Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Annual Fall Trip to Lake Agnes
by adludwig

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 09/11/2013
Entry & Exit Point: Moose/Portage River (north) (EP 16)
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 4
Trip Introduction:
I am a big fan of this site and decided it was finally time to publish my first trip report. I wish I hadn't waited so long, as I am sure I am omitting some of the little things that made this trip so special. Enjoy!
Day 1 of 5
Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Our day started around 5:00am when we left my brother's home in Virginia. Over the last few years his place has been a nice place to stay in a reasonable distance to Ely. We like to get started early and with everyone getting older, the leave at 2:00am to get to Ely trips are not happening anymore. We rolled into Ely and headed straight to Britton's Café. The place was full of other groups heading into the BWCA, most of them in at our entry point (and some who are members of this great site). We filled our bellies, picked up our permits and were on our way!


The group this year consisted of my dad (the grizzled veteran who has been on 20-something trips), my buddy "George" (my fishin' buddy who goes with me everywhere, making his second straight trip to the BWCA), and my brother-in-law (the greenhorn). We got to the EP early in the day and just set out on a rocket pace. We managed to do every portage in one trip which was really a huge victory, after some canoe yolk failures the year before. We made our normal pitstop on the North end of Nina Moose at the beach. We always stop there for a snack and a chance to recharge. We found a campsite on Agnes pretty easily, but it was our first time staying at the site. Our normal site has been the site in the southwest corner, but for a change there were people there already. We had plans to stay further down the lake to be near some areas we wanted to fish and travel to, so it made the change pretty easy. We set camp and squeezed in a little fishing before dinner. "George" caught the nicest smallmouth bass of the trip the first day right in front of camp from shore!

We started a new tradition this year as we prepared for dinner. One that was inspired from many great folks on this site... We all had packed frozen steaks to enjoy over the fire! We found plenty of dead cedar and cooked them over a blazing fire. Now that was a meal fit for kings!
After dinner we fished a little more picking up more smallmouth and northerns. Then we relaxed by the fire enjoying some campfire coffee and hot cocoa. As it grew dark I let out my ceremonial sasquatch howl across the lake and we retired to our tents.