The wife and i started our trip out with the the drive up on 8/26/11.We drove up to tofte and stayed our first night at the bluefin resort.The next morning we took the back roads over to Ely, we like these back roads, great for seeing wildlife.We then spent the day in Ely, and i didn't see one BWCA.com sticker anywhere.After a day in Ely we headed to fall lake campground for one night. Sunday we headed in on lake one.At the entry it was foggy and smokey from the fires on pagami creek. We paddled lake one looking for campsites, all taken but one. Didn't like that one, so we headed to lake two, same thing all taken but one. On to lake three we go. We take the island site just east of entering lake three, we have stayed on this site before and like it, so we were glad it was empty. The people that had it before us left the fire smoldering ( not good ). We spented the next day relaxing, something we don't get to do that much because of our busy life. On tuesday we dicided to do a small daytripping route. We went to Horseshoe lake, Brewis lake, Harbor lake, North Wilderlake. This is where the trip got fun for me. the creek/ boggy marsh from North wilder to kawishiwi river/hudson lake had very little water and a lot of stinky mud knee deep.I was ready to tackle this creek one way or another. The wife was a good sport and didn't make me turn around and go back the way we came. even thou she hates the stinky mud of bogs.I ended up portageing this creek almost all the way to the creek that takes you to Zitkala lake, from there we were able to push our way with our paddles until we made it to kawishiwi river.This took us about two hrs to do this creek.Glad we were only day tripping, I could of never done it if i was carrying gear.we then headed up to fire lake then to lake four and back to camp on lake three.My wife then spent the rest of the day washing the stinky mud from her clothes and body.The next day we spent fishing on lake three and exploring our island. Didn't catch a thing, last yr i caught the biggest northern i have ever caught just off this island.Spent the rest of our trip just relaxing and watching a family of chipmunks on our site. We normaly travel and do a route when we go to the BW, but this yr we just basecamped and relaxed. Friday we headed out. The fire figthers were spraying water around the portages between lakes one and two on our way out.After leaveing we headed back to tofte and the north shore for the day to shower and clean up. a sauna and hot tub at the american inn. We then hiked the clauldrens and some shore lines of lake superior. All in all it was a nice vacation and relaxing.