Reading now - I always enjoy your reports.

If I may, paragraphs 5 and 6 repeat themselves.

I share your sentiments on pinetree. It is a pretty lake. Did you check out the island on Sylvia? Heron rookery is a cool attraction there. The site itself I stayed at once while trout hunting and it was nothing to write home about.

The Fraser site when you come out from the pinetree portage looks beautiful. I didn't get to check it out up close. How is the sleeping area?

You're right, that photo did look like a Bread album cover. 

Also wondering if, rather than The Law of Conservation of Portage Matter, if The Law of Conserving Portage Momentum might be the more appropriate law, since it states "once that sucker starts, there's no end."

And forget not The Five Stages of Portage.  Drew, I devised these a long time ago, in fact I fleshed them out a good deal more than what I'm showing here, but I feel with your penchant for writing with a flair for the dramatic, you might just enjoy this....  Guess we'll find out.  With grief, it is denial, anger, barganing, depression, and acceptance.  With Portaging, those five stages are just the first half.  If a portage goes on long enough, with sufficient brutality, there are five additional stages:
Pain (when it becomes your constant companion).
Resignation (irrational sense of permanence "I will always be here".
Fear (Anxiety that you will collapse, but you never get that lucky).
Despair (sensation of urgency to drop the boat/pack, alternating with muscle memory to stagger onward, in a mentality of absolute pack mule hopelessness).
Submission (At a point beyond Despair and Pain, an agreement within your soul to stop believing there is an end, a clearing, or any signal of nearing an end; an acknowledgement that all forest features are indistinguishable from one another, and that the sameness of this view and activity will continue for eternity.  "I submit".)

Lastly - how do you like the Aerial?  That's on my "serious consideration" list.
 

Zemantics wrote:

I share your sentiments on pinetree. It is a pretty lake. Did you check out the island on Sylvia? Heron rookery is a cool attraction there. The site itself I stayed at once while trout hunting and it was nothing to write home about.

The Fraser site when you come out from the pinetree portage looks beautiful. I didn't get to check it out up close. How is the sleeping area?

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to check out the island on Sylvia or the site. We just walked the portage, left the boats on Fraser. Speaking of Fraser, my impression of the site is just from paddling by. As we'd just done a sidetrip up to Sylvia we decided to push on.

MooseWhizzer Dave wrote:

You're right, that photo did look like a Bread album cover. 

Also wondering if, rather than The Law of Conservation of Portage Matter, if The Law of Conserving Portage Momentum might be the more appropriate law, since it states "once that sucker starts, there's no end."

 

 This makes way more sense. I may have to steal it I like your portage stages as well. They all make a lot of sense. As for the Aerial, I'm loving it so far. I've been on four trips with it and have been very pleased each time. I still haven't had to deal with a big storm in it, so I'm waiting for that to pass my final judgement. But so far, it's a hit.