them with a lure hoping that they would bite.
Kos spotted a big ass Wolf Spider. Apparently the bite won't kill you but you will wish you were dead.
Eventually it got well into the afternoon so we headed back to camp. We retraced out three portages and ran into a strong headwind and some waves cutting back across Rawn to our campsite. We were exhausted and famished when we arrived so Kos cooked up some freeze-dried chicken teriyaki, I made some guacamole and we had brats and coffee. It’s time to clean out the frig, so you never know what exotic mix of foods will be on the menu each meal.
Afterwards Nate took a swim and I took my first shower in four days using Mark’ solar shower. Then everybody but me took a siesta. It’s still windy and overcast, which is concerning, but tomorrow is supposed to have the best weather of the next three days, so we will start heading back in the morning.
A change in the weather.
(Mark) 8PM—fire in the lower fireplace, Nate & me smoking Acid Blondies, finishing off Nate’s French cognac.
In the evening we had our customary fire on the rock but the drizzle and wind got the most of me and Mark so we turned in. The rain picked up and came down readily for several hours overnight. It was tough to sleep but towards morning it thankfully let up.
(Mark) Weather getting ugly—strong, sustained wind out of the east. Threat of thunderstorms—Kos took down his hammock and will sleep in Nate’s tent tonight. Texted Susan to arrange an earlier pickup—weather forecast for hot humid and thunderstorms for the next several days.
We had been monitoring the weather more or less constantly the entire trip. The weather report for the next three days had sounded dicey with forecasts of thunderstorms, high winds and hail. After a lot of discussion, we decided that we would depart Quetico on Saturday instead of Sunday. But first we would check out a campsite on Pickerel that wasn’t far from our takeout point on Stanton in case we decided to stay.