My husband & I are thinking of checking these lake out on our way to Little Saganaga. We know they were burned by the Cavity Lake fire.

Has anyone been there more recently? We are wondering if it's in better shape now and how campsites were. There seems to be one campsite that has comments on the overview map but no reports on most of the others.

Plus we haven't been to Little Sag since before that fire and want to know how fire was there?

Thanks

these are from late april/early may 2012. peter lake.
the last photo you can just barely see my paddle partner through the trees... she's checking out the brand new latrine. there was nothing in it. not sure when the new latrines were installed after the 2006 fire.

Wow. Thanks, Cheryl. Great photos as usual. Two years ago, eh? Was that the early ice out year? When it reached 80 degrees on my birthday, March 13th?

Which site was that? Did you stay or just check it out?

We went through the area from Brant Lake entry to Little Sag in 2012. I posted a trip report that you can checkout.

2012 trip report here.

Mainly, the lakes from Gillis to Little Sag were hit hard by that fire.

Lightfoot, thanks for the link to your trip report. GREAT photos. Nice fall colors! Exactly what we're looking for. Your shots of Little Sag are spectacular! I see Chris has a REI Quarter dome tent - just like ours!

Thanks again!

Went through there in 2012. Remember thinking those were the worst sites in the BW thanks to the fire. One site didn't have a single tree for shade anywhere in sight. I think it is shown in one of the pics above.

My fireman friend from what i can recall said Peter had the highest temps of that fire. There is a map of the temps and will look into adding them to this thread if possible. In any case it got burnt darn good from the word on the street.

Hey Hawbakers.We share the same B-day!

We were through that area last year. West fern is heavily burnt and I am not sure about Virgin. There are many sites on Gabi that were not touched by the fire. We have camped in the burn sites but we go early May so not too concerned about shade. High winds can be a problem as one night we had our tent collapse in 40 mph gusts and it snowed on us.

That part of the BWCA burned HOT and much of the organic matter and seed base in the soil was destroyed. Virgin Lake seemed like it was above timberline when I went through there a year after the fire.

There were a few sheltered pockets that didn't burn though, and I remember seeing a spruce grouse in a small island of unburned timber at the west end of French Lake.

Really cool area to explore.

quote bruceye: "Hey Hawbakers.We share the same B-day!"

Hey! Cool! Don't think we'll get to 80 degrees this year! Hahaha. In Minnesota anyway. Happy Birthday early!

quote brantlars: "We were through that area last year. West fern is heavily burnt and I am not sure about Virgin. There are many sites on Gabi that were not touched by the fire. We have camped in the burn sites but we go early May so not too concerned about shade. High winds can be a problem as one night we had our tent collapse in 40 mph gusts and it snowed on us."

Bummer! Yes, we have been snowed on in the past in those early May trips. We had a dome tent back then which I felt was better to shed the wind.

sometimes tarp tying can be a challenge in burn areas. the trees that are standing are generally loose in the trunk area. but no shortage of firewood :)

quote Rob Johnson: "Went through there in 2012. Remember thinking those were the worst sites in the BW thanks to the fire. One site didn't have a single tree for shade anywhere in sight. I think it is shown in one of the pics above.
"

+1 we almost went to take a picture to post and ask if anyone ad seen a worse site. If I remember correctly, it was otherwise a pretty lake. very clear water and steep banks around the shore.

Came into Virgin last spring from Little Sag. Someone (thankfully) had built a small rock cairn to mark the start of the portage trail. A burnt shoreline is very confusing because all of the "tell tale" signs of a portage location went with the flames. Virgin is a small little lake and a very sad sight.

quote brantlars: "We were through that area last year. West fern is heavily burnt and I am not sure about Virgin. There are many sites on Gabi that were not touched by the fire. We have camped in the burn sites but we go early May so not too concerned about shade. High winds can be a problem as one night we had our tent collapse in 40 mph gusts and it snowed on us."

i can attest to the wind factor in burn areas, last may it ripped my rain fly in half(it had been on alot of trips)and wrecked havoc on our camp. we made it work and the lake trout fishing was spectacular !

From our trip September 2012. The lake looked absolutely beautiful hiking from French Lake.The landing to put the canoes in reminded me of a trout stream with the different colored rocks. Once we started paddling Peter Lake had almost a "holocaustic aura" to it! The entire lake was devastated by the fire. We paddled by most of the campsites before choosing the one closest to the French Lake portage. Even though it was the best one for us on the lake, it was by far the worst one out of the 6 we used on our 7 day adventure. We did see cow moose and the trout fishing was very good. I'm glad we visited this lake on our burned/not burned route but would definitely not make this a base camp for more than 1 day. Wish I could show you pictures but both of our cameras were fatally wounded by dips in the water! :-( FOFO

http://www.bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=trip.report_view&sel_trp_id=3206 If the link doesn't work , the trip report is called EP #52 Brant Lake, 50% Chance Lake Trout & Loonlings. I describes the area you are looking at including Peter and Little Gab. Have Fun FOFO

Link to Trip report

Thanks for sharing also! I am getting more excited just reading these again!

quote HighPlainsDrifter: "
Came into Virgin last spring from Little Sag. Someone (thankfully) had built a small rock cairn to mark the start of the portage trail. A burnt shoreline is very confusing because all of the "tell tale" signs of a portage location went with the flames. Virgin is a small little lake and a very sad sight."

That portage is mismarked on my Voyageur Map. We paddled around awhile to find it. Neat portage though.
This is the landing on the Virgin side.

Last time I was on Peter we camped on a point and it was -35 degrees F.. But warmed up into the 30's in a couple of days. Love that area in the winter.