BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
June 30 2025
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.
Entry 50 Cross Bay Lake
Entry Date:
August 22, 2023
Entry Point:
Cross Bay Lake
Number of Days:
4
Group Size:
4
Things went fairly smoothly though we did have trouble finding the portage into Cross Bay Lake and ended up on an old, non-maintained portage (oops). Our destination was Long Island Lake.
We had stayed on Long Island Lake before (2005) but had entered via a different route and with 5 campers instead of the usual 4.
It took us 7 hours to get to Long Island Lake. Whether it was lack of paddle practice or age or directions, that was a LONG paddle. Add that I had a big arthritis flare up as we got to Long Island Lake. We had been given heads up to some available campsites. The first site on the lake was already occupied and didn't really meet our requirements (western facing with a swimmable area). The next one was available, and I had to confess that I could not continue paddling as my arthritis made it nearly impossible to continue.
Turned out the campsite was great, and we proceeded to setup our gear. I wasn't much help due to the previously mentioned arthritis. My flare up also meant that we were destined to have stormy weather...and it proved to be true.
The camp site got set up in no time as usual. To our amazement, there were nearly no bugs! So, we were able to have a campfire and stay up after sundown. This is usually not the case. From this point, the video really shows how the camping went. 
We did have rain that first night (Wednesday) but it was not bad and sounded soothing on the tent. 
