2009 Namekagon--Group Site 25.3 to Group Site 8.4

Where are my x-country skis?I slept well, waking up occasionally to change positions, as can be expected when lying on a Thermarest. I made a point to poke an ear out of my sleeping bag, and indeed, I heard the whisper of snow flakes hitting the rain fly. Around 6:30, Mellie decided that it was time to get up. I looked up and noticed diffuse moon light filtering in through the top of the tent. At least it's not cloudy, I thought. By now, Mellie was hard to constrain, her tail wagging vigorously. As I unzipped the tent door, I was in for a shock: everything white. We got at least an inch overnight, enough to cover up everything. Fortunately the fire was still smoldering and it took not much to revive it. It turned out that Craig had gotten up at 4:30 to take a leak and put a couple of logs on the dying embers. Just what the doctor ordered. I recall smelling the smoke and even the flare up of flames some time during the night. The snow made Mellie go wild, or maybe it was the cold. Anyway, she was running tight circles around the fire pit.

Breakfast was on Joel this morning, this year's officially sanctioned bacon from Hormel was quickly starting to look and smell delicious, leaving more than enough drippings for the blueberry pancakes. Delicious! It was a challenge to do the dishes, pack up and get ready to go because of the coat of snow. But we did it. A quick measurement revealed a temperature of 25.8F, apparently colder than last year.

At 10:10 we pushed off. We had been thankful for the sunny morning skies, but as we began paddling downstream, the cloud cover increased and we were quickly reminded of the absence of the warming sun rays. What more, a south westerly wind started slowing us down. We ticked off the landmarks in form of camp sites and boat launches, all marked with the distance to the Namekagon-St. Croix confluence. Frequent sightings of eagles, blue jays, king fishers and the odd flock of ducks and geese punctuated our progress. When we reached the Whispering Pines landing, about the halfway point of today's 16-mile stretch, Joel and I were so preoccupied with trying to make out what was written on the sign by the landing that we got hung up on a large rock in the swift current, just a few meters away from shore. A precarious situation, our still heavily loaded canoe slowly turning across the current. Joel quickly turned the canoe so it pointed downstream and held it in that orientation. Then we began gently rocking and pusing the canoe back and forth and eventually slid off the rock. The 45F cold water came a little too close for comfort. Craig, who had passed us while we were trying to free ourselves had completely missed us passing Whispering Pines but was glad to hear that this milestone lay behind us. We took a short break about 5 minutes downstream from Whispering Pines. We decided then and there that we would take a lunch break at Howell Landing, about an hour ahead. We had

Fall colors framed by snow. I thought this was supposed to be Indian Summer.

to work a bit harder because the wind picked up even more. Our lunch at Howell was quite uncomfortable, due to the cold and blustery weather. This is where we measured the high temperature for the day: 33F. Howell is a nice spacious area, with picnic tables and a shoreline that could pass as a swimming beach. Craig told us that when he and his family passed through on Labor Day weekend just 5 weeks earlier, the place was busy with sunbathers, picnickers, parties that were taking out or putting in. Unbelievable at this point! The only one who seemed unphased by the shore leave was Mellie, who spend the entire 15 minutes exploring.

The rest of the trip was pretty much a grind, despite the often breathtakingly beautiful riverscape. Craig, paddling solo had an especially hard time. His saving grace was that Joel and I would occasionally got hung up on a sand or gravel bar. Shortly before arriving at 8.8, our original destination for the day, Craig suggested it might be better to travel the extra 4/10th of a mile to the next group site, which would be more sheltered. Joel and I did a quick survey of site 8.8 when we arrived. In addition to being more exposed, site 8.8 had also a large alrea fenced off for restoration. We gladly moved on.

The Three Stooges

Site 8.4 was indeed lovely, along the narrower branch of the river by an island, well sheltered and on multiple levels. Locust trees all around the site had been recently cut, if the wood had had some more time to dry we would have been well endowed with an easy source of fuel. We started the fire with some dry pine branches, added big logs and topped it off with some locust twigs. Amazingly, the almost green twigs burned like tinder and soon we had a fire to warm our chilled bones. By now, the temperature had dipped again below freezing. Craig was making Beef Stroganoff in a Dutch oven and I was readying some molt wine. What a fine dinner! Again, we did not linger much before turning in.