Boundary Waters Trip Reports, Blog, BWCA, BWCAW, Quetico Park

BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog

March 29 2024

Entry Point 26 - Wood Lake

Wood Lake entry point allows overnight paddle only. This entry point is supported by Kawishiwi Ranger Station near the city of Ely, MN. The distance from ranger station to entry point is 13 miles. Access to Wood Lake is a 180-rod portage. This area was affected by blowdown in 1999.

Number of Permits per Day: 2
Elevation: 1361 feet
Latitude: 47.9691
Longitude: -91.6001
Summary: A 5-day loop from Baker up the Temperance lakes to Cherokee, and back through Sawbill and Smoke lakes back to Baker. A fairly difficult trip.



Day 0: We drove up from Stillwater in the morning and camped at one of the 5 walk-in campsites at Baker Lake, and it was nice.




Day 1 (Baker to S. Temperance) - A beautiful day, we decided to paddle all the way to South Temperance the first day which was a great paddle with easy portages except for the last one. We picked the campsite on top of a huge rock that was close to the middle of the lake. Tried fishing some but no luck




Day 2 (Rest) - In the night, we encountered the worst storm of the entire season. While we were there 19 people had to be rescued from the BWCA. We had about 50mph straightline winds, and I'm still surprised that the huge tent we had stood up to it. We slept in and took a rest day because of the intense winds. Amazingly beautiful sunset.





Day 3 (S. Temperance to Cherokee) - We left as early as we could to beat the heat, but it was no good. The lengthy, hilly portages were challenging and by the last portage we were pretty beat. We overpacked and single portaged which led us to speedier exhaustion. Still amazing weather. North Temperance was a beaut- I wish we had stayed there instead of South. We took the southeasterly facing campsite on Cherokee on the southeastern skinny island. Neat little site.



Day 4 (Cherokee to Sawbill) - Left a little later in the day but it was ok. We took our time going down the river letting out of the southwest part of Cherokee and it was a great area. BEWARE: The area between Ada and Skoop Lakes appears to be floatable, but a dam built recently has made the portion impossible to float. Be prepared for a long portage through muck and water. A guy that we saw there said he had been going to the BWCA for 40 years at least once per year and it was the worst portage he had ever seen. By the time we got to Sawbill it was pretty hot. We paddled all the way down to the site next to the portage onto Smoke.



Day 5 (Sawbill to Baker) - Cooler, cloudier weather for the first time on the trip. We were pretty hungry (I underpacked food a little and I felt really bad) and we were taunting each other with vivid descriptions of the burgers we were going to eat ASAP after getting out. We paddled back to Baker and returned our gear to Sawtooth outfitters.


Overall great route.

First Solo, Knife Lake

by eagle93
Trip Report

Entry Date: July 22, 2008
Entry Point: Moose Lake
Number of Days: 3
Group Size: 1

Trip Introduction:
I wanted to do a short solo for the experience and to test myself.

Report


I guess it's a bad sign that in my trip journal, the first line of day one is "Note to self: don't do a solo again!"

Since this was my first solo, I wanted to do a short trip to an area that was familiar to me. Because of this, I stayed at one campsite for the two nights of my trip. I quickly become totally bored.

Day 1:

A beautiful morning as I left Williams & Hall on Moose Lake. I paddled from Prairie Portage up thru Birch and Carp into Knife Lake. I didn't want to go to far in the event of bad weather on the trip out.

I fished in Birch and caught a few nice smallmouth. There were some cool things that day that made the trip seem promising. I saw an otter watching me for a while, and later that day in Knife, I watched a loon dive and swim directly under my canoe only a few feet below the surface. That was cool.

I camped at site 1249 just south of Robbins Island. One of the problems that I quickly realized only after being on this first solo trip was leaving an unattended campsite. Making sure the food bag is hung, no unattended campfire.... I guess I became too used to having someone else at the campsite while I went back out for a paddle or to do some fishing. It was only about 3 in the afternoon of day one when I realized how bored I was with myself.

Day 2:

Another beautiful day. The morning was not so bad because there was something to do. Occasionally I could hear people from an island campsite nearby. It was light by about 5:30, so I decided my plan for the last morning was to be up and heading out early just in case there was a headwind heading out.

By 3:30 in the afternoon, boredom set in again. About the same as day 1.

Earlier in the day, I paddled east on Knife to Thunder Point(?). Hiked up to the top for a great view west down Knife. It was hot, but there was a nice breeze. I wanted to continue up Knife to Eddy falls, but again, I was worried about getting too far away from camp if the weather turned bad.

Later, in camp while I was starting dinner, I wondered to myself how nice it would be to have some other people around. Someone must have heard that little thought, because right around dusk a Boy Scout group paddled up and asked if I was camping alone. They were way behind schedule (this was supposed to be their lunch stop), and couldn't find an open site as it began getting dark. 

I hung out and had a drink by the fire while they got their tents set up, prepared dinner and tried futily to get their food bags hung. Between the darkness, the small ropes and large bags, they gave up and decided to leave the food bags by the canoes. They were finishing dinner clean up while I was in my tent getting ready for the early paddle out in the morning.

Day 3:

I was up early and paddling away from camp while most of the scouts were still asleep. It turned out to be a good move. The morning started out nice, but soon it began to rain and became quite windy. Before the rain started, I saw a few beaver. One scared the crap out of me slapping its tail on the water as I passed nearby.

The paddle that took an easy and liesurely 4 or 5 hours on day one, took a hard solid 8 hours paddling back into the wind and rain. That hot shower felt fantastic when I finally got back to the lodge on Moose.

Looking back at this first solo, I won't say that I won't do it again (despite the note to myself in the journal). I learned some lessons on this trip that I think would make a future solo more enjoyable. I didn' have nearly as much fun as my other trips with the group, but I'm glad that I tried the solo at least once.

-Just to note, something I thought of after I submitted this report.

I traveled three days alone in the car before I even got to Ely. Something that may have contributed to the loneliness while paddling!