BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
July 12 2025
Entry Point 39 - Baker Lake
Number of Permits per Day: 2
Elevation: 1497 feet
Latitude: 47.8452
Longitude: -90.8169
Summary: A 5-day loop from Baker up the Temperance lakes to Cherokee, and back through Sawbill and Smoke lakes back to Baker. A fairly difficult trip.
Day 0: We drove up from Stillwater in the morning and camped at one of the 5 walk-in campsites at Baker Lake, and it was nice.
Day 1 (Baker to S. Temperance) - A beautiful day, we decided to paddle all the way to South Temperance the first day which was a great paddle with easy portages except for the last one. We picked the campsite on top of a huge rock that was close to the middle of the lake. Tried fishing some but no luck
Day 2 (Rest) - In the night, we encountered the worst storm of the entire season. While we were there 19 people had to be rescued from the BWCA. We had about 50mph straightline winds, and I'm still surprised that the huge tent we had stood up to it. We slept in and took a rest day because of the intense winds. Amazingly beautiful sunset.
Day 3 (S. Temperance to Cherokee) - We left as early as we could to beat the heat, but it was no good. The lengthy, hilly portages were challenging and by the last portage we were pretty beat. We overpacked and single portaged which led us to speedier exhaustion. Still amazing weather. North Temperance was a beaut- I wish we had stayed there instead of South. We took the southeasterly facing campsite on Cherokee on the southeastern skinny island. Neat little site.
Day 4 (Cherokee to Sawbill) - Left a little later in the day but it was ok. We took our time going down the river letting out of the southwest part of Cherokee and it was a great area. BEWARE: The area between Ada and Skoop Lakes appears to be floatable, but a dam built recently has made the portion impossible to float. Be prepared for a long portage through muck and water. A guy that we saw there said he had been going to the BWCA for 40 years at least once per year and it was the worst portage he had ever seen. By the time we got to Sawbill it was pretty hot. We paddled all the way down to the site next to the portage onto Smoke.
Day 5 (Sawbill to Baker) - Cooler, cloudier weather for the first time on the trip. We were pretty hungry (I underpacked food a little and I felt really bad) and we were taunting each other with vivid descriptions of the burgers we were going to eat ASAP after getting out. We paddled back to Baker and returned our gear to Sawtooth outfitters.
Overall great route.
2009 Portage Clearing Trip Crab Lake Area
Entry Date:
May 04, 2009
Entry Point:
Crab Lake and Cummings from Burntside Lake
Number of Days:
5
Group Size:
6
Volunteers in attendance beside myself were Steve (SEA), Mike (SWL), Jeff (JD) and Daisy (dog), Rich (TG) and Mike (Mr Sensitive). It was held as a base camp trip in the Crab Lake area and included work in clearing the Burntside/Crab, Crab/Clark, Clark/Meat, Meat/Sprite, Sprite/Phantom, Phantom/Battle, Battle/Hassel, Hassel/Lunetta, Hassel/Saca and Saca/Crab portages. Roughly 1340 rods cleared with 28 miles paddled to and from portages and camp. It was late in the day when we were at the Sprite/Phantom and Phantom/Battle portages. We got hit hard by rain and had to head back to camp, not getting as much clearing done as I’d liked. We camped at the northeast site on the northwest bay of Crab Lake. The worst portage with trees across was the Hassel/Battle portage. We cut a total of about thirty larger trees off this portage including clearing one snag where six trees had fallen across a live birch with all being suspended about eight feet above the trail. Once it all fell, all seven trees would have been blocking the portage. We managed to remove all six dead trees while leaving the live birch standing. This portage , along with a number of the others were some of the worst seen in years and required lots and lots of brush nipping and tree clearing. Many hours of hard (safe) work is what helped make this trip a success!
Highlights of the trip included: Great company! All in attendance had great, LMAO, campfire stories and were in good humor the whole trip! Better than average (think of past portage clearing trips) weather! The scenery was better than I’d anticipated. I really thought that more of this area would be swampland. Didn’t see another canoe party the whole trip! No mishaps or accidents! Daisy kept the squirrels at bay without a single bark. (The only time that she barked was when she was in the tent and didn’t know who was walking outside. She didn’t even bark when she was forgotten at a campsite along the way).
Notes to those interested: The Hassel/Lunetta portage is nowhere near the 370r, as listed on Fisher maps. Mike (Mr Sensitive) had a different map that listed it at something like 280r which would be way more like it. The Lunetta campsite is nice with great camp furniture but unlevel tent pads. The creek from Lunetta to L. Crab is much more like a river, unlike the vague blue line shown on Fisher maps. The Burntside/Crab portage is looong, but otherwise not that bad. There is cell phone coverage on most of these lakes (AT&T).
Pic’s? I really didn’t take as many as other trips and am hoping that a couple of the others post some on the CCBB and BWCA boards.
Tools: The big crosscut saw (Simonds crescent ground, perforated lance tooth felling saw, tweaked for bwcaw portage clearing) was used a lot and worth its weight. The axe (Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe) was used a lot and is, imo, the best canoe axe ever. The Fiskars Pruning Stiks were used lots and lots. The (new this year) Irwin Marathon Pro-cut ‘fast cut’ saws worked very well and will definitely be used for a few years to come.
All in all it was a great trip! Thanks to all volunteers for their hard work and great company! Thanks to VNO for some of the lodging! Thanks to the USFS, Lac La Croix and Kawishiwi districts for setting us up and a tow across Burntside!
Next years trip will be May 10-14 (they finally moved fishing season ahead a week!). I’ll try to come up with another base camp route and will announce it when I decide where.
Joe (PortageKeeper)