We ended up in our worse than worse campsite, under the heaven of lightening and a couple of down pours. Nothing finer than siting up and being slapped in the face by the dripping nylon tent. On this trip the brilliant idea of staking and tying out the rain fly is a dream of real campsites. Excepting one, our site, via postings, have been adamant they welcomed NO CAMPING.
Pack-up involved no wringing out, no folding up, no organizing. We wanted to get off this pouch of a lake. And back to the Minnesota. Johan always had a couple of desires that he would not give up on. Today the Asian Carp raised its ugly head for the last time or so Johan thought.
Johan was fixated. Both of us, at different times, had had that charming carp nearly in our laps. When the water was calm they break out of the water like a porpoise jumping to entertain. And now Johan wanted to catch one.
This was a good time to celebrate. We had left the lakes behind as we reached the narrow part of the river. We picked up speed. Finally we were going to make good time surrounded by lush, low hanging branches. we were shadowed and cool. I was mostly smirking at our easy passage. Where were all the “numerous rapids and the log jams” they warned us about. Soon our cavelier smirks were almost wiped off our faces as we had a near decapitation. We had to lie on our backs as low as possible. A towering tree with a huge broken branch was coming straight towards us. Luckily the the water was so low we weren’t competing with it’s power.
The downed trees and branches were numerous. We faced more than 40 trees. We spent a lot of time ripping branches down and throwing them as far as possible. Often we exited the canoe and pushed and pulled and lifted. With all our might we dug in for an hour and a half, before a suddenly widening river unshackled us.
The three of us agree it was the most fun we had the whole trip. because we beat the river!
Mountain Peace 