There are as many reasons to base camp as there are folks who do so. Many focus on fishing and desire to get to a lake and maximize the fishing time from there. Others find health issues force us into doing a basecamp. Many do so because of children in the group or a spouse's needs in this regard. Many need to be close to the exit for personal or business reasons. Some are simply very attached to a particular site so want to stay there for the memory of good times and the hope of continued good times there. Some know where the mushrooms, blueberries, and raspberries are. Many want to set up a kitchen and focus on culinary camping skills. Some want to hunt from a base camp and others want to set up a winter camping experience. There are other reasons, but you get the idea.

For me and my yearly traveling companion, Bill, ages 69 and 68 have seen us gradually regressing in health to the point that we can no longer take the aggressive loop trips as in the past. While in reasonably good health, there are some things we cannot do such as demanding portages. Creature comforts have become more important too. The paddling has not been affected as of yet.

When I started to go to the BWCA we went to fish. My first trip to Sawbill was a special trip for my friend. He had fished Sawbill and the surrounding lakes many times with his father back in the 60’s when he was young. They stayed at the Sawbill FS campground. His father passed away when he was 16 and he hadn’t been back until we went in 1980. We stayed on the north end and fished and explored from there. Almost all my trips (2 per year, May & late August) since then have been that type of trip. Those I go with just never had the desire\willingness to do any traveling and portaging. So over the years we stayed on the entry lakes and base camped. Almost always Sawbill. Personally I would like to have done a lot more (I did two) traveling trips but the others are good friends and family so that is what we did. As I get older I am really wanting to see more of the BWCA while I still can, before health issues are a deciding factor for me. So next year there will be at least one modest portaging trip. At least that is my plan. I will say that we have really figured out this base camping on an entry lake. We enjoy the comforts of car camping but experience the solitude of the BWCA. I will try to share some of our basics as this series progresses.
Jay

For me it is all about solitude as well as fishing. I only get one trip per year, so this is the focus. Get to a very secluded location, set up a comfortable camp and prepare for bad weather. Then get the rods out and go after them without distraction. It is not an accident that the solitude and great fishing go hand-in-hand. Near zero fishing pressure certainly helps, and we bust our tails getting to those places. We rarely see a soul all week.

This also makes it easy on taking youngsters and rookies. While they may not be much help on portages, the struggle is over in one day on the way in. Then camp is comfortable and the only work is to find fish (not difficult!) Going out is very light and everyone has gained their "wilderness strength" so no portaging issues at all.

Paddling every day and portaging with kids/rookies can keep the "fun meter" pretty low. Depends on the individuals involved, but I seek out and take those who want to primarily fish. We have enough day trips to explore to keep the kids interested.

Old Hoosier

Jay,I look forward to reading your thoughts based on so much experience. Our own dates back some 10 years or so,even though we did not really set out to do base camping as a plan.

I'm looking forward to doing a base camp trip sometime. I'm in my early 60's and fairly fit and so far, all of my trips have been traveling with 1-3 days of layover. I usually go with my son (late 20's) who wants to see how many miles we can do. I tend to hold him back as he wants to do 1 trip portages and I can usually only handle about 1/3 or them as 1 trippers. He, his GF, another of his friends and I were going up next week. He and his GF dropped out a couple of weeks ago due to their jobs. He friend (age 28) and I are still going. It will be his first trip and we will, once again, be doing a loop.
I'm sure I'll be picking up some base camping tips from this thread. I look forward to doing a base camp someday. Travel in a day or so to a nice, secluded area and fish, explore and relax. I'll probably even take a chair, something I've never done yet.
But heck, I'm just happy that my son and younger ones want me to still go along.

When I have gone with my brother we have always base camped. We pick a lake about a day's paddle from the entry and stay the week. The base camp lake must have lots of day trip options. We will spend 1 day exploring the lake that we are camped on and then take the rest of the week to day trip. Polly, Cherokee, Winchell, Long Island, Agnes, and Horseshoe are all good base camping lakes. The reason we have done this is that my brother does not like to make camp more than once a week. Plus when we first started out, we brought so much crap, I would have never wanted to carry that stuff over a bunch of portages.
As a soloist, I like to travel every other day. I get bored at 1 campsite for more than 2 or 3 nights.
When I get older, I will probably go back to base camping. Not now though I want to explore.
Funny this topic has been posted now. I booked a camper cabin at East Bearskin Lake for a week and am trying to decide now if I want to cancel it and just do a solo trip or just stay at the camper cabin. The benefit of the camper cabin? Lots of day trip options plus if it rains, I will have a nice place to stay. But then again, a solo would be awesome too. Especially since I am going in September.

We have almost exclusively base camped. We take too many luxury items and too much fresh food since we are on vacation. Our first day is rough because we go as far in as we can and fresh food is heavy, but the portages on the way out are a walk in the park. We fish every day and day trip to other lakes several days. Our main reason for going is to fish and relax so once we get our base camp set up we go into the "No place to go and all day to get there" mode. For a lot of people the trip is for the canoeing, for us the canoe is the means to get there and the platform to fish from.

Well said Mutz! That's us too!

quote mutz: "No place to go and all day to get there mode."

Add the "Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired" variant and you have captured a mindset that describes full escape and relaxation. It takes a couple of days to 'get there' psychologically, and base camping seems to help this process along. Simple, in-the-moment awareness is such a contrast to modern life that it can take time to achieve it.

The 'work hard the first day, then rest and base camp' model described by others has been my formula for success for a few years now. Allows you to get back in a ways for decent solitude, challenges the body, but then gives time and energy for experiencing the place to the fullest. You can also do day trips that test fitness and skill.

There are so many things to see, hear and feel that are missed if your energy and awareness goes into packing up and moving every day.