Day 47

6July2008

Began the day at Umbazooksus Stream West Campsite. Our new friends from Hermon packed up and rolled out early to head back home - safe journey! Hung around until 10am when our shuttle from the Inn showed up right on time.

Packed up our gear and the boat and shuttled down to Chamberlain Lake at the bridge. Signed in at the Ranger Station and had some lunch before packing up the boat and getting ready to paddle again.

Here we officially paddled out into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway - one of the more remote sections of the trail. We were pretty excited as we have heard how beautiful the Allagash is!

As we paddled out onto Chamberlain Lake we chose the conservative route and stuck close to shore and made our crossings as short as possible as a strong wind had kicked up waves. Originally had plans to make it to Lock Dam tonight, but the headwind and the waves made it a bit of a challenge - so we decided to stop early and make camp on a rocky outcrop.

The plan is to go to bed early and get up at the crack of dawn in the hopes that the wind and waves will have died down a bit so that we can make our way up the lake to the carry into Eagle Lake without too much difficulty.

We hope to hit the Allagash River proper by Tuesday. Our food is a bit tight, but with a little careful planning we should be good to go (it probably feels like a short ammount of food because we always have way too much!)

Weather: joyous sunshine, difficult headwind

Wildlife: hawk, canada geese, loon - and a skeleton on the shore of Chamberlain Lake - moose?

"We make ourselves rich by making our wants few." ~Henry David Thoreau