More stats, less sass*

A few weeks ago four of us put in at Clearwater Lake for a week of BWCA paddling and camping. Most of our shots are threesomes--as one of us took the pictures. Here we are, excited to get going. (I'm the short-looking one at left; the center pal is nearly six feet tall!) Our goal: 35 miles on the Clearwater Loop, what some say is "the most scenic route of the BWCA" (from "Paddling the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park"): Clearwater to Caribou to Little Caribou to Pine, Little John, McFarland, John, East Pike and West Pike.

Three of us on the trip are book editors. We like to analyze. We do it in our jobs all the time: moderate edit, 65,000-word manuscript, 5 pages/hour to edit, 10 pages/hour to proofread, 7 months to produce book.

Regarding our trip, we planned:

approx. 9 miles a day, since we'd be taking two leisurely layover days
approx. 2 miles/hour to paddle, unless we hit hard winds
approx. 8 rods/minute to portage

Double-back portages until the last day, when we had reduced to four packs, then we portaged the "leap-frog" method:
1,2,3,4 = person
A,B,C = beginning, midpoint, and end of portage
1 & 2 carry canoes from A to C
3 & 4 carry two packs from A to B and return to A
1 & 2 return to B and carry packs to C
3 & 4 carry last two packs from A to C


Instead of walking the portage three times, each one only has to walk the length twice.

*****

Or, if you want a BWCA story with fewer stats--

When my then twenty-year-old, Chicago-born husband went with a crew of his friends to the Boundary Waters, he was in charge of food. This was his list:

Fish?
Cornbread




*homage to the not-forgotten Batgirl. Boy, would she be having some doozies to say about these faltering Twins. . . .