BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
June 30 2025
Entry Point 1 - Trout Lake
Number of Permits per Day: 12
Elevation: 1381 feet
Latitude: 47.9144
Longitude: -92.3220
Trout Lake - 1
The Escape of the Common Cubicle Man
Entry Date:
June 15, 2017
Entry Point:
Wood Lake
Number of Days:
5
Group Size:
2
It's Time.
The lawn has been mowed, and I've passed complete control of the homestead over to the fiance (she loves it). With a sack full of well-used camping gear and Def Leppard banging through the Cherokee's speakers, I headed out towards our rendezvous point (Buhl). Once there, I plan to pet my pal's dog and crash on his couch. After all, we plan to hit the dusty trail towards Ely at 0500 hours.
The morning came, however, we slept in. It felt great to snooze and we both slept great! We finally got out of the tent around 7:30 and brewed some coffee and boiled water for oatmeal. We notice that a number of turtles had made their way on shore overnight - it must be egg-laying time! We were a bit surprised that we hadn't yet seen another paddler. The waters had been rough, but we typically see a canoe or two each day in this area. It was nice to feel alone. We push the canoe off shore and begin our full day of fishing. The panfish, smallmouth and like we're very hungry! We decide to throw all fish back today and have our spaghetti for dinner. The day seemed to fly by as we spent much of the day in the canoe.
As the sun set, we heard the sound of rocks scraping. As we look up, we see a massive snapper turtle has crawled up the rock face from the water to within 5 feet of us. She stared at us and our fire for a few minutes before slinking back down the rocks.
We stayed up late talking by the fire, then retired to the tent. Around 1am we awoke to noise in our campsite. I immediately yell "hey bear!", as my mind always goes to bears in the BWCA. We had thoroughly washed our dishes and hung all food, so I was surprised to have a visitor. We finally gathered the courage to unzip the tent and see the turtle has returned and is climbing over our gear towards the fire grate. As we walk out, she begins back to the water. We noticed that she had started to dig out our fire pit. Was she looking for food?
We're exhausted and fall right asleep without another interruption. 
The morning came, however, we slept in. It felt great to snooze and we both slept great! We finally got out of the tent around 7:30 and brewed some coffee and boiled water for oatmeal. We notice that a number of turtles had made their way on shore overnight - it must be egg-laying time! We were a bit surprised that we hadn't yet seen another paddler. The waters had been rough, but we typically see a canoe or two each day in this area. It was nice to feel alone. We push the canoe off shore and begin our full day of fishing. The panfish, smallmouth and like we're very hungry! We decide to throw all fish back today and have our spaghetti for dinner. The day seemed to fly by as we spent much of the day in the canoe.
As the sun set, we heard the sound of rocks scraping. As we look up, we see a massive snapper turtle has crawled up the rock face from the water to within 5 feet of us. She stared at us and our fire for a few minutes before slinking back down the rocks.
We stayed up late talking by the fire, then retired to the tent. Around 1am we awoke to noise in our campsite. I immediately yell "hey bear!", as my mind always goes to bears in the BWCA. We had thoroughly washed our dishes and hung all food, so I was surprised to have a visitor. We finally gathered the courage to unzip the tent and see the turtle has returned and is climbing over our gear towards the fire grate. As we walk out, she begins back to the water. We noticed that she had started to dig out our fire pit. Was she looking for food?
We're exhausted and fall right asleep without another interruption. 
We awoke to our final full day at the site. This time we were up a bit earlier and again had coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. This time we grabbed some jerky for protein as well. The wind was up a bit today and we were hopeful for the opportunity to drift for some walleyes. We set out in the canoe again and worked the entire lake. Our fishing was successful again and time flew by. We finally ran into other humans, as the other site became occupied and a group of singing women paddled through. It was quite remarkable, actually.
We call this day the "hungry day". We got back to our site for a small lunch that turned into demolishing an entire package of hotdogs and wrapped the dogs in tortillas. This concoction changed my life. We also killed the remainder of our pasta during lunch. After lunch, and after a quick latrine break, I was feeling adventurous. I was exlploring approximately 100 yards behind the site when I ran into a peculiar object (see pictured). I've posted about this in the general discussion, and I'd appreciate any input!
We set back out determined to have ourselves a dinner of sunfish tonight. This turned out to be a very easy task, and we each took two fish for eating. We then headed off to search for the smallmouth. We were not disappointed. As the day winded down, we were greeted by small squalls of rain followed by sunshine and rainbows. We finally ran out of leeches by evening, and set back to our campsite to prepare our final meal of sunfish, red potatoes and corn on the cob. It was absolutely delicious. As the evening winded down, we were serenaded by loon calls across the lake.
After retiring to our tent for our final evening's rest, we were once again visited by our favorite turtle. We tried to keep her out of the fire pit again, but she's a persistent turtle. 
We awoke to a calm morning for breaking camp. This was a bittersweet morning. We also awoke to find that the turtle was under the fire grate and she was laying her eggs. As she was in the middle of laying, we did not interrupt her. We quietly packed and let her be. It seemed that she was laying eggs at least 1 foot below grade, so the eggs may possibly be okay? I'd appreciate any input if available.
We took down camp and thoroughly checked for garbage/items left, then pushed off 