On the way back to McCargoe, I entered a darkly forested area that got me a little creeped out, because I thought if I were a hot moose, this is where I would want to hang out and cool off. I was just waiting for one to rustle at me from the trees. Speaking of being creeped out, I was pretty scared of a flapping piece of white birch tree bark that was flapping above my head. I thought a red squirrel was trying to ambush me from above.
When I got back to camp I killed the last 10oz of my water and went down to the dock to filter 2 bottles and some water for the bpot I was about to boil my lunch in. While I was filtering water, there was a severe wind blowing in from the north. As I was packing up my filter, I almost lost my MSR filter bag to the wind. It tumbled on the dock and I caught it a short distance from the edge. That would have been a bummer because the cleaning pad that I use to clean off the filter would have blown away wit it, and then what would I haved to clean the thing, my finger nails or leaves? lol It took me 110 pumps to fill the first bottle and 105 pumps to fill the second bottle. The first one probably took longer because it took a while for the water to make its way up to the filter.
In my return to the shelter, I had my dehydrated meal and 3 handfuls of cheddar pizza crackers. After I ate, I cleaned out the pot and filtered another bottle of water. While I was filtering, I saw a loon diving around the dock. Last year I actually saw one dive under the dock. That was quite a sight. I was hoping he would spring in front of me so I could take a close up picture, but ever time he dove, he just kept getting further and further away. It took 105 pumps to filter this particular bottle of water.
When I got back, I thought about how the Voyageur would be making her first trip to the island and how she might make a stop at McCargoe. If she stops at mcCargoe, I think she is due to be at the dock at 11am central/12pm eastern. I would like to get a move on it early tomorrow so that I can get to the Todd Harbor shelter before anyone else does. I thought about how 2 years ago I met a really nice fella named Jerry Oliver at McCargoe Cove. He stayed in Shelter 4, the one I concidentally stayed at this trip, and share his Northern Pike catch with me. He said he usually comes on the Voyageurs first trip each year and stays at either McCargoe or Chippewa Harbor. Since I won't see if hes on the boat, I will at least leave him a note in the shelter and hope that he gets it.
Returning to my thoughts on Todd Harbor, if some is already at the shelter, I will ask if I can stay with them for one night. If they say no, its off to Windigo for me, which means I have to leave extra early to assure myself enough tome to get to Windigo before dark. If the person says yes, then I will stay for an evening and then leave for Windigo on the following day. If I get to Todd Harbor and no one is there, then I'm going to stay there for two nights and leave for Windigo. Being that I learned the tent that I bought is not free standing, even though it is from REI and you can make a return under any circumstance, I still would rather not use it and have it placed back on the shelf in an unused state. Plus I really don't care to set up a tent either. Another concern that entered into my mind was what if I woke up on Monday, provided that I stayed at the shelter for two night, and I find myself looking at a rainstorm from the shelter. Wouldit be safe to take the Minong back to Windigo? Maybe if its not lightening and thundering, if it is, then I think I should take the Greenstone to Windigo. I like the idea of the Minong as it is because Shelly and I will be walking parts of the Greenstone in both July and October and I dont want to be sick of it at that point. On top of that, so far one of my favorite treks on the island is between Todd Harbor and Little Todd Harbor. Also, I would liketo think I will not encounter any moose on the Minong ridgeline. The crappy part about the Minong is that it might be hard to find the trail at times and I don't like situations like those where you meet delays due to difficulites finding the trail.
After thinking about my future plans for the coming days, I decided to hike over to the Minong Mine. I left at 4:25pm. Within minutes I had to take a 2 minute break because my shoe was killing me again in the same spot on my left foot big toe area. I loosened the laces but it did not do much. 14 minutes later, the path split and there was no marker to suggest which way to go. I remember there being a marker that stated where the Minong Mine was even though my instincts wanted to go to the left because the Minong mine is to the left. However, since there was no marker, I went to the right because it looked like the more frequented path and the other looked less traveled upon, as though it almost could have been made by a bushwacker. I walked for about 5 minutes and realize .8 miles would have come up by now with how I have been calculating my pace lately. Therefore the trail that was not marked had to be the Minong Mine. This is what I told myself, but of course was not certain. On my 5 minute walk back to the intersection, I encountered a gartner snake and he was alive and fiesty. I picked him up and took a picture with him. Actually a couple of them because I wanted to get one with his tongue out. After 3 tries, I finally got the shot I was looking for. In the prcoess, he probably crapped on my hands three times. When I put him down, I expected him to scurry away as quickly as possible, but instead what did he do, he went into striking position! I was like no way, this gartner snake is totally bluffing me with this look of no fear in his eyes and head ready to spring forward, but sure enough he striked me and bit onto my glove. I jumped back as he clang on with his mouth until he let go and fell to the ground to go where ever he had planned for the evening.
I made a right onto the path I debated about taking. I was on it for 5 minutes when I started to wonder if this was even a path that led to anywhere in particular let alone the Minong Mine. I begun doubting this was the path and thought that the Minong Mine would just have to wait for a future trip and that I probably would have bumped intothat marker I remebered on my trip to Todd Harbor tomorrow saying to myself "If I had just gone a little further." However, low and behold, I saw the boardering of a railcar and then another rail car boarding with a wheen in it. Pft, some mine I thoughtto myself. They didn't even have a mine to speak of like we noticed at other places that we've walked along the trail or for that matter one like at Todd Harbor called Haytown Mine. Regardless, I walked along a corridor of rocks and then checked out a lake at the bottom of the min are before heading back home.
On the way back, I thought about my girlfriend and how excited I will be to finally hear from her once I get into my car and hop on my cell phone. I can't wait to get all happy to hear her voice. I should get back around 3pm eastern, I hope she can sneak in a phone call at work which would be 2pm central, if not, I guess it I'll just have to drive a couple of hours in eager anticapation for her phone call. It took me 13 minutes to get back to the campgrounds one I returned ot the fork in the trail. It was going on 5:37pm
Back at the shelter, I had another dehydrated meal for dinner. I rinsed out my pot and heart monitor chest strap and ate 4 handfuls of trail mix before laying down on my pad and reading. Lights went out at 10:55pm. Today I hiked a total of 8.6 miles. I had an average heart rate of 111bpm. I had a Max heart rate of 147bpm. I burned a total of 1315 calories while hiking. I realized from Alectos pictures from his trip report, that while I saw some of the Minong Mine, I did not see all of it from some of the things that were visible in his pictures. This will be talked about during my May 5th report, but let it be confirmed that the unmarked trail did not take me to the same place that Alecto went. Its neat to know that it appears as though fragments and remnents of the mine are scattered throughout the area and not just off of the offically trail marker. I will be sure to post pictures of what I saw under this particular day.
My encounter with a fiesty garter snake:
My experience at Minong Mine:
I will keep this is mind in the future.
The ony bad news was that the picnic table was outside, but I wasn't about to harp over that. To celenrate I drank most of what was left of my water and had 2 handfuls of cashew pineablle cranberry trail mix along with a granola bar. Afterwards, I proceeded forward with bringing the picnic table inside and laying out my sleep setup along with everything else where I normally store it in the shelter. I figured now would be a good time to go filter some water and ended up filtering 2 1/2 bottles, I say half because I pured half a bottle into my pot for dinner. According to my map, it takes .1 miles to walk to the dock and since I had to walk there and back, I'm counting that .2 miles towards my total miles for the day. I will count it again if I go to filter water there tomorrow. It took 115 pumps for each bottle. So the amount of pumps rose slightly, but I do not think this water will give my filter much problems with how clear it is from my view on the dock. I can see to the bottom of the water, unlike McCargoe which looked a little murky compared to previous years. Speaking of this dock, I don't think the Voyageur could come here even if it wanted to with how shallow the waters are on this particular occassion. I could be wrong, but just my thoughts.
