Day 1 - put in at lake One about noon and paddled and portaged to campsite 2224 on the SW side of lake Three. The campsite is a great one, plenty of nice flat tent areas and tons of trees to hammock camp in too. The only small downside is a small canoe landing area and a steep rise to the site area, this campsite was missed by the pagami creek fire. Had a nice fire and dinner and enjoyed a peaceful evening.
Day 2 - one of the other great things about this site is that you can get to the Pow Wow trail right from camp. It was a rainy day but we had decided we would spend a day hiking on the trail so off we went. Headed around Horseshoe lake toward North Wilder on the trail. The trail was in pretty good shape here but there were a number of wet spots - both from spring snow melt and the rain. Hiked to the shore of north Wilders, had lunch and headed back to camp. The view along north Wilder was as if we were in an area that someone had planted thousands of trees - all about 7' tall and lush green. The is natures recovering from the pagamia creek fire - heat releashed jack pine seeds into the ground and the forest was regenerating itself - pretty good argument for intelligent design.
Day 3 - packed up camp and headed out the long way to Hudson Lake. We went through Horseshoe, Brewis, Harbor, North Wilder, a creek and then into Hudson. The portage were pretty wet with a couple of them having snow melt creeks running right down them but this also assured that the creek between North Wilder and Hudson had plenty of water in it. We headed to the next to last campsite, 1369, on the long north arm of the lake. Most of Hudson lake was completely burned over by the fire but not the north arm. The campsite is a small site but we managed to put up 2 small tents. Had a beautiful evening watching the moon rise and in the morning saw a moose walking by across the narrow bay the campsite is on. It did appear that this site would be [retty bugginh during the bug season.
Day 4 - we headed up into Fire lake and explored a couple of creeks that flow into the lake. Managed to get into an un-named lake because of the high water level. After being entertained by 2 pair of swans during our lunch break we headed down into lake Four just as the wind really kicked up. We hugged the shoreline and made it to lake Three. Ran into a guy whose said he was a DNR officer but he wasn't in uniform and the canoe had no government markings but since he didn't ask to see a license or permit I didn't bother to ask to see his identification which I would have if he had asked for anything. We headed out across lake Three against soe pretty good whitecaps, stopped on a small island in the middle to wait it out for a bit. After about an hour it calmed a bit so we paddle to the west shore and set up camp on site 1508. This is a well used site that slops up a small hill. Adequate tent sites were found, the fire didn't hit the site but just up the hill was all burned over.
Day 5 - packed up after breakfast and headed out to the lake One landing. It was a fun trip, explored some of the off the main route lakes and spent a day hiking.
