We were all packed up the night before which helped us get out of Milwaukee by 1pm in hopes that we would beat the holiday traffic. All things considered we were making good time and decided to stop in Eau Claire for dinner. We stopped at Houligans in downtown because they had decent Yelp reviews. Walking in I was a bit skeptical because it looked like an old supper club but the place was pretty good. Their Friday Fish Fry was bluegill with mashed sweet potatoes and steamed veggies and I have to say it was pretty tasty. We wanted to make it to Duluth for the night so my wife got onto Hotels.com and got us a cheap room at the Park Point Marina Inn. Very nice hotel and our room is overlooking the marina which was cool. We noticed that there was some nasty weather moving in and Wow did we get a couple of decent storms that rolled through! So nice being on vacation and taking our time to get up to the BWCA, have to enjoy these last couple of days of civilization!

We got to Rockwood Lodge and were warmly greeted by the owners, I just love dealing with these people. They are just so friendly and helpful, Mike and Carl run a great outfitting business and Stephanie and Carol keep the place looking great. We worked out some of the logistics for our departure the next day, and got our portage packs and bear barrel so we can get them all packed up and ready to go for in the morning. We see that they have paddle boards, my wife has always wanted to try one and Mike said go ahead and give it a try. We got our stuff situated in our Bunkhouse, got our packs loaded up, so we headed down to the water so she could go for a ride. As it turned out Carl was out on one of their boards so he gave my wife a quick lesson and the went for a zip around the lake.

After that we headed over to the Poplar Haus right down the road for supper. It is a newer place right on the lake with some killer views. We had a nice meal and headed back to the bunkhouse to chill, enjoy our last internet connection for a while, and hopefully some good sleep.    

In spite of all the work we did the day before we decided we would do a day trip today, the reason we picked Gaskin is for some of the loop day trips we can take from this lake. So this first day we decide to do a loop through Jump, Allen, Pilsbery, Henson, and back to Gaskin. So we pack up our day pack with some snacks, water, and stuff for lunch. I load up the fishing gear and off we go. Another great day for paddling. We get to Jump Lake and do a little fishing and end up catching a couple of small smallmouth, at least we got the skunk off the board! Jump is super small and we quickly portage over to Allen and end up getting a few more smallies. We have seen one other person all day and we are having a great time! The portage into Pilsbery was a long one but pretty easy. When we are on Pilsbery the fishing really picks up and we end up getting some pretty decent size smallies on crankbaits......love catching smallies! By the time we get to Henson we are getting pretty tired and the wind starts picking up a bit. We found an open site on Henson to stop and have a lunch of salami, laughing cow cheese on flatbread. So good! The portages on Henson are pretty much right across from each other so we decide to save Henson for another day and quickly cross over to the 92 rod portage back into Gaskin.

When we get over to Gaskin we have pretty much cross the whole lake going into the wind so this was going to be a chore, I also wanted to stop off in the burn area and collect some firewood. I find that burn areas are a great place to collect wood. The small burned pines can pretty much be pushed right over and they are usually perfectly dried. I didn't have a hatchet so I never grab any wood thicker than my wrist. It takes me about 30 minutes and I found enough wood to last us a couple of days. So we loaded up and headed back across the lake. When we got back to camp I was pooped and sweaty again, so I unloaded the firewood and decided to take another dip in the lake. Again my wife joined me brought our body soap. To baths in a row?????

After cleaning up and lounging in our hammocks for a while it was time to make some supper. Tonight we are having spam burritos! Don't knock it till you tried it! After supper it was time to try for some walleyes so we load up the walleye gear and leeches and head out......again nothin'! My wife caught one little smallie and that was it! So we headed back to camp for a fire and some chillin'!

We checked the weather radio because Tuesday was supposed to be our one bad day of weather, expecting rain and storms all day so prepared camp for that. We know our tent has a tendency to leak when we get a lot of rain so we setup the tarp over it. We also decide that we really like this site and that we want to do another loop that would take us into Winchell and since Tuesday was looking like a wash we are going to stay another day. Looks like we are all set so the rest of the night was spent star gazing, watching the campfire, and just talking about how grand life is. Ibuprofen and fireball all around to rest our tired bones and off to bed we go.

~Gaskin Lake, Jump Lake, Allen Lake, Pillsbery Lake, Henson Lake     

09/12/2023 ~ 5.5 miles, 595 rods It had rained all night, but fortunately it stopped while driving to the Moose River Entry point. I had been concerned that with the lack of rain we have been having that maybe there would be issues on the Moose River. However, other than the expected portages and a few beaver dams I had no issues with low water. I went up the Moose river to Nina Moose Lake and found the portage to Lamb Lake and had lunch. I then proceeded to cross Lamb Lake and portaged to Ramshead Lake. You always hear about how great the water in the Boundary Waters is, but Ramshead Lake is green... I camped here.

09/13 ~ 6.2 miles, 398 rods I got up and everything was hidden in a thick fog, but it became clear that it was going to be a beautiful day because the sun punched through burned off most of the fog within an hour or two. I set out spend my second evening camped on Oyster Lake. As I paddled on Ramshead to the portage, I got to see three otters wrestling around playing. There is a portage alongside the Ramshead Creek that gets you to Nina Moose river and then on to Lake Agnes. Due to what I have read and the low water, I didn't bother to try taking the Oyster River to Oyster Lake. I paddled to the 190 rod portage that cots off the supposedly more difficult section of Oyster river and puts you on the more navigable section. I camped on the peninsula in the middle of Oyster lake. I chose the campsite that gives you access to both sides of the peninsula. In the mornings and evenings, there is a beaver lodge very close to this site where you can watch the beavers go about their daily business. This lake also had the most loon action on it of the lakes I saw.

09/14 ~ 4.25 miles, 156 rods I decided to build an easy day with no long, heavy portages. I stayed camped at Oyster and did a little day trip over to Rocky lake where there is a small petroglyph on the west side of the lake. It is on the rock face where there is giant black-white-black stripe on it. Look for the little red crosses. I headed back and ended up raining that afternoon/early evening so I turned in early.

09/15 ~ 7.5 miles, 440 rods I made my way back from Oyster to Lake Agnes the way I came. The end of the portage that gets you to Agnes is actually a sandy beach. The first few days of this trip were cold, but this particular afternoon was warm and sunny and a swim felt great. I continued down to Nina Moose Lake where I planned to camp. There were also like a half dozen swans swimming around in the area. This week, the wind and waters were generally calm. However, once or twice a day and usually in the afternoons, the wind would really pick up. This afternoon on Nina Moose Lake was probably the windiest conditions. It was really great to get off the water. I camped at the site between the Portage River and the Moose River mouths. It was really unique of the camp sites that I had seen because as you pull up it has plush grass almost like someone's lawn.

09/16 ~ 3.3 miles, 197 rods It rained a little over night, but it was done by the morning and the water was nice and calm. I headed back on the Moose River. I saw many, many beavers. I also saw a great blue heron fishing the river as well. In all, I think the total loop was about 27 total miles with about 1786 rods of portaging in that(over 5.5 miles). I would recommend the MacKenzie #12 Moose River map. It had almost the entire route (except Rocky Lake) on a single map, unlike the Voyageur maps which would have required multiple maps.

Today our plan is to cross Gaskin into Henson, cross Henson into Omega, through Omega in Winchell. The breeze is making crossing Gaskin a bit of a chore going into the West wind. The first portage of the day is over 90 rods and will be the toughest one of the day. I will say, at this point in the trip my shoulders and back are struggling to get the canoe up and carrying it through these portages but totally worth it.

Planned on doing some fishing on Henson but the wind is pretty gusty and we need to paddle just to keep moving forward. It takes a lot of work to cross Henson and our arms are feeling it. We get over to Omega which is setup better with this wind to do a little fishing. I see why this lake is so popular, it is a very cool lake. We fish for about a half hour and manage a couple decent northern, but now we have been traveling for a good amount of time and we are getting hungry. So we decide to portage over to Winchell and find a campsite over there to have lunch. 

WOW......Winchell is a whole new ball game. Easily the biggest lake in the BWCA we have ever been on and just beautiful, so glad we came over here........but.......with the strong West wind it is rocking and rolling pretty good. There will be no fishing on this lake, we will need all of our attention just to keep the boat upright! First campsite we make it to we decide to stop for lunch, today we are having Packet Gourmet cheese spread and crackers which was awesome! After lunch we put on our life jackets and come up with the best strategy to get across the lake safely. The bad news is we have to be on our toes and make sure we don't get sideways in the waves, the great news is that it made for a super easy paddle. All we pretty much did was just course correct and we were cruising! Such a cool lake, but it is a bit intimidating. We cross the lake in good time, the longer we went the more comfortable we got with the waves. Once we got to the East end we found a little cove to do some fishing but got nothing. Coolest part of our trip is the fact that we had spent all day traveling and we never saw another person, every campsite we passed were empty too. I still wanted to collect some firewood so we got moving. The portage from Winchell to Gaskin wasn't bad, but when I got to the Gaskin side it was super mucky and I ended up sinking to me knees and it was struggle to not lose my portaging shoes. We headed over to the burn area and collected some more wood and at this point we have been traveling for 7 hours and I am ready to be out of the canoe. Time to jump in the lake and bath again, I am a sweaty mess! 3 baths in 4 days?? What is up with that?

The bad news is that when I left this morning I must have not closed the leech locker all the say and I lost all of my leeches, that is drastically going to hinder our chances for a fish fry! Oh well, we spend the rest of the night making dinner and sitting by the campfire! Stars are amazing tonight but we need to get to bed, tomorrow is moving day!      ~Gaskin Lake, Henson Lake, Omega Lake, Winchell Lake

So we packed up camp and decided that it was time to head out. We wanted to go back to Horseshoe making our last day easier not having to deal with the long 98 rod portage into gaskin. I can tell that my body is getting used to all the portaging because the long one doesn't seem that bad. We run into a father and son that we meet the day we went out and sat and visited with them for a while, they were leaving Friday and were getting closer too for their last night. When we got loaded up on Horseshoe the first campsite we get to is open but we don't really like it. We come around the corner and the next campsite has a big rock facing West and it looks open. We get out, check it out and decide that we like it and this would be home the next couple of days. We like sites that we have a view of the lake. So we setup camp and have a little lunch of summer sausage and cheese sandwiches. We are getting really nervous because there is a campsite on the backside of the peninsula from us and the people on that site are extremely loud! I mean come on, that is why we come up here is to get away from all that. We decide to take a quick nap and just relax for the afternoon before going out to do a little fishing and collect some firewood. Tonight is one of our favorite BWCA meals, chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy. So easy and so tasty! Then we site by the campfire and plan our next day, I really want to have a fish fry so tomorrow we want to go to Vista where we did well on walleye a couple years earlier. And guess what? Our loud neighbors from this afternoon have been quiet ever since, so nice. Nights like tonight remind me how much I love being out here, the stars are amazing again tonight!      

We cleaned up camp and packed our day pack end headed out for our adventure. Today's goal, catch enough fish for a fish fry. It was still fairly early so was hoping we might come across a moose on our way to the Vista portage, it is prime habitat for them but with no luck. It is just a perfect day for exploring, not a cloud in the sky and next to no wind. We were considering do a small loop through some other lakes but we checked out the portage and it just looked like it was going to be too tough to get into the next lake and we were looking for it to be a little more relaxing for the day. So we casted the shorelines looking for some smallmouth and got nothing. After fishing for a couple hours with crankbaits we came to a spot that we had caught some walleyes a couple years prior so I decided to give something a try. I put on a fluke with a bullet head jig and within the first couple of casts I had a smallmouth. A couple casts later I hooked into a walleye but lost it. I quickly changed my wife to the same thing and for the next hour we caught walleye like crazy. Ended up keeping 5 for a meal. 

We then decided to go take the fish to a rock in the middle of the lake to clean the fish and have some lunch. Today was cheese, sausage, and crackers for lunch. My wife made lunch while I cleaned fish. Vista was actually pretty busy today, we wanted to have lunch at our campsite from a couple years ago but there were people there. Bellies full and fish cleaned we headed back to Horseshoe for an afternoon of chilin and enjoying our last day in the BWCA.

We actually used the leech locker to keep our fillets cool until supper time which worked out well. All I can say is there is nothing like having a fresh walleye in the BWCA, best meal of the trip. We spent the rest of the night just cleaning up camp and packing away a few things we didn't need anymore and relishing the last gorgeous night in this amazing place.      

We made quick time and were greeted at the lodge by Mike who helped us out. We emptied all of our portage packs into our car, used the shower house to clean up, and settled up with Mike. Off we were heading back to civilization, hope I can remember how to drive! We have a tradition for the last 2 years that we stop off at McDonalds in Two Harbors for our first meal. Got some food and my LARGE DIET COKE I had been craving and we were back on the road. 

Was a great day for traveling and we made quick work of the drive to Eau Claire where we had a room booked at the Fairfield, we had stayed there the year before and loved it. So it was a race to a hot shower and to put on some clean clothes. It felt so good to be clean and to lay on a comfortable bed. So we just sat in bed and chilled for a while and then headed out to dinner. We went to the Northern Tap for dinner which was good but after spending 6 days in the BWCA it seemed unbelievably loud. So we had a nice dinner and head back to the hotel where we both passed out pretty early.   

We meet our friends at Ravina Bar and Grill on Lake Delton and had a great lunch with friends. It happened to be the last day they were open for the season which meant they had a limited selection but we all found something to have and it was really good. We said our good byes and finished off the last couple of hours. We quickly unpacked everything from the car and flopped down in our comfy chairs and were pretty much zombies for the rest of the night.

In reflection it was another great trip to the BWCA and solidified why I love it so much. I was ready to be done this time because we put on so many miles, but I am already thinking of our next trip.