Moore Adventures

Sunday, July 22, 2012.

	Slept well and woke up about 7:30am. today we plan to hike down to the outlet of our lake; there was good fishing for grayling down there in 2007. After a leisurely breakfast we left camp around 10:30a and skirted arund the west side of the lake once more. We had been walking for about ten minutes when we spied something swimming across the lake towards our side. Using the binoculars we could see it was a porcupine! None of us had seen or heard of a porcupine swimming before. We stopped and watched him swim to shore and shake off. When we tried to approach him, he waddled off.
We continued our hike around the lake and Steve found an excellent caribou trail that went over the heavily forested slopes to the south. The traveling was much easier than in 2007 and we reached the outlet in fairly quick time. Everyone is feeling the effects of yesterday's climb to the waterfall. So we all agreed it was a very good thing that Steve found such an easy route for us.
	By 12:30pm we were down to the stream connecting our lake to the lower one. I had a tin of Thai-chili tuna on 3 entire whole wheat wrraps, plus a sliced up baby-bel cheese on a fourth wrap. Augmented the entire lunch with some dried fruit and a large candy bar. After yesterday, I needed the calories.
Phil, Steve and I all tried fishing for grayling in the pools and riffles, but not ~~much~~ any action. Steve saw one small grayling, but no one was able to get a hit. I was fishing a copper john, which did very well in 2007. Steve was using a brown stone fly. Likely we needed one of John's Pawtuxet Specials. We packed up and headed back to camp, stopping to fish a few deep spots along the far end of the lake. No action here either.
	We arrived back in camp around 3:30pm and everyone was beat. Naps and snacks were in order. Today's snacky-treat was cajun char jerky from Yellowknife, by way of Cambridge bay. It looked like we might get another thunderstorm, but the clouds blew themselves out. Tonights dinner was Sweet Corn and Blackbean Chowder soup for an appetizer followed up by an elegant Cheesy BNT. An excellent combination. We cleaned up our supper dishes and then had some scotch by the fire. We were lounging by the fire, solving important world problems...
... when a porcupine wandered through camp. He waddled right along the edge of the lake, completely ignoring us. Phil ran and got some photos. We had only just settled back into our drinks when, about 0 minutes later, we spied still another porcupine swimming back across the lake from the west side to the east. Now we know there are at least two different porkys in the valley. We also saw the Merganzer fly in again at 9:30pm, same time as yesterday. Also identified a second duck. Although we're all tired, it's hard to wind down and go to sleep when the sun is still shining on the peaks across the lake at 11:30pm.

Day 11 - Hike to Lake's End