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Boundary Waters Quetico ForumListening Point - General Discussion Trip Report: Planned Solo turned Duo- Father & Son
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09/17/2019 09:03AM
In March of this year, I first learned about the BWCA from a friend. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of this place and all it offers, but I immediately began gathering as much info as I could. With the help of many of you on this forum, my plans began to transform into reality. Much of the information that I am most grateful for came from those of you that contribute to this forum. For that guidance, directly or indirectly, I thank you!
Initially, I had planned to make this trip a solo…8 days, 7 nights. I booked the trip through Clearwater Historic Lodge and began frantically gearing up. Exactly one week before I was to leave, my 18 year old son begged me to go. Honestly, I was torn because of all the mental preparation I had done to ready myself for being solo, but I caved and got him booked up (and geared up) to come along. It turned out that this was a blessing.
Pre-entry Travel:
Our first day of the trip included an early rise at 3 am to get to the airport in Nashville to catch a 6 am flight to MN St. Paul then a connecting flight to Duluth. We landed in Duluth at 1020 and picked up our rental car. We then began our drive along Northshore Parkway and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. To me, it reminded me of California with trees. With all of the sight-seeing, it took a little over 4 hours for us to make it to Grand Marais and up the Gunflint Trail to Clearwater Historic Lodge.
We arrived at the lodge at approximately 345 pm and were welcomed into the outfitting center where we picked up what few items we needed for our trip.
That evening we went to the Travel Lodge Center and enjoyed an awesome BBQ Mooseburger, fries, and some excellent Bacon Cheeseburger soup. The soup was so good that I bought a dehydrated version to enjoy while out in the bush.
We returned to the lodge and settled into Bunkhouse # 1, which came with a private bathroom and shower. The remainder of the night was spent consolidating gear, packing, re-packing, packing, re-packing…you get the point! Finally, we crashed for the night with nervous energy stored up for the next day.
Day 1:
At 3 am, not being able to “rest” any longer, I got up and began the packing, re-packing process again. At about 530, I got tired of trying to be quiet so I woke my son up so that we could discuss what we wanted to take versus what we actually needed to take. This was a tedious process, but I was able to cull some of the excess gear that we had brought along. I knew going in that we were likely taking too much gear and from what I’ve read on this forum, it’s a common mistake. I guess everyone needs to learn from experience…we certainly did!
At 7, we walked down to the lodge to eat breakfast: two huge slices of cinnamon swirl French toast, 2 pieces of bacon, and some assorted fruit pieces. The coffee and orange juice was great too! We both wolfed everything down and trekked back to the bunkhouse to gather our gear for the transport to our motorized tow point. We both sent out all of our “goodbye” texts to family back home and loaded up for the 45 minute ride to our entry point.
We arrived at Voyaguer Outfitters at approximately 915, paid the fee for the tow, and were loaded onto a john boat with a “9.9 two-stroke”… HONDA…what, HONDA? Yep, they definitely betrayed the Luke Bryan song there!
Anyways, a nice kid named “Jack” began the tow out to American Point where our real journey would begin…and begin it did. The tow was rough as we encountered a tough south west wind and I began to understand how big a factor the wind plays in this area.
We got dropped off on the south side of American Point, said goodbye to Jack, loaded up and began paddling around the corner. As soon as we did so, we started to experience even stronger wind and swells that literally made the front of the canoe rise up and slap down on the peaks and troughs.
We paddled hard until we reached an island just at the mouth of Cache Bay (Canada). We took a little break, and then decided to forge on, but the fight was a hard one. Teasingly, we met a few groups headed the opposite direction who were able to sit back, use their paddles as a rudder, and enjoy the ride the wind was providing them.
Our initial plan was to paddle roughly 10 ½ miles to the portage into Gijikiki Lake and set up camp on the island… that was not going to happen in this wind, so we finally reached the narrows, and decided that we needed to get some relief. We headed south towards the portage into Zephyr Lake in the hopes of snagging the lone campsite there.
Upon reaching the portage, my son had taken the food pack onto shore while I was unloading the other gear. I suddenly heard him say, “There’s a bear!” Sure enough, a bear, probably 80 – 90 lbs was about 20 feet away near the portage trail and looking at us through the foliage. I waved my arms, made some noise, you know, the stuff they tell you to do when encountering a bear. The bear didn’t run off as they show in the videos. Instead, he climbed a tree so that he could stop and stare at us for a few seconds, then finally jumped down and scampered away.
After an encounter like that, on our first day, on our very first portage, we both began to think that this trip may not have been a good idea. Nevertheless, we pressed on, got across the portage and tried to grab the spot on Zephyr. Just our luck, it was occupied.
Having no other apparent options, we unfortunately had to make primitive camp along the shore of Zephyr. The night was a fitful one as we couldn’t find a tree suitable to hang the food pack. Instead, we lashed the pack to a tree and anchored it to another. We hung our hammocks and tried to get a good night’s sleep while listening for breaking branches caused by our newly established bear acquaintance.
Day 2:
I awoke early and made some coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. Just as I finished boiling the water, I saw that rain drops were falling on the lake surface. I quickly strung up a rain fly and moved all of our gear under it. Just as this was accomplished, the bottom fell out. It rained steady and hard for about an hour, maybe a bit more. The skies were looking like it was going to settle in for a while, so we donned our rain gear, packed up “camp” and paddled back towards the portage. Honestly, we were focusing on the rain more than the chance of encountering our bear friend again, but…as we approached the portage, we met him again! This time, he was lying very close to the water about 10 feet on our port side. We obviously startled him…and he startled us. He thankfully ran off in the opposite direction.
We got through the portage and got back on our route towards monument portage and our destination of Gijikiki Lake. The rain reduced to a small drizzle for the most part, but the water surface had dramatically improved from the day before. We made good time, handled all the portages through Monument and Mud Bay and we reached the portage into Gijikiki.
A little personal observation about this portage for those that aren’t familiar: After we got across this portage (a triple portage for us due to the incredibly steep terrain), I quickly renamed it “Giji-kick-your-ass” portage! This being our first time in the BWCA, I started to worry about my original route and the portages that we may encounter after this one.
We finally got us and all of our gear across, we got in and paddled to the island campsite that we had been looking forward to since March. Yep, you guessed it…we rounded the corner only to find out that the site was occupied...*&^(*$#@!! Disappointed, tired, and frustrated, I referred back to the map and saw that there was another campsite back near the portage. We turned back and headed that way, praying the entire time that it would be open. We DID NOT want to have to primitive camp again!
As we approached, we anxiously looked and peered into the shadows of the well-covered site. Thankfully, the site was open! We quickly landed, unloaded, and began setting up camp.
Camp set up went quickly as we had lots of hammock trees to choose from. The site, being so shaded, made it difficult to get a fire started, but my son persevered. We threw some fresh brats on the grill and watched as they cooked. When finished, I’ll have to say that they were some of the best brats I’ve ever had in my life! The end result was a teaching moment…I explained to my son that sometimes the “simple” things in life (like a hot meal, wool socks to change into, dry clothes, etc.) mean so much in an environment such as the one we were in.
We ended the night by throwing some poppers from the bank. It only took 3 casts for my son to land a decent sized smallie. We tossed him back and called it a night.
During the night, I’d say around 2 am, I kept hearing fish (probably NP), actually breaching the water and splashing back down into the surface. This continued for a long time and actually sounded like someone was throwing huge rocks into the lake...KA-DUNK!! Over and over this happened. It almost became annoying to the point that I was tempted to get out of my hammock and go throw a few poppers out there, but decided I needed the rest and stayed put.
Day 3:
Same routine…I got up first, made coffee and oatmeal, then woke my son up…teenagers! We had our coffee, packed up camp, then set out to portage into Rivalry Lake. Be cautious when approaching this lake entry as it is extremely boggy. I sank to my waist by not balancing on the logs near the entry point.
We quickly passed through this small, shallow lake, and portaged into Lake of the Clouds. After Lake of the Clouds, we portaged into Lunar Lake. Luckily, by this time, the portages were becoming easier…still difficult, but easier.
After getting through Lunar, we portaged into Cherry Lake. At this point, we stopped and had some lunch and discussed shortening our route due to the limited distance we were able to cover on Day 1.
Initially, I had chosen to take Cherry west and into Amoeber, then on to Thunder Point. At that point, we would start heading back east through Kek Lake, Ogish, etc.
We decided, based a lot on our inexperience, that we would change my initial route and portage into Hanson from Cherry and find a campsite in that area. We finished up our lunch, and then headed towards our 5th portage of the day.
The portage from Cherry to Hanson isn’t that difficult, it’s just looooong! At the halfway point, there’s an opening that’s positioned on top of a ridgeline. We met some others that were headed to Cherry, so in an effort to keep the trail less congested, we dropped our gear at the halfway point, and headed back to grab the rest. In doing so, we crossed this portage with what I referred to as a “double, double”. It all worked out and gave us some rest along the way. In addition, we were able to stop and talk to a very nice family from Winnipeg along the way.
After getting across into Hanson, we saw and immediately took the campsite next to the portage trail. We hadn’t planned on doing that, but when we saw it, we viewed it as a huge improvement to the campsite on Gijikiki. The bad part is that we could have simply walked a few steps from the portage trail and into the campsite before loading the canoe again had we known it was that close. Oh well, everything is a learning experience, right?!
(Another learning experience: as we unloaded and set up camp, I noticed that my right ankle was bleeding. Not remembering anything out of the ordinary, I tried to use compression to stop the bleeding. I was finally able to slow it enough to put a bandage on, but it took a while. The next morning, as we loaded up to depart camp, I looked down and saw that a leech had latched on and was literally feeding on the spot through the bandage! I was able to peel him off but noticed many other smaller leeches crawling around my ankles. I hadn’t heard about these creatures being so prevalent, but now I know!)
We set up camp, had our beef stroganoff and didn’t see or hear anyone else the entire evening.
Day 4:
Had the usual morning routine then packed up and headed west towards the portage into South Arm Knife Lake. Once there, we continued west, then headed south to the portage into Eddy Lake. We stopped at the base of the falls and spent some time casting a few lines at the base of the falls in the hopes that fish were feeding there, but didn’t have any luck.
We then took some time to walk up the trail next to the falls. It’s an unbelievable site and amazing to hear how loud the rushing water is in the usual quietness.
We then pressed on into Eddy Lake and ended up stopping at Campsite # 2033. This campsite was very quiet and peaceful. It’s located on a small cove that doesn’t offer any reason for other groups to pass. We made camp, enjoyed some good dehydrated Chicken Ala King and suited up for what was going to be a cool night. (We later learned that the temp fell to 37 that night).
Day 5:
We awoke to discover that a fog had blanketed the lake. It was eerily quiet as we packed up camp and loaded up to travel into Jenny, then Annie, then into Ogish. We traveled northwest on Ogish and were amazed at how quickly the terrain changed the farther north east you go. As you travel past the line of the burn and into the blow down area, the landscape becomes very different, almost barren. Being hammock sleepers, this would prove to influence our campsite selections greatly.
We traveled the entire length of Ogish and portaged into Kingfisher. We made quick passage and reached the portage into Jasper. I really wanted to fish a lot on Jasper as it was reported to contain all of the fish species in this area. The wind had different plans. We checked out a few sites on Jasper only to make the determination that they just wouldn’t suffice for what we needed: a place to hang our hammocks.
We finally settled for Campsite # 2067, which wasn’t the greatest, but it did offer us some shelter from the wind and at least one place to hang a hammock. I had brought along a one man tent on the trip, and my son was able to use that at this site. By this time on our trip, we actually began to enjoy the portaging aspect. For us, it showed that we were making progress towards our final exit point. Also, we were beginning to function as a team and there wasn’t much need for directions on who carried what or when. It simply just began to happen naturally.
We thought about staying at this site for two nights and went to bed with that in mind.
Day 6:
We woke up, had our breakfast, and took time to explore the bluffs above us. As we were exploring, we discussed how nice it would be to enjoy a layover day near the end of our trip. It was at that point that we decided to go back, pack up camp and travel to either Alpine or Sea Gull for our last two nights.
We ended up portaging into Alpine and on to the portage into Sea Gull. We were getting tired at this point and really wanted to enjoy a day of rest and relaxation. We ended up finding our favorite campsite of the entire trip: Sea Gull # 448.
This campsite had an awesome stone “beach” and also offered a few tent pads that were sheltered from the wind. It did not, however, offer us any hammock options. Hesitantly, I decided that I would revert back to my Marine Corps days and sleep on the ground. I strung a guide line between two small trees, hung my rain fly, and then placed my tarp underneath. My son again utilized the one man tent that I brought along. I hadn’t slept on the ground in many, many years. Later that night, I realized why. With no sleeping pad, I felt every rock, blade of grass, contour line, crawling ant, and flying mosquito close to me. Note to self: bring a sleeping pad next time!
We did some bank fishing from our site and quickly got onto the smallies. I was able to catch a few decent sized ones that made us proud. They tended to go for the plastic crawfish on a jig head hook that I jigged just over the rock drop off.
We had dinner and began preparing for our full day of relaxation.
Day 7:
Our last full day on the BWCA! We spent the day whittling and carving miniature canoes to include paddles, kitchen utensils, and wooden fishing lures. We also took some time to explore the high bluffs above us and observed incredible views across Sea Gull.
As we were at this site, I was pleased that we had a steady wind out of the South. I confidently told my son that we were going to finally be able to use the wind to our advantage on the way to our exit point.
Because I struggled with the mosquitoes the night before, I modified my sleeping area and hung the mosquito net on my hammock to the guide line that supported my rain fly. I then simply laid the hammock on the ground above the tarp and crawled inside as if I would normally do from a tree. This certainly kept the mosquitoes away, but still didn’t do much to help with my back issues.
We went to bed rested and excited/disappointed that the next day we would be leaving this oasis. We missed talking to family and friends, but also dreaded the re-entry into our technology based lives.
Day 8:
At 120 am, it began raining. It continued for approximately 1 hour, maybe more, and then began again. This went on for the remainder of the morning. Although the rain wasn’t heavy, it was just enough to wet our gear and prevent us from packing it away dry.
We got up early, packed our gear, had our coffee, and were on the water at 715. We were able to cover the remaining 5 miles or so in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. The wind? Oh yeah, it shifted on us…not necessarily a head wind, but still not the pleasure paddle I was hoping for. That’ll teach me to be confident in the wind!
As we neared exit point 54, we realized that no one from our outfitter had actually pinpointed on my map where we were to be picked up from. We were told to go to Sea Gull Outfitters, but had no clue as to where they were actually located.
Finally, upon reaching the general area, we were lucky enough to ask some fisherman for clarification. They were gracious and immediately steered us in the right direction.
Upon reaching the dock, we unloaded and upon turning on our cell phones, were welcomed with a barrage of text messages, emails, etc. At that point, I contemplated throwing it in the lake!
Final thoughts:
For me, I quickly learned to appreciate just how “BIG” things are in the BWCA. Even the smaller looking lakes on the maps are HUGE. The big lakes on the map are EXTREMELY HUGE!
If I’m lucky enough to return, I will dramatically decrease the amount of gear that I pack. There’s so much stuff that we brought that we rarely used, much less really needed.
Navigation: In the Marine Corps, I did a lot of navigation based on terrain association. The problem with that technique is that everything on the water level looks the same. Islands don’t pop out like they do on a map and sometimes they aren’t even shown on the map.
In the future, I will take the time to shoot my compass bearings ahead of time so that, upon reaching big water, it’ll be easier to navigate by staying true to the pre-determined heading. With no magnetic declination to worry about in this area, it would be an easy thing to take care beforehand and something I wish I’d have done. Once we started doing this when entering the bigger lakes, our navigation was proven to be much easier.
We had an AWESOME time and actually hated that it ended so soon! It was an incredible bonding experience for my son and I to share. A hearty “thank you” goes out to all of you that contribute to this forum on a regular basis. It makes a huge difference to those of us who aren’t as experienced in these waters!
For those of you that make “solo” trips, I now have an acute appreciation for what you all accomplish. As I stated before, this one was my first trip and I had planned on doing it solo. Looking back, I’m so thankful that my son changed my plans. With the gear that we brought, it would have been more of a struggle rather than an enjoyable trip. With this experience, I may or may not solo, but I’m definitely planning on coming back!
Chad
Initially, I had planned to make this trip a solo…8 days, 7 nights. I booked the trip through Clearwater Historic Lodge and began frantically gearing up. Exactly one week before I was to leave, my 18 year old son begged me to go. Honestly, I was torn because of all the mental preparation I had done to ready myself for being solo, but I caved and got him booked up (and geared up) to come along. It turned out that this was a blessing.
Pre-entry Travel:
Our first day of the trip included an early rise at 3 am to get to the airport in Nashville to catch a 6 am flight to MN St. Paul then a connecting flight to Duluth. We landed in Duluth at 1020 and picked up our rental car. We then began our drive along Northshore Parkway and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. To me, it reminded me of California with trees. With all of the sight-seeing, it took a little over 4 hours for us to make it to Grand Marais and up the Gunflint Trail to Clearwater Historic Lodge.
We arrived at the lodge at approximately 345 pm and were welcomed into the outfitting center where we picked up what few items we needed for our trip.
That evening we went to the Travel Lodge Center and enjoyed an awesome BBQ Mooseburger, fries, and some excellent Bacon Cheeseburger soup. The soup was so good that I bought a dehydrated version to enjoy while out in the bush.
We returned to the lodge and settled into Bunkhouse # 1, which came with a private bathroom and shower. The remainder of the night was spent consolidating gear, packing, re-packing, packing, re-packing…you get the point! Finally, we crashed for the night with nervous energy stored up for the next day.
Day 1:
At 3 am, not being able to “rest” any longer, I got up and began the packing, re-packing process again. At about 530, I got tired of trying to be quiet so I woke my son up so that we could discuss what we wanted to take versus what we actually needed to take. This was a tedious process, but I was able to cull some of the excess gear that we had brought along. I knew going in that we were likely taking too much gear and from what I’ve read on this forum, it’s a common mistake. I guess everyone needs to learn from experience…we certainly did!
At 7, we walked down to the lodge to eat breakfast: two huge slices of cinnamon swirl French toast, 2 pieces of bacon, and some assorted fruit pieces. The coffee and orange juice was great too! We both wolfed everything down and trekked back to the bunkhouse to gather our gear for the transport to our motorized tow point. We both sent out all of our “goodbye” texts to family back home and loaded up for the 45 minute ride to our entry point.
We arrived at Voyaguer Outfitters at approximately 915, paid the fee for the tow, and were loaded onto a john boat with a “9.9 two-stroke”… HONDA…what, HONDA? Yep, they definitely betrayed the Luke Bryan song there!
Anyways, a nice kid named “Jack” began the tow out to American Point where our real journey would begin…and begin it did. The tow was rough as we encountered a tough south west wind and I began to understand how big a factor the wind plays in this area.
We got dropped off on the south side of American Point, said goodbye to Jack, loaded up and began paddling around the corner. As soon as we did so, we started to experience even stronger wind and swells that literally made the front of the canoe rise up and slap down on the peaks and troughs.
We paddled hard until we reached an island just at the mouth of Cache Bay (Canada). We took a little break, and then decided to forge on, but the fight was a hard one. Teasingly, we met a few groups headed the opposite direction who were able to sit back, use their paddles as a rudder, and enjoy the ride the wind was providing them.
Our initial plan was to paddle roughly 10 ½ miles to the portage into Gijikiki Lake and set up camp on the island… that was not going to happen in this wind, so we finally reached the narrows, and decided that we needed to get some relief. We headed south towards the portage into Zephyr Lake in the hopes of snagging the lone campsite there.
Upon reaching the portage, my son had taken the food pack onto shore while I was unloading the other gear. I suddenly heard him say, “There’s a bear!” Sure enough, a bear, probably 80 – 90 lbs was about 20 feet away near the portage trail and looking at us through the foliage. I waved my arms, made some noise, you know, the stuff they tell you to do when encountering a bear. The bear didn’t run off as they show in the videos. Instead, he climbed a tree so that he could stop and stare at us for a few seconds, then finally jumped down and scampered away.
After an encounter like that, on our first day, on our very first portage, we both began to think that this trip may not have been a good idea. Nevertheless, we pressed on, got across the portage and tried to grab the spot on Zephyr. Just our luck, it was occupied.
Having no other apparent options, we unfortunately had to make primitive camp along the shore of Zephyr. The night was a fitful one as we couldn’t find a tree suitable to hang the food pack. Instead, we lashed the pack to a tree and anchored it to another. We hung our hammocks and tried to get a good night’s sleep while listening for breaking branches caused by our newly established bear acquaintance.
Day 2:
I awoke early and made some coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. Just as I finished boiling the water, I saw that rain drops were falling on the lake surface. I quickly strung up a rain fly and moved all of our gear under it. Just as this was accomplished, the bottom fell out. It rained steady and hard for about an hour, maybe a bit more. The skies were looking like it was going to settle in for a while, so we donned our rain gear, packed up “camp” and paddled back towards the portage. Honestly, we were focusing on the rain more than the chance of encountering our bear friend again, but…as we approached the portage, we met him again! This time, he was lying very close to the water about 10 feet on our port side. We obviously startled him…and he startled us. He thankfully ran off in the opposite direction.
We got through the portage and got back on our route towards monument portage and our destination of Gijikiki Lake. The rain reduced to a small drizzle for the most part, but the water surface had dramatically improved from the day before. We made good time, handled all the portages through Monument and Mud Bay and we reached the portage into Gijikiki.
A little personal observation about this portage for those that aren’t familiar: After we got across this portage (a triple portage for us due to the incredibly steep terrain), I quickly renamed it “Giji-kick-your-ass” portage! This being our first time in the BWCA, I started to worry about my original route and the portages that we may encounter after this one.
We finally got us and all of our gear across, we got in and paddled to the island campsite that we had been looking forward to since March. Yep, you guessed it…we rounded the corner only to find out that the site was occupied...*&^(*$#@!! Disappointed, tired, and frustrated, I referred back to the map and saw that there was another campsite back near the portage. We turned back and headed that way, praying the entire time that it would be open. We DID NOT want to have to primitive camp again!
As we approached, we anxiously looked and peered into the shadows of the well-covered site. Thankfully, the site was open! We quickly landed, unloaded, and began setting up camp.
Camp set up went quickly as we had lots of hammock trees to choose from. The site, being so shaded, made it difficult to get a fire started, but my son persevered. We threw some fresh brats on the grill and watched as they cooked. When finished, I’ll have to say that they were some of the best brats I’ve ever had in my life! The end result was a teaching moment…I explained to my son that sometimes the “simple” things in life (like a hot meal, wool socks to change into, dry clothes, etc.) mean so much in an environment such as the one we were in.
We ended the night by throwing some poppers from the bank. It only took 3 casts for my son to land a decent sized smallie. We tossed him back and called it a night.
During the night, I’d say around 2 am, I kept hearing fish (probably NP), actually breaching the water and splashing back down into the surface. This continued for a long time and actually sounded like someone was throwing huge rocks into the lake...KA-DUNK!! Over and over this happened. It almost became annoying to the point that I was tempted to get out of my hammock and go throw a few poppers out there, but decided I needed the rest and stayed put.
Day 3:
Same routine…I got up first, made coffee and oatmeal, then woke my son up…teenagers! We had our coffee, packed up camp, then set out to portage into Rivalry Lake. Be cautious when approaching this lake entry as it is extremely boggy. I sank to my waist by not balancing on the logs near the entry point.
We quickly passed through this small, shallow lake, and portaged into Lake of the Clouds. After Lake of the Clouds, we portaged into Lunar Lake. Luckily, by this time, the portages were becoming easier…still difficult, but easier.
After getting through Lunar, we portaged into Cherry Lake. At this point, we stopped and had some lunch and discussed shortening our route due to the limited distance we were able to cover on Day 1.
Initially, I had chosen to take Cherry west and into Amoeber, then on to Thunder Point. At that point, we would start heading back east through Kek Lake, Ogish, etc.
We decided, based a lot on our inexperience, that we would change my initial route and portage into Hanson from Cherry and find a campsite in that area. We finished up our lunch, and then headed towards our 5th portage of the day.
The portage from Cherry to Hanson isn’t that difficult, it’s just looooong! At the halfway point, there’s an opening that’s positioned on top of a ridgeline. We met some others that were headed to Cherry, so in an effort to keep the trail less congested, we dropped our gear at the halfway point, and headed back to grab the rest. In doing so, we crossed this portage with what I referred to as a “double, double”. It all worked out and gave us some rest along the way. In addition, we were able to stop and talk to a very nice family from Winnipeg along the way.
After getting across into Hanson, we saw and immediately took the campsite next to the portage trail. We hadn’t planned on doing that, but when we saw it, we viewed it as a huge improvement to the campsite on Gijikiki. The bad part is that we could have simply walked a few steps from the portage trail and into the campsite before loading the canoe again had we known it was that close. Oh well, everything is a learning experience, right?!
(Another learning experience: as we unloaded and set up camp, I noticed that my right ankle was bleeding. Not remembering anything out of the ordinary, I tried to use compression to stop the bleeding. I was finally able to slow it enough to put a bandage on, but it took a while. The next morning, as we loaded up to depart camp, I looked down and saw that a leech had latched on and was literally feeding on the spot through the bandage! I was able to peel him off but noticed many other smaller leeches crawling around my ankles. I hadn’t heard about these creatures being so prevalent, but now I know!)
We set up camp, had our beef stroganoff and didn’t see or hear anyone else the entire evening.
Day 4:
Had the usual morning routine then packed up and headed west towards the portage into South Arm Knife Lake. Once there, we continued west, then headed south to the portage into Eddy Lake. We stopped at the base of the falls and spent some time casting a few lines at the base of the falls in the hopes that fish were feeding there, but didn’t have any luck.
We then took some time to walk up the trail next to the falls. It’s an unbelievable site and amazing to hear how loud the rushing water is in the usual quietness.
We then pressed on into Eddy Lake and ended up stopping at Campsite # 2033. This campsite was very quiet and peaceful. It’s located on a small cove that doesn’t offer any reason for other groups to pass. We made camp, enjoyed some good dehydrated Chicken Ala King and suited up for what was going to be a cool night. (We later learned that the temp fell to 37 that night).
Day 5:
We awoke to discover that a fog had blanketed the lake. It was eerily quiet as we packed up camp and loaded up to travel into Jenny, then Annie, then into Ogish. We traveled northwest on Ogish and were amazed at how quickly the terrain changed the farther north east you go. As you travel past the line of the burn and into the blow down area, the landscape becomes very different, almost barren. Being hammock sleepers, this would prove to influence our campsite selections greatly.
We traveled the entire length of Ogish and portaged into Kingfisher. We made quick passage and reached the portage into Jasper. I really wanted to fish a lot on Jasper as it was reported to contain all of the fish species in this area. The wind had different plans. We checked out a few sites on Jasper only to make the determination that they just wouldn’t suffice for what we needed: a place to hang our hammocks.
We finally settled for Campsite # 2067, which wasn’t the greatest, but it did offer us some shelter from the wind and at least one place to hang a hammock. I had brought along a one man tent on the trip, and my son was able to use that at this site. By this time on our trip, we actually began to enjoy the portaging aspect. For us, it showed that we were making progress towards our final exit point. Also, we were beginning to function as a team and there wasn’t much need for directions on who carried what or when. It simply just began to happen naturally.
We thought about staying at this site for two nights and went to bed with that in mind.
Day 6:
We woke up, had our breakfast, and took time to explore the bluffs above us. As we were exploring, we discussed how nice it would be to enjoy a layover day near the end of our trip. It was at that point that we decided to go back, pack up camp and travel to either Alpine or Sea Gull for our last two nights.
We ended up portaging into Alpine and on to the portage into Sea Gull. We were getting tired at this point and really wanted to enjoy a day of rest and relaxation. We ended up finding our favorite campsite of the entire trip: Sea Gull # 448.
This campsite had an awesome stone “beach” and also offered a few tent pads that were sheltered from the wind. It did not, however, offer us any hammock options. Hesitantly, I decided that I would revert back to my Marine Corps days and sleep on the ground. I strung a guide line between two small trees, hung my rain fly, and then placed my tarp underneath. My son again utilized the one man tent that I brought along. I hadn’t slept on the ground in many, many years. Later that night, I realized why. With no sleeping pad, I felt every rock, blade of grass, contour line, crawling ant, and flying mosquito close to me. Note to self: bring a sleeping pad next time!
We did some bank fishing from our site and quickly got onto the smallies. I was able to catch a few decent sized ones that made us proud. They tended to go for the plastic crawfish on a jig head hook that I jigged just over the rock drop off.
We had dinner and began preparing for our full day of relaxation.
Day 7:
Our last full day on the BWCA! We spent the day whittling and carving miniature canoes to include paddles, kitchen utensils, and wooden fishing lures. We also took some time to explore the high bluffs above us and observed incredible views across Sea Gull.
As we were at this site, I was pleased that we had a steady wind out of the South. I confidently told my son that we were going to finally be able to use the wind to our advantage on the way to our exit point.
Because I struggled with the mosquitoes the night before, I modified my sleeping area and hung the mosquito net on my hammock to the guide line that supported my rain fly. I then simply laid the hammock on the ground above the tarp and crawled inside as if I would normally do from a tree. This certainly kept the mosquitoes away, but still didn’t do much to help with my back issues.
We went to bed rested and excited/disappointed that the next day we would be leaving this oasis. We missed talking to family and friends, but also dreaded the re-entry into our technology based lives.
Day 8:
At 120 am, it began raining. It continued for approximately 1 hour, maybe more, and then began again. This went on for the remainder of the morning. Although the rain wasn’t heavy, it was just enough to wet our gear and prevent us from packing it away dry.
We got up early, packed our gear, had our coffee, and were on the water at 715. We were able to cover the remaining 5 miles or so in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. The wind? Oh yeah, it shifted on us…not necessarily a head wind, but still not the pleasure paddle I was hoping for. That’ll teach me to be confident in the wind!
As we neared exit point 54, we realized that no one from our outfitter had actually pinpointed on my map where we were to be picked up from. We were told to go to Sea Gull Outfitters, but had no clue as to where they were actually located.
Finally, upon reaching the general area, we were lucky enough to ask some fisherman for clarification. They were gracious and immediately steered us in the right direction.
Upon reaching the dock, we unloaded and upon turning on our cell phones, were welcomed with a barrage of text messages, emails, etc. At that point, I contemplated throwing it in the lake!
Final thoughts:
For me, I quickly learned to appreciate just how “BIG” things are in the BWCA. Even the smaller looking lakes on the maps are HUGE. The big lakes on the map are EXTREMELY HUGE!
If I’m lucky enough to return, I will dramatically decrease the amount of gear that I pack. There’s so much stuff that we brought that we rarely used, much less really needed.
Navigation: In the Marine Corps, I did a lot of navigation based on terrain association. The problem with that technique is that everything on the water level looks the same. Islands don’t pop out like they do on a map and sometimes they aren’t even shown on the map.
In the future, I will take the time to shoot my compass bearings ahead of time so that, upon reaching big water, it’ll be easier to navigate by staying true to the pre-determined heading. With no magnetic declination to worry about in this area, it would be an easy thing to take care beforehand and something I wish I’d have done. Once we started doing this when entering the bigger lakes, our navigation was proven to be much easier.
We had an AWESOME time and actually hated that it ended so soon! It was an incredible bonding experience for my son and I to share. A hearty “thank you” goes out to all of you that contribute to this forum on a regular basis. It makes a huge difference to those of us who aren’t as experienced in these waters!
For those of you that make “solo” trips, I now have an acute appreciation for what you all accomplish. As I stated before, this one was my first trip and I had planned on doing it solo. Looking back, I’m so thankful that my son changed my plans. With the gear that we brought, it would have been more of a struggle rather than an enjoyable trip. With this experience, I may or may not solo, but I’m definitely planning on coming back!
Chad
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