Long Lake to Plumley's Landing

We began the trek at the Long Lake Village trailhead on Tarbell Road.  The trail walks down into the woods and along the shore of Long Lake for quite a while.  We heard that Sigourney Weaver has property on the lake, and we expected to see her at any time, but she never showed.

After a couple of hours we stopped for a bite to eat at the intersection with the (closed) trail to Kempshall Mountain and to change our socks.  It had cooled off from the previous week, and it was very pleasant hiking.  We got to the Plumley's Landing site after 3:12 of hiking time, and picked the first lean-to, since they were both vacant. It didn't take long to go skinny dipping and cool off in the lake.

Our first dinner guest of the trip was a critter! We thought he was so cute, hopping right up on the fireplace for a treat!

I unpacked all my food and put it in my bear bag, a thick, plastic bag.  I hung a bear bag line and a clothes line to dry our hiking clothes before swimming.    Unfortunately, I didn't think to hang my bag up before swimming.  When we came back to the lean-to, a chipmunk had eaten several holes into my bear bag, but it didn't get anything to eat.  It also started gnawing into the nylon accessory pouch I kept my trail snacks in - probably because the rest of the food was sealed in plastic and then inside plastic shopping bags, it could smell the food in the accessory pouch the best.

Dinner was Mountain House Hearty Stew with Beef (very good) and Natural High Beef Burgundy with Noodles (very bad), along with some Maruchan instant lunches (very good).    Bob fished while I whittled, and we had a nice fire into the evening.   We set our bivies up behind the lean-to, facing the wind, and on a slight grade.

After dinner we went for another swim, but the air had cooled off and it was pretty chilly.  A group of canoeists arrived just before dark and took the other lean-to.    They performed some sort of bear ritual, banging pots and pans and chanting and making a lot of noise.  Bob and I were just bedding down, and of course I had nightmares about bears.  They wind got really blustery, and it rained a few drops, but cleared up before dawn.

Because I hadn't slept much the night before, and was up quite a while listening to the bears I thought were hovering over my bivy, I slept late.  Bob finally woke me up about 8, having already started the fire, made coffee, and ready to cook breakfast.    We had a terrific breakfast cooked by Bob, of scrambled eggs, corned beef hash and baked beans.  Did the dishes up, packed up and headed out for Ouluska Pass.   It was a great start to the day.