This summer will be our first trip in the boundary waters. For trip planning purposes I would like to know how many miles per day is doable. We are not very experienced paddlers and want to go at a leisurely pace. We will not be fishing, just want to be in the wilderness. Do bigger lakes take longer due to wind?

Without knowing much about your group's abilities, I would say 5-10 miles should be doable for 4-6 hours of travel at a leisurely pace.

Yes, you are right about big waters. Wind can really slow you down, but it can also really speed you up if you are lucky!

This is a difficult question to answer because it will depend on your personal preferences, the weather and portage conditions, your strength levels each day, etc. Because you say that you are not experienced paddlers and that you want a leisurely pace, my suggestion would be to limit yourselves to 7 miles per day (point-to-point) if the route will contain several portages. Another recent discussion in this forum about speed may help you make decisions regarding each section of your route. For instance, my tripping partners and I can paddle 3 mph easily without straining. Portaging slows us down to about 1 mph or less if we are not pressed for time (unload, double portage, reload, check map, hydrate or snack, shove off). Your first day will tell you a lot about what you can or want to do.

Wind on larger lakes can affect your paddling, depending on its direction and speed. Get familiar with the Beaufort scale for wind velocity. Don't attempt paddling when you see whitecaps or foamy wave crests; you may want to avoid moderate waves, depending on your skill. Paddle directly into the wind or with the wind directly behind you until your skill level allows you to paddle with the bow (or stern) pointed 20 degrees or so off the wind. Avoid paddling broadside to the wind.

Practice maneuvering strokes with your partner so that you can move the canoe sideways, spin it, keep it on a relatively straight course, etc.

Seems like my groups are never lucky. Paddle in to the north into a strong wind....4 days later paddling back south into a strong wind. Perhaps the odds will actually fall in our favor this year.

10 miles is a good days worth of paddle travel for the groups I go with (like said above, 6ish hours, if you are double portaging). We 1.5 portage (2 of the 4 of us have a second trip on each portage).

ManAndDog: "Without knowing much about your groups abilities, I would say 5-10 miles should be doable for 4-6 hours of travel at a leisurely pace.

Yes you are right about big waters, wind can really slow you down, but can also really speed you up if you are lucky!"

I'd say this seems about right for a group without a lot of experience and wanting to be leisurely. If you get there and really get into it, you can pick up your pace easily enough. There is currently a thread SPEED that is related to your question, so you may want to look through those comments too.

Wind or storms can make it slow sometimes. If it helps, most of the time winds will blow mostly from the southwest in summer, but when fronts come in that can change. Check the weather forecast before your trip, and be ready to make adjustments on the fly.

Another thing that can affect your travel distance I'd urge you as first time BWCA-ers to consider is being efficient on your portages. I think this is where some groups really slow down. Make sure you have little or no loose gear when you first load your canoe - put everything in packs. Figure out where it fits best in each canoe, then stick with it. I often see what I think are first time groups with gear spread all over each end of the portage, and it seems to take them forever. I go solo and double portage, but often pass groups like this on portages. I don't hurry, but I dont waste any time. They remind me of how some people pack car for a long cross country drive.

It depends on so much, but I'd suggest that if you're first time trippers and you don't have much experience paddling, I think 7 or 8 miles would be a good bound for a day. You certainly *could* cover more ground, but until you know how much you like paddling versus relaxing in camp it's probably better to keep it light. I've done 12 mile days with first-timers (I wasn't the leader on that trip) and they got through it but they were exhausted and they weren't enjoying themselves for most of the last miles.

Aside from the number of miles per day I would suggest two other things.
1) If you are planning on paddling a loop, try and plan a one that offers alternative routes, one longer and one you can short cut if you are not making the miles you need.
2) Try and avoid "big water" as inexperience paddlers, the potential inconvenience, difficulties and outright danger are not worth it. Even smaller lakes if the wind is up can pose issues. If you must plan on hitting "big water" early in the day.

too many variables to answer this question.

as far as big lakes...in general you'll travel further since paddling is a heck of a lot faster than portaging. OTOH, during a windy day you could either travel MUCH faster, or not at all.

Plan your trip with lots of options, and a high margin of schedule safety. Tight schedules lead to bad outcomes in the wilderness.

It is a tough question to answer. I can tell you that I took my kids on a trip when they were littler, like 6-8-10. We averaged about 6 miles a day. A lot will do with the route and the portaging.

I highly recommend finding a place to practice paddling before you go. It's frustrating paddling in circles, cute the first couple of times, but then it's just not.

Portaging will depend on your route again, how you pack and what you bring. I Alwyn shake my head at the guys carrying coolers and the suitcase stoves. My ex insisted on bringing our car camping tent on our first trip. It weighed 30 lbs and was too big to go in a pack. I bought a new tent as soon as we got back because the other one got "lost" on the way back. I think I have pictures of it on here

For your first trip, ASK QUESTIONS ON HERE! I'm on my umpteenth trip and I still ask a lot of questions. These people know how to make it easier.

Good luck and have fun.

The ranges around 7 mile per day are fair estimates and the idea if you find yourselves going faster you can always take some side trips or whatever is good. Jaywalker's comment about 5-10 miles in 4-6 hours is pretty good for starters.
A couple other things to consider. If the area is busy, which it can be during certain times of the year, finding a campsite can become an issue. The general rule is plan on finding a suitable campsite by mid afternoon. I generally have a target lake and start checking campsites once on the lake. If I have some time I may look at campsites my research suggested were better sites, but will not abandon something available only to end up having to move to the next lake and hoping to find something before dark. Finally, unless you are early starters that will also limit the time you spend on the water and portaging so adjust your expectations for miles traveled.
Another bit of input. Most of us find we move faster after the first day or two so can plan for a little more distance. Routines in packing and portaging, canoeing skills and strength all improve.

You are wise to be looking into this for trip planning purposes, especially since you haven't done one and don't know, because it's an inexact science at best even for those of us who do know. I'm sure you gathered that from the other comments.

"Doable" has a range of meanings about as broad as the people who do BW trips. Couch Potato? Endurance Athlete? Besides being dependent on a whole host of variables such as weather - you can't "do" anything if there's lightning or you're wind bound.

What you really need is a good average speed for you and a not overly ambitious, as well as flexible plan. I've done quite a few trips, mostly solo, and I find 2 miles per hour is a good average for me to use. I travel like Jaywalker said about portages - I don't hurry, but I don't waste any time either. I usually only plan to do 8-12 miles a day, 4-6 hours. It takes a while to get going in the morning, so that means I'm finding a campsite by mid-afternoon at the latest. The general advice is to travel early to beat afternoon wind and weather, and to find a designated campsite before they fill up.

A note on mileage: I double portage - carry two loads across each portage - which means I walk each one two more times. In other words, if my travel day has 1 mile (320 rods) of portages in 6 miles (on the map), I add to miles to arrive at 8 miles of travel for the day.

A note on portaging: pay attention to what Jaywalker said and be organized and have a plan. I travel a lot more easily (and faster) since I started really paying attention to that.

I usually plan a "weather/layover" day every few days. Coupled with only planning 5-hour travel days, this gives me a fair amount of flexibility. I also do like alpinebrule said, "1) If you are planning on paddling a loop, try and plan a one that offers alternative routes, one longer and one you can short cut if you are not making the miles you need." In addition, I'd suggest you get an idea of your travel speeds right from the beginning by having some mileage points (including double portages) marked and times to get there. It could be as simple as the whole day. If doing a loop, I'd also figure out a "point of no return". If I'm not there by "X" day, I'm turning back.

So, after that long preamble, here's what you do: Assume you'll travel 1.5 mph average (including the extra double portage mileage) for 4-5 hours a day for 3 days out of 4. But keep track of how you are doing out there.

BTW, Bumstead's experience is like mine - a tailwind can speed you up, but 90% of the time wind is your enemy.

Now, do you have an entry point picked yet? How many days/nights is your trip?

Our entry point is Saganaga Lake and we've arranged for a tow. We have 7 days planned for the trip. Supposedly our trip is 38 miles with 2.5 miles of portaging, which means about five miles of paddling each day. We are packing light and hope to get our gear in two packs so we only portage in one trip. I really appreciate all the advice. I was going to add onto the trip because 5 miles does not seem like much, but now I think I will plan several routes and maybe have a zero day just in case. I have two BW books and neither has much practical information on what it's actually like on and around the water. We bought a canoe in the fall and intend on practicing as much as possible before we go.

You trip seems manageable. I f you cover more miles in the first few days, then you can have a layover day, which is always nice, and in some cases necessary because of wind or storms. Considering its' your first trip it's better to keep your mileage ambitions conservative. The place is so special, you don't want to be rushing through the experience just to hit your mileage each day.

Enjoy your trip, surely it won't be your last.

I also think that will be very manageable for you. There is very little portaging on your route. Even double portaging would likely only add a couple of hours, or about 15-20 minutes a day. You'll probably average 2.5 - 3 mph on the water. Just traveling 4 hours in the morning (8-12) you'll go 8-10 miles. You should have no real trouble with it. I'm guessing your main route is something like tow to American Point, then involves Ottertrack, Knife, South Arm Knife, and back around. You should have plenty of options to change if desired.

Have a good trip1 :)

Carla, what route are you considering? If you are getting dropped off at American Point as boonie says and going Ottertrack, SAK (South Arm Knife) and looping out through Seagull you can very easily do this in 7 days and have a couple layover days included.

If you are going during a busy time, it is good to plan on camping by early to mid-afternoon in order to make sure you find a campsite. That gives a lot of leisure time in the afternoon to swim, fish, read, etc.

If your group is not made up of early risers, then plan for 5 mile days. If you have a "get up and go group" you could plan on up to 10. It will also depend on how experienced people are at paddling a canoe in a straight line with or without wind. Zigzagging can add a lot of distance, and wind can force you to paddle into bays you would otherwise cut across. Portaging can take a lot more time if you have a lot of gear. We are able to carry everything across in one trip. We require 5 minutes to unload and load at each end of the portage and we travel the portage at 10 rods per minute. So a 100 rod portage takes us about 20 minutes from off the water to on the water.

Inexperienced groups should expect to triple the unload/load time and travel across at a somewhat slower rate. If you have double portage then you triple the portage rate (across...back to start...across again).

Just saw your route summary. You should be fine with that plan. Have a great trip!

If you want to relax figure 5-10 miles/day, medium, around 10 miles/per day, hit it hard 15 plus miles per day. Of course everything depends on the weather and the number of portages and single, double, or triple portaging. I usually shoot for 5 miles plus per day in not in hurry and 10 miles per if trying to cover distance. Over the years I've learned to be very flexible with my travel days and my goals. I double portage by the way.