The Vacation,

Part 4; Lake Desor,

We woke the next morning and the rain had past, but of course everything was wet and a fog had settled on the island. We packed up, pumped water and headed out for Lake Desor, the only inland lake we would be staying at on our trip.

The reason I wanted to hike the Minong Ridge trail was mostly because it got a lot of praising write ups in Backpacker magazine, which I one time subscribed to. It was suppose to be a very scenic, have the best opportunity to see wildlife and seldom traveled. The reason for it being seldom traveled was the high difficulty level. From what I had read in some books about the trail the really hard hike was the one ahead of us that day.

We put our packs on and into the woods we went. Most of the trail was on ridges that would have given us spectacular views, except for the overcastness and fog. Others in the group praised these conditions because of tender, freshly sunburned skin. I was hoping the sun would burn the clouds away. At the ranger station they warned us that it was suppose to rain this day and if it did the rocks would be slippery. It wasn't raining while we were hiking, but everything was still wet from the night before and was very slippery. I liked walking in back so I can go at my own pace, look around and enjoy my hike, something I have a hard time doing with footsteps right on my heels. So no one saw when I stepped on a rock, felt my feet kick out, leaned back and fell on my ass. No one will ever know that happened.

We got to Lake Desor and I felt a bit disappointed in the difficulty of the trail. It was hard, but not as hard as I was expecting. Here's to high standards. We set up our tents and the sun finally started elbowing its way into the day. We went swimming in the dark, algae filled warm waters of Lake Desor. Although the temperature was much more tolerable, I longed for the crystal clear waters of the big lake.

As I was sitting on the shore a red squirrel came in with absolutely no fear of humans. I yelled at him, "You're suppose to be afraid of us. We kill everything!"

He looked at me and said, "Thanks for eating like a slob, fat ass. This Reese's Pieces is mine," and off into the woods he went with my escaped piece of candy.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty typical; Aaron slept, Adrian and I walked the shore and read, we all bickered. There seemed to be a lot more birds on the inland lake and bringing an expert with us was a big plus. I suggest everyone befriend such a person. As the day was coming to a close Adrian and I read our books and Aaron was writing in a notebook. When finally asked what he was writing he informed us it was a list of what he should/shouldn't bring next time he went backpacking. This was very odd because up to this point Aaron made it very clear this would be his last backpacking trip. At least this would seem odd, but I've known Aaron for a long time.

Once again I had a tent to myself and stayed up reading Kerouac by headlamp. I finally laid my head down on my pillow rolled up fleece. Just as I was in that magical land between sleep and wake I notice a peculiar noise and curiosity aroused me to full awakeness to realize it was starting to rain. Then Aaron got up and took a piss which sounded awfully close to my tent.

Then we woke up,