Sam and I woke up today and went for a reconnaissance run up and down the river. We found heavy ice on lake Bemidji, stump lake and lake winni.
The river flows smoothly between the lakes, but it will be a couple of weeks at the soonest before the lakes will be passable.
The Stump lake dam portage looks exactly like the preview I found online which is a relief to see.
Once we scouted what we could, we went to the Paul Bunion marker and waved at Ben Swift on the live webcam then headed to the skate park for some exercise.
The weather was 50 degrees and cloudy today. Tomorrow is set to be warmer and my goal is to paddle the first 10 miles of the river headwaters.
