LOCALadk Magazine
Issue link: https://localadkmagazine.uberflip.com/i/575482
36 Fall 2015 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk when you need help, a hot meal or a place to camp. One of those trail angels appeared on this leg of our journey. The day had started with a sixteen mile paddle, then we hit the road, boats trailing behind us. We wheeled on till dusk, hot, hungry and feeling like roadkill, and after about seventeen miles of wheeling our canoes over land, we were getting desperate for someplace to camp. That's when an angel appeared: a red- neck-looking fellow in a Jeep. At first, I expected trouble, but instead, he offered us a place to set up camp for the night. There are lots of good people out there. The next day, we fin- ished that portage around lunch time, and the meal we enjoyed at a local café was the best of the whole trip. The next big push was to as- cend the Spencer Stream, the upstream crux of the trip. We started our day 12 miles away, on Flagstaff Lake, and after some carries, got to the bottom of the stream at lunchtime. The water was cold from the spring runoff, and we waded, tracked, and occasionally paddled the six miles upstream into one of the wildest areas of the trail. At one point, Mike and I paddled up on a Canadian lynx, screaming its lungs out as it tried to wrestle a muskrat from under the bank. The winds were a problem on this portion of the trip. By the time the afternoon winds got blowing full steam, the lakes would start to rock and roll. These waves were usually big and steep, in the two- to-three-foot-plus range. They came close together, often with whitecaps, and piled up on the downwind side of the lake with a crashing fury. We got completely suckered in on Moosehead Lake. The first two open crossings, in the morning, went well. But the winds picked up in the after- noon, and we were way out in the middle of the giant lake when it decided to really rock. We had learned that by slowing the boat down and moving cautiously, with a good brace, we were still able to make progress in the big seas. I had declared it a no surf zone for Mike and I, since we were offshore and the water temperature was