September 3. Third morning. First night that was warm enough to have the sleeping bag not fully zipped up and without day clothes on.

Campsite description: We are on the lakeshore, but the trees are so dense all the way to the edge of the shore that even the brightest sunshine nowhere casts more than scattered, moving wisps of light on the forest floor. Correspondingly at night: we can only sometimes see single stars between the treetops, with no chance to identify them because the constellations around them are missing. The view from the edge of the shore out to the lake is wonderful and offers a large area of sky, but on our few nights here the moon is there quite early before midnight, and there are no stars to be seen. If we were to kayak out on the lake at night, even before the moon rises, we should have a good clear sky. But then we’d never find our way back to our campsite. Maybe tonight – our last – we’ll try to moor the kayak to shore with a long line and get out on the lake a few feet after all.

We didn’t realize that you can’t drive to these campsites by car. We had to park about a hundred yards away and then we brought all our luggage down to the lakeshore in endless shuttle walks. The campground has: a wooden platform, about twenty by twenty feet, level, a heavy, wooden picnic table with benches attached, a fire pit that consists of a flat metal cylinder, and a cast iron grill grate that you can swap over the fire. Also: an outhouse.

We strung up the hammocks right by the water. It’s not so easy to get into the lake. The shore edge is about a foot or two high. At good campsites you have a tree, a root, a few stones in the water so that you can get down reasonably safely, and then balance on the stones further into the lake. It is very shallow and not particularly clear, so it doesn’t seem advisable to jump forward, even a very flat jump. You can still stand even a hundred yards out. The bottom and the water are red, remnants from an old iron mine.