We awoke to a cloudy morning, dawn breaking as early as 4 am up here! The nights are clear and cold, but the days warm up nicely. We rolled out of our tents at 8 am for breakfast of bacon and rice pilaf left over from last night. Unfortunately we threw out the eggbeaters before leaving Crane Lake because we were told that Canadian Customs would confiscate them anyway. Don't worry though, nobody would starve on this trip! We took our time hanging out and packing up, leaving camp around 11:20. Our first stop would be Curtain Falls and the Curtain Falls portage, but first we canoed around a large island to check out campsites there for future reference. The island, and the Curtain Falls portage, are actually on the U.S. side of the border. Mark Zup suggested we not canoe up towards the falls to the canoe landing there, but instead disembark around the corner in quieter waters. It added 20 rods to the 120 rod Curtain Falls portage, but it would be free of any water flow that might tip us with our full loads.
The portage was uphill most of the way because we were going up to the falls, which was in earshot for the entire length of the portage. Towards the end the trees opened up to the glory of Curtain Falls itself and expansive views of Crooked Lake. On each trip we would pause at this point to gawk for a minute before continuing on another 5-10 rods to a large flat rock outcropping with calm waters away from the falls. With Gary's instability, we made sure he took it easy, and by taking 3 trips nobody had to overburden themselves. Actually, this was a pretty nice portage as these things go - nice and wide, with hardly any obstacles to trip us up.
Once done portaging, we plopped down at the falls for lunch of sausage (aka, "horse c*ck"), hard cheeses (aka "clog ass"), and crackers. While eating, another group came portaging through, going the same direction we were. They told us they had a lot of gear though, so they would stay out of our way as we launched from the rocky put in. Gary recognized the group leader as a well-known BWCA trip leader and outdoor writer, Stu Osthoff. Gary had consulted with him a few times, and traveled once with him as well. Stu is a no-nonsense canoer and trip leader, and can't understand why people wear those stupid hiking pants with all those dumb pockets. Stu swears by his jeans. We were sure to hide our legs from sight as Stu portaged by each time.
By this time the skies had cleared, and the falls were beautiful (and loud!). After lunch we loaded up the canoes and pushed off across Crooked Lake about 2:30 pm. We headed mainly east, following the northern shoreline for about an hour in search of the inlet for the portage from Crooked up into Argo Lake.
Along the way Gary spotted a sandy beach tucked away in a deep bay, and swung in to check it out while we continued on. Gary could easily outpaddle us in his single canoe, and he never took long to catch up when he ventured off. Also, he was easy to spot because a) his solo canoe was bright yellow, b) Gary festoons himself with neon shirts and headbands, and c) sticking up in the back of his canoe was a bright red fishing rod bag! Each canoe had maps and compasses, and Gary and I each had GPS units that worked really well. I really loved looking at our location on my GPS, much to Jeff's chagrin. The poor sop was left to paddle solo while I took my time getting a bearing on our next destination. "Kevin, you can paddle now" was a common utterance from my sternman, while at the same time from across the lake came the constant cry from Joe, "Hey! How much farther??"
We found the inlet, unloaded, and started portaging about 4 pm. This was definitely the hardest (and longest) portage of the 3 we had done so far: 160 rods starting in mud for a few rods, then the first 3/4 was a never-ending uphill grind, peaking at what I called "Pinnacle Rock", a slippery ridge of rock about 5 feet high that was nearly impossible to climb up and over without unloading, working your load and yourself over, and loading up again on the other side. Others proffered more graphic names for this obstacle. Along the way we encountered wolf scat and moose tracks in the mud. The last 1/4 of the portage was a steep, somewhat dangerous downhill to the end, but what a glorious end it was - Argo Lake! You could only see a small section of it from the put-in site, but what we saw was beautiful.
After portaging everything across, we dropped down for a much needed rest, cracked a beer, and broke out some snacks. As bad as the portages had been, the temps were nice and cool, there were no bugs, so we really couldn't complain. We imagined these portages in the heat of the summer, with the bugs and intermittent rain/mud to deal with. The bandits were lucky to count a real life weather shaman amongst their party.
Knowing we still had some paddling to do to find a campsite on Argo, we pushed off about 6:30 to check out some highly rated campsites that were located near the middle of the lake. Argo is quite large, with many islands, inlets, bays, and peninsulas of land. Some consider Argo the gem of Quetico, and we were there! After breaking out into the larger lake, we followed the shoreline of a couple islands in search of their desirable campsites. The first we encountered looked to have an OK landing, but the campsite was up a steep hill with what looked like excellent views in all directions. Gary stopped to check it out while we paddled on to another campsite on a nearby island only a couple hundred yards away. This site was glorious, with multiple flat, rocky landing spots, good protection with trees, and plenty of tent pads strewn around a big open interior that also sported a big firepit and benches. Sweeeeet! Gary came by and tried to convince us that the other site was MORE glorious than this one, that once you got to the top of the hill you could see forever in all directions. How do we decide? Our reply: "Well, we're all here now." And that was that.
We pulled our canoes out, unloaded, and quickly set up camp. By this time the wind had picked up from the east, and while the site was mostly protected, the firepit and seating area were somewhat exposed. But the views of the rising full moon over Argo, and the growing twilight from that location were simply incredible. And we were staying here for two nights! We got the normal camp stuff going (like water and alcohol), and broke out our food and Backwoods cigars. Tonight's dinner would be cooked pork chops, cold but still tender. They were soooo good, almost like thick pieces of ham on bone! Perfect to have with the bandit favorite Garlic Mashed Potatoes!
We were all tired and sore, but we also knew that we were "out there". Once we hit Argo, we never saw another soul any where on the lake. It seemed we had paradise to ourselves! Tomorrow would be our first fishing day, but tonight we ate, drank, smoked and laughed ourselves to bed. But really now, that pretty much describes every night with the Bandits.
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