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BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog

March 29 2024

Entry Point 30 - Lake One

Lake One 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 21 miles. Access is a canoe landing at Lake One.

Number of Permits per Day: 13
Elevation: 1230 feet
Latitude: 47.9391
Longitude: -91.4792
My son Remy and I, and my friend Keith and his son Charlie put our canoes into Lake one at 9:30 Monday morning after dropping off a car at the Snowbank Lake landing. Lake One can be tricky to navigate. On our way to Lake Two we turned East too early and ended up paddling about a mile out of our way into a dead-end bay before we realized our mistake. We blamed the fact that Lake One was split between Fisher Maps #10 and #4 for our error. If the entire lake had been visible at once on a single map, we would not have made the wrong turn. Once we got back on course we portaged the 30 rods into a pond and then portaged the 40 rods into Lake Two. The weather was nice, and there was a bit of a tail wind out of the West. We stopped for lunch on the shore of Lake Two. After lunch we canoed through the North end of Lake Three and into Lake Four. We stopped for the night at a campsite on the West shore of Lake Four, just North of the channel heading toward Hudson Lake. We had to battle swarms of mosquitoes as we set up the tents. We then had a nice refreshing swim. Because we had brought steaks along for the first night, we didn't go fishing.

On Tuesday morning we had a bacon and eggs breakfast then packed up camp and headed out in our canoes. As we canoed past our campsite, we realized that Remy & I had left our hammocks pitched between trees. We landed again and quickly packed them up. Once again we had beautiful weather. We paddled East and completed 3 short portages before entering Hudson Lake. The 105 rod portage into Lake Insula was exhausting! Lake Insula is a large gorgeous lake broken up by multiple islands and penninsulas. We had lunch at a campsite on a large island just East of Hudson Lake. It felt like we had a tail wind as we were heading East, and then as we turned North it seemed like the wind shifted and was at our backs once again. We navigated Lake Insula flawlessly and camped for the night on the island just West of Williamson Island. After setting up the tents and a refreshing swim, Remy & I got back into the canoe and tried to catch some fish. We had no luck! At 9PM that night, just as we were going to bed, a thunderstorm rolled through. That night I was awakened several times by the loud croaking of bullfrogs from the shallows around our island. What noisy neighbors!

By Wednesday morning the weather had cleared, but the wind was now coming from the Northwest, pretty much in our faces. We paddled to the North end of Lake Insula and tackled the largest portage of our trip. The 180 rod walk to Kiana Lake actually seemed easier than the 105 rod carry into Lake Insula. We headed onward into Thomas Lake where we really started feeling the headwind. We finally made it to the campsite just Northeast of the portage into Thomas Pond in time for lunch. After lunch we proceeded across Thomas Pond and into Thomas Creek after hiking across the famous Kekekabic Trail. We managed to easily run the rapids in Thomas Creek and avoid the 2 short portages. We camped for the night on Hatchet Lake at the northern campsite. It was cool and windy, so we didn't swim. There was lots of threatening weather going by to the North of us, but we stayed dry. After supper we canoed back to Thomas Creek to fish and look for moose. No luck on either count, but we did see a beaver swimmming.

The weather was nice again Thursday morning, but the wind was out of the West which was the direction we were heading. We portaged into Ima Lake and canoed across it. Before portaging into Jordan Lake, we watched a bald eagle sitting in a tree get harrassed repeatedly by a seagull. The narrow channel leading into Jordan Lake is quite beautiful. It is narrow like a river with big rock outcroppings. We paddled across Jordan, Cattyman, Adventure, and Jitterbug Lakes. We found the Eastern campsite on Ahsub Lake taken, so we camped at the Western campsite which had a great place for swimming in front of it. There was a very brave loon in front of the campsite who didn't seem to mind if we got close to it. We tried our luck at fishing, but only caught 1 smallmouth which was too small to eat. Between 5:00 and 7:30 that evening we saw a number of canoes heading across Ahsub Lake from Disappointment Lake to Jitterbug Lake. We weren't sure where they were planning to camp, but it was getting late.

On Friday we awoke again to good weather. We paddled the length of Disappointment Lake and portaged into to Parent Lake and then on to Snowbank Lake. It was July 4th, and as we entered Snowbank Lake the sounfd of firecrackers reminded us we weren't in the wilderness anaymore. After a brief splash war on our way across Snowbank, we made it to the landing and our car was still there. What a great trip!

Snowbank to Thomas

by waterwolf22
Trip Report

Entry Date: August 22, 2018
Entry Point: Snowbank Lake
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 8

Trip Introduction:
8 guys, 5 days, annual BWCA fishing trip.

Report


8 guys in mid 20's, 5 days, 4 canoes, annual fishing trip. The night before launch, we stayed at the Adventure Inn (Ely) in a single motel room with 4 queen size beds - a good deal noted for the future. The 8 of us had 4 canoes, 3 rented from Spirit of the Wilderness Outfitters. SoW also provided a tow across Snowbank Lake to the Boot Lake portage to start our trip. All said and done, our entire group took off towards Thomas lake from the Boot Lake portage around 8:30 AM Wednesday morning. We paddled and portaged (single) through Boot, Haven, Abinodji, Gibson, Cattyman, Jordan, Ima, and finally Thomas.

Our goal was to reach a cluster of campsites on the SW end of Thomas. We landed home after examining 4 campsites that were either taken, too exposed to high winds, or too small for our large group. Around 3-3:30, we eventually found a great site that easily fit 8 guys, 4 canoes, and mixture of hammocks/tents. This would be my 7th BWCA trip and every time I have ended up blessed with a fantastic campsite. Sometimes it takes a little extra work and patience at the end of a tough day but it always seems to work out.

Our group fishes pretty hard. We usually prioritize a few eater fish and sometimes chase trophies. This time we were armed with crawlers as there was a leech shortage in town. We were also excited about the chance of catching a laker, even though no one in our group had much experience fishing for them. On the way in, we ran into multiple groups who told us they had either caught zero or 1 fish during their entire trip. It's easy to brush off this warning from one group, but when you hear it from 3 we started to get a little worried. All in all, I think we did very well considering the timeframe and weather. We had abnormally still conditions with very little wind and quite a bit of sunshine. We managed a couple lakers by pulling little cleos far behind the canoe in 50-100 FOW - the biggest being 20 in which we also ate. We caught our eater fish and fried up probably 6-8 walleyes 16-18 inches during the 5 day trip. We also managed 4 walleyes between 20-22 inches that were released. Walleyes were caught in 15-25 fow mostly with night crawlers (bobber or drifting/ trolling harness/spinner) or bright colored shad raps. For the first time ever, we caught less pike than walleye. Majority were on daredevils or little cleos, the biggest was about 32 in. The only SMB caught between all of us was the smallest I had ever seen - about 3-4 inches long.

We decided to split up the trek back to the Boot Lake portage by camping on Jordan Lake before our exit. This ended up being a great decision to get across Ima and half our portages with calm conditions. Jordan Lake is a little gem that I will be back to explore. On day 5 we got picked up and towed across Snowbank during a thunderstorm, so the tow ended up being worth it. There was lightning we had to carefully wait out and big waves on the way back to the launch. Another great trip to add to the memory bank.

        

 


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