Hello, our family will be hanging out on the Gunflint Trail for a few days later this month. We have hiked many of the often recommended places and are looking for something new to try. Any good recommendations that are not on my list of "have dones" We have the SNF brochure of hiking trails.

We have done....... Honeymoon many times, Caribou Rock trail just to the overlook a couple times and all the way to Rose once, Magnetic, Centenial twice, trails at the ChikWauk museum, Morgan, Ram, and Bower Trout ep portages, last summer my older duckling and I hiked on the South Lake Trail from Rockwood for a little ways. We have also done Eagle Mountain, Oberg, and LeVeuax Mountains.

Thanks..... the ducklings are now 12 and 10

If you've only hiked to Magnetic Rock from the trailhead on the Gunflint, try it from the Warrens Rd trailhead, starting near Gunflint Lake. That's a neat hike. Take the road through the Cross River gravel pit, right after you cross the bridge.

The BRT starting at Mayhew Lake going to the Sock lake campsite is a nice outing. You could try Bridal Veil Falls from Loon Lake as well.

If you want to hit everything on the hiking brochure, I didn't see mention of the Lima Mt trail. It was in rough shape earlier this year and there are better hikes, but there is a really nice view about 3/4 the way up.

Quinn

Thanks Quinn. Those look awesome.

The Border Route Trail has some pretty accessible overlooks around Clearwater. The spur trail to Daniel Lake basically starts across from Clearwater Lodge. The parts along Daniels are old rail beds, then the part along Rove are dense Cedar groves and then you ascend into these kind of high grassy forest prairies. I put arrows on the map to show the overlooks - the one over Watap and Rove is the most impressive, the one in my second picture. An idea would be to have Clearwater Lodge ferry you to the campsite with the spur trail half way up the lake, or to the 90r Mountain/Clearwater portage (That area is a nice old growth high pine forest) and hike back. The last picture is the far east overlook. Pack all the water you need. Map scale is 1 mile for each square.













Daniel

dew042..... thanks for the info and beautiful pics. We are bringing up the canoe and one of our daytrip thoughts was to paddle to the 90 portage to access the BRT for the views. Now that you showed me exactly where they are I think that is what we will do. That is..... If we have a day with little wind in the forecast ;)

That's a really pretty paddle on Clearwater with the classic huge rock face on the south side. The Mountain/Clearwater portage landing is a river-rocky landing, I've swam there, overheated, a bunch of times.

Check in at Clearwater Lodge, get a wild berry pie.

One of my favorite areas of the BWCA.

Daniel

Big duckling and I stayed in a bunkhouse at Clearwater last summer the night before our daddy/daughter trip to Crocodile. Great lodge and people working there. We sat on their dock enjoying the view at dusk and decided I needed to paddle that lake someday. Pie sounds great!

There's a trail along the north shore of Loon Lake. I believe it's a winter skiing trail but I hiked part of it last summer and it was great. Saw a very dead wolf carcass.

I heard about this trail from the woman who owns Heston's on Gunflint Lake Perhaps she'd be a resource for you, too. Go there and buy something from their store and chat. :)

Although pricey, I would think the Towering Pines Canopy Tour out of the Gunflint Lodge would be true "what I did for summer vacation" type wow. 10 years old, 75 lbs is the lower end of their restrictions.

I'd be jealous.

Daniel

quote nojobro: "There's a trail along the north shore of Loon Lake. I believe it's a winter skiing trail but I hiked part of it last summer and it was great. Saw a very dead wolf carcass.

I heard about this trail from the woman who owns Heston's on Gunflint Lake Perhaps she'd be a resource for you, too. Go there and buy something from their store and chat. :)"

Is that the Bryce-Breon trail that starts by the boat landing, runs along the north shore by the campsite, and then eventually connects w/ the Border Route Trail? That looks like a good one and possibly the same one that Quinn from Bearskin Lodge suggested up above. Did it bring you to Bridal Veil Falls?

quote dew042: "Although pricey, I would think the Towering Pines Canopy Tour out of the Gunflint Lodge would be true "what I did for summer vacation" type wow. 10 years old, 75 lbs is the lower end of their restrictions.


I'd be jealous.


Daniel"

That one has crossed our minds before..................Little duckling will be 2 weeks shy of 10 (probably could get away with that one) but not close enough to the 75 lbs. Maybe big duckling and 1 parent could do it this trip and then little duckling and the other parent do it next time. It would help spread out the cost ;)

Thanks for all of the great ideas. We have some new places to explore on our trip.

We are a week away now so I thought I'd check back in and see if there are any more suggestions?

quote ducks: "Thanks for all of the great ideas. We have some new places to explore on our trip.


We are a week away now so I thought I'd check back in and see if there are any more suggestions?"

No suggestions.. just a request for you to report back when you return. We're staying at Rockwood for a few days in mid August after we exit the BW and are looking for new places in the area as well. We've done almost all of the same typical ones as your family.

have a great trip!

quote ducks: "I thought I'd check back in and see if there are any more suggestions?"

Quando omni flunkus, moritati

quote Twins87: "

quote ducks: "Thanks for all of the great ideas. We have some new places to explore on our trip.



We are a week away now so I thought I'd check back in and see if there are any more suggestions?"

No suggestions.. just a request for you to report back when you return. We're staying at Rockwood for a few days in mid August after we exit the BW and are looking for new places in the area as well. We've done almost all of the same typical ones as your family.


have a great trip! "

Will do!!!!! Tell Mike and Carl that ducks says "hi".

If you have not done the South Lake Trail you can access it right from Rockwood which is very convenient.

We had a great stay on the Gunflint Trail at the Trail Center in one of their 2 cabins. Besides our arrival day and departure day we had 4 full days to explore and enjoy the beauty of the Gunflint Trail.

Day 1..... forecast was for sun and little wind so we decided it was a perfect day to paddle Clearwater Lake to the 90 rod portage to Mountain Lake and hike some of the BRT to enjoy some of the beautiful overlooks. We also stopped at 2 empty campsites for swimming and lunch. I was shocked that we didn't see another boat, canoe, or people until the portage to Mountain and that all 5 campsites that we saw were unoccupied. It was a great 6 hour daytrip.

Day 2.... we hiked the trail that runs along the north shore of Loon Lake starting at the boat landing on the west end of the lake. This was a great trail that runs alongside a lake and offered wonderful seclusion. We were the only vehicle in the lot and we didn't see anyone else on the trail or out on the lake. We used the open campsite for a swim and lunch break. The normal hot spots like Magnetic, Caribou Rock, and Honeymoon Bluff all had full parking lots whenever we went by them.

Day 3.... we took a drive to the end of the Gunflint Trail and did a little exploring. We found the back door entry trail to Magnetic Rock that Quinn mentions above but only hiked it for a little ways. I think we will hike it all the way to the Rock during MEA weekend. The kids were wearing shorts and the trail is very overgrown there as well as that spot had the worst bugs I have ever encountered up there so the kids were not in a good frame of mind at the moment. Our best find of the day was the awesome sand beach on Seagull Lake that we didn't know about. At least 100 yards out it was still waist deep on the kids. We had it to ourselves for an hour on an 80 degree day.

Day 4..... We didn't feel like driving anywhere so we paddled from the cabin to Lizz, Caribou, Swamp, and back to Poplar. We did some swimming, eating, and fishing along the way.

That beach on Seagull is amazing, isn't it? Anna and I spent quite a long time there one afternoon two or three summers ago. Such a great sandy bottom and you could just walk out for what seemed like miles and it didn't get deep or rocky! I remember we got chased out by a thunderstorm, and we were really disappointed!

Your trip sounds like it was great fun! I hope we have some decent swimming weather when we are up there with her later this month.

Sounds nice!

Sounds like a great time was had by all... thanks for the update!

We head up on Saturday, put in at Cross Bay on Sunday morning and then head to Long Island for four days. Then it's Rockwood cabin for four more days to complete our week.

No concrete plans yet for the Rockwood stay. Now looks like both our 22 yr old and 18 yr old will join us for that part of the trip, which we're excited about. We'll let them help plan the days but right now we're thinking at least one day paddling, one day hiking (Maybe the trail right from Rockwood that you mentioned), a trip to Chikwauk to see the temporary Ham Lake Fire exhibit. And just some relaxing and hanging out in and around the cabin.

Hubby and I will have had plenty of paddling and exploring on our trip so we're going to let the kids decide some things. It's been several years since our eldest has spent any time up on the Trail so we're excited to have him join us and let him decide places he wants to discover or re-explore.