Arrived in Ely late Saturday afternoon with my grandson.

BTW - if you're coming up Hwy 1 from Silver Bay - there's a long stretch that's being repaved. Add at least a half hour to your trip to get there.

Put in at the Lake One EP Sunday morning about 8:30am. Wasn't 50 feet out from the landing, when the first rumbles of thunder began to get louder. By the time we'd made all the turns and were making our way down the channel into Lake One, it began pouring - in an epic way. So here we are out on the water, lightening flashing, hail pinging off our aluminum paddles, wind and rain to make you think it was the end of the world as we know it.

Why were we out there in that you ask, because we freaking couldn't find a place to get on land.

A Favor to Ask....

So we did paddle through the monsoon down to the main part of lake one, and made the left turn, and found a 'campsite' right there. It's apparently not an official campsite, and its not marked on the maps as a campsite, but during all of the activity we didn't question the legitimacy of a place to get off the water in a hurry.

So here's the favor I wanted to ask. If anybody's going past there and want to take a break or whatever, have a look around the site, and see if my prescription sunglasses in a black case are setting there. I'll be stunned if I ever see them again, but if somebody comes across them I'd get a great laugh out of it. BTW, the prescription was clearly (or not so clearly) becoming out of date, so I'm not at all worried if they are never seen again.

We were supposed to stay out until today, but I was aware before we left on Sunday, that "scattered thunderstorms" were predicted for today (wednesday). Based on Sunday's "Scattered thunderstorms", we both decided to pack up and leave a day early. One day of adversity is a life learning event. A second day is tempting fate.

Last nite, tornado's in North Dakota made the news. So this morning, when we originally planned to be coming out of BWCA, I asked my grandson to pull up the weather radar for Ely. It was a mass of various red colors directly over BWCA.

Another quick word of advice - for people coming up through Michigan and across the UP. About 3-4 weeks ago, there was an epic rain event (in everybody's definition of epic) in the extreme western UP and in Northeastern Wisc near Ashland that washed out numerous roads and highways (US2). If you are taking this route, add 3 hours to your trip due to the detours around damaged roads.

Been gone a day, and I miss the place already.
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My daughter and I came out at Lake One Sunday at about 8:15, black carbon Kevlar canoe. A group of six men in three Kevlar canoes also came out at the same time as us, and one of them helped launch a boy and what appeared to be his grandfather, I wonder if that was you. We were thinking about them and how much of a struggle they must be having as the hail bounced off the roof of our car and we drove in to Ely. Glad you were okay, hope it was a good trip.

That be us....I remember a bunch of guys there, but didn't pay too much attention. You picked an ideal time to pull out.

We're heading in on Lake One Thursday. If I can find the spot you're referring too I'll happily stop and take a look. My wife is superhuman when it comes to finding missing items...which she shows me all the time when I lose things.

I can't quite follow your timeline but there are two camp sites on Lake One that are about two years old. One is on the north shore of the lake after you turn east from the channel that goes south from Kawishiwi Lodge to the main part of the lake. It is an official site with a fire grate and pit toilet. Location is Lat: 47.9319 Lon: -91.4676. The other is at the rapids that come down from Lake Two (marked dangerous water on most maps). It also has the official amenities. We camped on the first site I mentioned from 7/9-7/11 and, if that is where you camped, I did not see your sunglasses.