August 10, 2025 Day 7
I wake in the sate of Damp. Pooling water in the tent means wet clothes. I took my clothes and clothes line down sometime during the night. Correctly thinking the misty conditions will make things worse. It’s hard to stake the tent out if there is no lo room. Hence, the corner with my clothes . . .
4:30 AM Good Morning! I guess we’re all in the same condition. At least my sleeping bag remains dry. My sleeping outfit is dry. That includes my base layer, sweater, wool socks, tuque. My sleeping pad hasn’t been dry for days. I cover my head delaying the inevitable.
I start the chili day with asking my body to warm and dry my wet outfit. I spit in the eye of human comfort. At least it’s not raining. Padding makes me comfortable. By 11:00 AM and three hours of paddling, we stop for a break. In three minutes I’m shivering uncontrollably. I can’t stop.
Garrett gives me a cup of hot tea and makes me drink it. Warm from the inside first. Shortly back in the canoes again, Anne and Gord suggested we eat lunch. Lunch is snack food that we stand over and ravenously grab. I’m not an aggressive eater. So I circled to stay warm- buzzard style.
The day is gray and foggy. We’d been paddling through different microclimates. Coming ever closer to the low-lands. Soon we will start seeing eskers. A long, narrow, steep-sided ridge of coarse sand and gravel deposited by a stream flowing in or under a melting sheet of glacial ice.
We’ve started to see more wildlife on shores. A black bear with two cubs. The heads of otters swimming near. Graceful swans. At one point, we paddle underneath a bald eagle, in Canada, a great eagle. It was perched on a low branch. Clearly honing in on its prey. On seeing us, it effected its best hypnotic stink-eye. Effectively chilling.
That beautiful moss is now infused with moose scat and deep prints. Not once do I consider any of the wild animals a threat. We camp near a waterfall we scout to paddle in the morning. All night the roar of the falls haunts my sleep.
Tomorrow we enter the low lands.
Mountain Peace 
With every stroke of your pen, I admire you more! I admire you, and all the other intrepid travelers with you. Wet clothes, wet tent, wet everything! Ugh. No way in hell would I endure all that, and people would hate me instantly – I’ve got the whining part down 😉 Stay dry! Woutje
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