Sunday, June 06, 2010

When I woke up at 6 AM, it was overcast and sprinkling. By the time I had made breakfast and broke camp, it was sunny with a slight, welcome breeze out of the West. Thank goodness, the humidity had dropped considerably from the previous day. I broke camp at 8 AM and after a short paddle took the 50 rod portage from Tee to Grassy Lake. Grassy Lake was one of the larger lakes on this loop. It is a shallow lake averaging only 10-15 feet deep. There are two campsites on the lake. I paddled close enough to the campsite on the south end of grassy to notice that it appeared to be fairly nice with a good landing. I never saw another canoe on this lake. There is a private home on Grassy Lake on its northeast end only accessible by private road off the Grassy Lake Road (formerly known as the Chainsaw Sisters Road). There is no public road access to this lake. I saw power boats parked at the dock at this private residence, but no boats were on the water. The east end of Grassy Lake where it necks down is filled with water lilies. At the east end of Grassy, I took the 25 rod portage around the outlet rapids to the Range River. The Range River was very high and I paddle about a mile of the river where it splits: going north to Range Lake and going south to Low Lake. I traveled South into Low Lake and then paddled its length (about 2 miles) to the Bass Lake Portage. There is road and boat access to Low Lake on its eastern most bay. There are also a few cabins on its western shoreline along the north arm of the lake. It also has two forest service campsites on its north shore of the south arm of the lake. I saw one motor boat and one canoe on the whole lake. The portage to Bass Lake begins on a sandy/gravel esker at the south end of Low Lake. The portage is listed as 40 rods, but I was able to navigate the small pond into Bass Lake, shortening the portage to only about 15 rods. Bass Lake has no road access, but has a very popular hiking trail that completely goes around the lake and is accessible from the trail head parking lot on the Echo Trail at its west end. Bass Lake has two forest campsites locate on its north shoreline. They were both occupied. These were the first campsites I saw occupied on my entire loop. Near the east end of Bass Lake is Dry Falls. I wish I had taken the 40 rod portage to Dry Lake that starts at the falls and continues on to High Lake which is another 100 rod portage High Lake is a deeper lake with 60 feet of water and four campsites. I'll save that for another time. I only saw one canoe on the water on Bass Lake. I took the 270 rod portage out to the Echo Trail parking lot and then portaged another 30 rods or so into Little Long Lake right across the road. I took a quick swim in the beautiful gin clear water of Little Long Lake to cool off after the long up hill portage from Bass Lake. It was now mid-day and the west wind had picked up. I had a two mile paddle west to the Burntside portage. Again, no boat activity of any kind on Little Long Lake. I reached the Burntside portage and Burntside Lake where I ate lunch in the shade. The white caps had picked up on Burntside and I had about a two mile paddle across open water to my car. There was some boat and wave runner traffic on Burntside which added to the wave action. I reached the landing off the Passe Road boat launch at 2 PM. I decided to camp on the north arm of Burntside that evening. So I drove down to the end of the Burntside North Arm Road to some friends of mine and relaunch my canoe to access the campsites on that end of the lake. Unfortunately, all four of the campsites at this end of the lake were occupied by boat campers, so I had to paddle back to my friends property on Burntside where I made my camp for the evening.

I was very pleased with my decision to make this non-BWCA loop. I saw less boat traffic on this route that I have seen on many of my BWCA routes. The portages are all fairly easy with very small elevation change. It is a very scenic route with all types of lakes and rivers. I was very pleased with my how the Prism handled in the wind and how well it glided. I single portaged every thing. My pack weighed in at 55 pounds. I should have lightened the load and could have easily. I found out my appetite was suppressed by the heat and humidity. I know I need to hydrate more than I did for the conditions of the trip
The pictures above are as follows: Grassy Lake, Grassy Lake outlet, Range River, Low Lake, Low Lake loon family, Portage from Low to Bass Lake, Esker between Low and Bass Lake, Esker 1, Esker 2, Esker3, Bass Lake, Dry Falls on Bass Lake, Little Long Lake, and view of Burntside from campsite on North Arm.