Boundary Waters Trip Reports, Blog, BWCA, BWCAW, Quetico Park

BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog

December 11 2024

Entry Point 4 - Crab Lake & Cummings Lake

Crab Lake and Cummings from Burntside Lake entry point allows overnight paddle only. This entry point is supported by Kawishiwi Ranger Station near the city of Ely, MN. The distance from ranger station to entry point is 23 miles. Access from Burntside Lake with a 320-rod portage to Crab Lake. This area was affected by blowdown in 1999.

Number of Permits per Day: 3
Elevation: 1406 feet
Latitude: 47.9337
Longitude: -92.0269
Crab Lake & Cummings Lake - 4

Boulder Lake and Wild Animals

by 1BigPaddle
Trip Report

Entry Date:
Entry Point: Crab Lake and Cummings from Burntside Lake
Number of Days: 7
Group Size: 7

Trip Introduction:
We choose this route because it was shorter and a way to introduce four newbies to the BWCAW. The trip consisted of my father myself my brother his girlfriend my nephew and niece( 7yrs old/12yrs old) and my son (9yrs old)...

Report


We started our trip on Tuesday which was a first for our annual trip. It was strange as drove to our entry point that morning because the WELY polka show wasn't playing. So we did what any “tech savoy” guys would do and we used Pandora on my cell phone and had the polka station playing! Life was good! We arrived in sunshine and left in rain but the trip was great. I’ve never really done a trip report before so to save everyone from reading a long drawn out story that probably wont make sense. I will show some photos and have short little narratives with them.

We canoed through Crab Lake and into Clark lake. I've been to Clark Lake before and it is a great little lake with a nice camp site. The camp site has had some modifications done to it. But it is neat. There is an old road that runs right into camp. There are signs of the past, with an old pick, wheel barrel. If you follow the grown in road you will fine an old dump sight with a bed frame, bath tub and other signs from the 1970's.

From Clark we traveled to Boulder lake. We went through Phantom lake and Spirit lake. Boulder was a very pretty lake. We did a lay over day so the kids could swim and fish a lot. My son caught a 3.5lb small mouth and pile of northern pike. the island campsite was spacious and great for swimming. But the lakes name clearly comes from the thousands of boulders scattered in the water. We would snorkel around and find rocks to stand on that were 50-80 feet from shore! While exploring my son had a common garter snake attack him while he was standing on a beaver hut, he had to use his paddle to flip the snake in the water! On the opposite side of the lake my father was cleaning fish and a garter snake slithered up and bit his finger, and yet a second snake rose up like a cobra to scare him up. This was the strangest behavior I've ever seen from these snakes. We watched this buck from across the lake. We attempted to follow the creek to Bear Lake on our lay over day. But when it dried up we decided not to attempt it. The last thing we wanted to make it difficult for the kids.

The next lake we traveled to was Battle Lake. This was another pretty lake. When we had arrived a canoe with a DNR Fisheries guy came up and introduced himself. Andy was full of great information. We were even surprised to find out that the best man in his wedding was a guy that lived only one block from my parents house only 7 hours from ely! Small world.. We had storms rolling in, causing the wind to blow pretty wild. The winds seem to have upset the bees. My nephew got stung on the finger and just an hour later my niece got stung on the lip and her face swelled up pretty bad.

We did a grouse and her chicks.. she did not attack anyone!

From battle we traveled to Crab Lake and enjoyed two days of off and on again rain and t-storms.. even in the rain everyone still had fun and caught all the fish they could. After crab we portaged our way back to civilization with the hopes of Dairy Queen blizzards, and cheese burgers!

 


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