There were a lot of ups and downs to today. It was a one mile paddle to the first portage. Calvin was already fed up with the bugs. The black flies were honestly pretty awful. We arrived at the Buttermilk Falls carry and Calvin was really fed up with the bugs then. It was a 0.1 mile carry to put in and paddle 0.5 miles to the next carry. Due to confusion with the books and maps, we thought that this would be portage 2 of 3 for the day. By now, Calvin was absolutely done with the bugs and unhappy. Even with a head nets and spraying ourselves to death with bug spray, we were still being eaten.
We tried to single carry all of our gear, but I just couldn’t. All the food was in my barrel and it was heavy (plus my day pack, wheels, etc. on top). Instead, we double carried. After bringing the second load to what we thought was the midpoint of the carry, we realized that we were actually at the end of the carry basically and were at Long Lake already. There would be no third portage. Huzzah! The 0.6 carry on the map was just the 0.6 Deerland Carry. Spirits immediately lifted. We happily put in on the lake and munched on Pop-Tarts while we floated to avoid (most) bugs. I ate one of mine in the packet and stuffed the other in my life jacket pocket.
The wind was at our back and pushed us along nicely. It was not like yesterday. We stopped at the town beach of Long Lake and quickly found that it was still early season there. The Adirondack Hotel was open though and we enjoyed a much needed lunch of burgers and beer. That certainly put a smile on our faces.
We hopped back in the boat with a warning from a sea plane pilot that thunderstorms were on their way for the afternoon. We made it to the end of the lake before the threatening clouds began to drop rain. Just as we headed into the Raquette River again, thunder and rain rolled through. We pulled over to wait out the thunder.
The rest of the way to the falls on Raquette, we were chased by dark clouds and at one point, the sun was shining, but it literally down poured. It was quite beautiful actually. Now, we are camped at the falls near the start of the portage. I remember being here during my time as an intern. If I remember correctly, the caretaker for this section is Gary and he invited us (interns) to his cabin for dinner one evening. We feasted on venison hot dogs and meat and then paddled back to our campsite by the light of the moon. It was strange to me to be back in this area because I had never expected to, but it was also exciting. I was thru paddling the trail. That was something I never expected.
In the middle of the night, I woke to go to the bathroom. Once back in the tent, I remembered that I had left an open Pop-Tart in my life jacket and hadn’t put it in the food barrel. Images of squirrels or some animal destroying my life jacket to get to it circulated in my mind. I told Calvin about it. He was headed out to the bathroom and said he’d take care of it. He knows how I worry about things and that it’d keep me up all night. When he came back in the tent, I asked what he did with it.
“I took care of it,” he said.
“What do you mean, you took care of it?” I asked.
“I ate it.”
I laughed and mentally added it to my list of how you know you’ve got a great guy. It goes up there with the time he ate the baked potato that I accidentally chucked onto the floor and splattered. He ate that and let me have the good one.
