I still love October trips, despite having been hit with some wet and cold weeks. The silence and the solitude are simply beyond compare. It is like an "Last human in the world" experience, the trails and campsites are there, but there is not a footprint to be found.

My "never again" moment was on my trip in April of 2012, when I woke to 18" of snow and a viscous wind out of the north. Nearly flipped on Argo in the waves, the portage to Crooked took close to three hours. Standing in the snow on the north shore of crooked, the wind in the trees, waves in the bay, something brushed my cheek and I swatted it away- it was a little junco, it came back, landed on my arm and hopped across my shoulders and huddled for a minute or two against my neck before fluttering off in the wind.

Never above freezing that whole day, 10 degrees that night on Wagosh (a night I had planned on being home).

My tent in the morning.

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