We woke up to intermittent rain, moderately warm (about 40 degree) temperatures, and a water level that had come up several feet… making the section of river we faced even less runnable. Good thing the only real plan we had for the day was to move the canoe down past the next set of rapids.
Or, as it turned out, just to pack down the trail so that portage would be a physical possibility.
There’s an overwhelming amount of moose poop everywhere (we haven’t seen bear poop, but we’re AGGRESSIVELY bear bagging just in case) and it took us the better part of the morning to plot the course to the next potential put-in. We DEFINITELY can’t run these rapids- especially in high water.
When we got back to camp for late lunch, the rain had picked up and we were both pretty much soaked. And tired. Postholing is exhausting, especially through Maine evergreen scrub in thigh-deep snow with running water underneath it. We debated moving the canoe just for something to do, but dragging it in the pouring rain sounded like a special level of hell even for us and with the water still rising it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere soon so we called it a day.
Steve found a spot on yesterday’s portage trail where a posthole punch-through created the perfect set up for an ice toilet with our foam pads as insulation, and had himself a very leisurely poop. He was quite proud. (I was less impressed than he’d hoped.)