Sylvania Wilderness canoe and hang

[sir_n0thing]

The "First Yooper northern canoe and hammock hang" was a success! In attendance were...
Canoeski
sir_n0thing
Lonetracker
Wanderlust62

Wanderlust62 and I drove up Thursday night after work and found an open site in the main campground to hang for the night. This was the maiden voyage of my new WBBB 1.1dbl, and it worked really well, though I had to play with the sag a bit as the weekend went on to get that sweet spot. After finding out that Wanderlust62 has a tendency to snore a bit (hello, understatement) I discovered that I can take my whole rig off a set of trees and relocate it intact to another set of trees 50 yards away in under 3 minutes in the dark. Otherwise it was a beautiful night, I didn't even bother to deploy my tarp.
We headed down to the boat launch bright and early Friday morning and set off across Clark Lake, then portaged across to Loon Lake and paddled down to the Osprey 2 site. We ran into Lonetracker there and set up camp. Canoeski showed up later in the afternoon.
The whole trip was BEAUTIFUL. Fall colors were pretty sweet and the leaves were falling like crazy. Temps ranged between mid 40's F at night and mid 70's F during the day. If anything, I was wishing for weather that was 10-15 degrees cooler overall.
Lonetracker and Canoeski introduced Wanderlust62 and myself to Chaga (?) tea, which was some really good stuff!

I'm sure there'll be more to come in this thread as the other guys chime in. I'll also put up more pics soon and possibly a youtube vid, but for now here are a few pics.

[lonetracker]

i arrived at the wilderness mid morning on fri,got the canoe in the water and loaded and set out,headed east on beautiful clark lake.
this is a pic of typical scenery on clark lake.there was about a 2.5 mile paddle to the portage to loon lake.
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the portage into loon lake was just over a quarter mile.i got me ,my canoe and gear over it quickly and was greated by loon lake in just past its peak of fall splendor
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some golden tamaracks show their stuff
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upon arriving at the site,which was one of four on the 370 acre lake,i met sir nothin and wanderlust 62.the woods around here are very mature and comprised mostly of huge maple and yellow birch.a few basswood and hemlock completed the mix.allmost everything was very yellow and about half the leaves have fallen. there is about 5 inches of them covering the ground.
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some views from our camp area lakewards
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here is the view from my hammock the first morn,looking toward the lake.
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canoeskis rig on the first morn,shh he's still in there
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on the trail down to the lake there was a yellow birch with a hole through it.i took some pics as the sun threaded the hole.
sunlight reflected off the lake
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as sir nothin and wanderlust explored around loon lake and did a little hikeing,canoeski and i portaged over to deer island lake and did some exploreing there.
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we found a fatwood stump and colected some.this is me carving some fatwood.
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canoeski
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the last night was warm again,about 46degf or so.sir nothin and wanderlust had to head out early.some of the best veiws of the trip were yet to come i wish they could have stayed to share them with us.
conoeski found this giant chaga,25 ft up this huge yellow birch
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we took a little canoe trip on the lake were we saw a family of otters.i did not get any good pics of them.we watched them and paced them with our canoes trying to get good pics untill they left the lake.here is one of the otters tracks.
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canoeski in my canoe.
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canoeski and i walked over to nearby fisher lake.here is canoeski getting in touch with nature.
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we arrived back at our site just before dark and were greeted with this dilima.i am going to write a seperate thread on this tommorrow.

i had a great time sharing the northwoods with some of my fellow hammockforumers.wish it could have been longer.
hangin u.p.
bill

[mbiraman]

Sounds like you guys had a great paddle and camp. I love the look of the forest around there, so hammock friendly and beautiful too.

[dejoha]

Wow what a great trip and beautiful pics. Thanks for sharing.

[Running Feather]

Wow! That looks like a great place to be. Nice sized group too. Great pics. Thanks for taking us along

[JerryW]

Good write-up and photos, guys! Thanks for sharing.


Jerry

[Lonely Raven]

You certainly have an eye for photos!

I can hardly wait to hear about the eagle!

[KefWalker]

That's a great trip report--beautiful pictures as well! This is a great time of year to be on the trail. I too look forward to "the rest of the story".

[sir_n0thing]

I just want to reiterate that it was SERIOUSLY beautiful up there! The night sky was incredible. We had a fair amount of meteor activity on Friday night, which was a real treat.
I highly recommend the Sylvania area to anyone looking at a fall trip. Camping up there is FREE during the off-season.
Wanderlust and I ar talking about a winter trip as well. He's been up there before in the winter and reported it was great.

[Can't Wait]

That was totally awesome enjoyed the pic's and narrative