BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
May 08 2024
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.
Corona / Brule / Wifes first trip.
Entry Date:
October 20, 2020
Entry Point:
Brule Lake
Number of Days:
4
Group Size:
2
We woke up on the 20th at 3am. We live in southern MN and knew it was going to be a drive. We had packed everything the night before minus some perishables and so we were on the road by 4:15 am.
The trip up to Sawbill trail was uneventful and we made it to Brule by 12:30pm. We had originally planned to pick up our permit at Sawbill but with the Covid thing, realized we could print out our permit online and change our pickup location to Tofte. Thanks guys for helping me out with that advice. That probably saved us at least an hour+.
There is something special about owning your own boat and driving straight to the EP. So much quicker and easier than going through an outfitter.
We had stopped at the gas station in Tofte before heading up and they were out of leeches and minnows. We paid a kings ransom for some "rainbow minnows" and some crawlers. I think it came to 25 bucks or so. Hysterically, all of the minnows were dead before reaching camp. Luckily as we were getting underway a nice couple in a beautiful cedar stripped canoe asked us if we wanted any leeches. YES I said, we couldn't get any in Tofte! Nice folks.
We were planning to head to one of the Cone bay sites and we started working our way there. The wind initially wasn't too bad but once we hit the open water heading north to the cones, she kicked up and scared the **** out of me.
At this point I was thinking we were in trouble. My wife has about 2 hours of paddling under her belt and I'm a novice at best myself. When we hit the island just south of cone bay, all I wanted to do was get behind it and out of the wind. As luck would have it, the campsite was open so we got the hell off the water.
The rest of the day we made camp and relaxed a bit. We were in 2 hammocks and the site had a few good spots for those (although the tent sites sucked). I saw an opportunity for us to lay close enough to combine our tarps into one bigger hammock dual site so that's what we did and we liked it.
Steak on the grate and mashed potatoes for dinner. Was fabulous and we were tired, full, and ready for bed.
We decided that after that hair raising entry here, we would take a break day. The wind had howled through the night and was still pretty active. We talked, cooked, ate, gathered firewood, and went for a walk. On this island with a lot of traffic there is a pretty well defined path heading out of camp on the north end of the island heading west. We hiked it for exploration and we were rewarded with a fairly high view of the terrain looking west. It was beautiful.
Dinner was stove top stuffing, chicken from a bag, and brown gravy. By far our best meal of the trip and I must go into the recipe forum here and thank whoever that was that listed it.
Campfire night 2, bliss.
This day was nice and calm and offered a stunning sunrise! Our plan was to investigate the cones on a day trip and do some fishing. We struck out on fish on every inch of cone bay we fished and I was a bit disappointed. I had heard that this was decent walleye fishing. Not for us.
We then planned to head up the cones and we were ready to do it until it took us a good 30 minutes to find the portage. There is a campsite for the most part, right on top of the portage. I portaged the canoe to the fire pit, the latrine, and other random trails before we found it. Short and rocky but not horrible is how I would describe that one.
In the end, we just walked it to see what was what. My main goal was to show my wife what a portage is like on any given lake. With the rocky path, I think she got that anything can happen. Sweet, lesson understood.
Back to camp that evening for some fishing from shore and relaxation. It turns out that we caught a nice walleye to eat for dinner so it was shortening, "Shore Lunch", and Knor's rice packets for dinner.
I had also found a beautiful birch beaver cut that was about 8 inches thick and dry. I sawed it into 1 foot pieces and split it battonning with my knife into some superb campfire wood.
Our intention was to
I woke up early this morning as the wife slept in. It was a nice cool morning and the weather was perfect. Not long before I had gotten up we were visited by two gals from the US Forest Service. They checked the latrine, permits, site etc then asked me about my food situation and how I was protecting it from bears.
I told them that my first trip into the bwca was when I was 14 years old and with Cliff Jacobson as the leader of the kids. We learned then to mask scent and move food away from camp. That's the way I have done it my whole life. I have never run a bear rope and hung food.
She went on to say they were having issues on the gunflint and may be requiring bear barrels or hanging next year. Maybe she's full of it but to me, that is overstepping the boundaries of our rights to survive as we see fit. My rant. Sorry.
When done with our business, I informed them that I had heard hatchet chopping coming from a site nearby the night before followed by literally enough smoke to fill the void between us. Obviously green wood. I was glad that they had showed up because I wasn't really looking forward to making that visit myself although I would have.
So this morning was beautiful with hardly any wind and before we had headed up north, the weather report had said rain for this day. I decided that today was the best day weather wise to leave and that the predicted bad weather might be a day late. Man was I right. We stayed in a hotel in Duluth on this night and saw the storms up north.
At the top of the list of items to buy, a weather radio.
We had a calm absolutely beautiful paddle out and along the way my wife said the following. "Dave, thank you for bringing me here, I never understood why you were so talkative about this place until I saw it. Now I understand and I want to come back."
F*** Yeah right?