My wife, our 14-year-old daughter, and I paddled and portaged for 9 days out from, and back to, Snowbank from 8/15 – 8/23/20. We prefer the Quetico in August, but, of course, had to cancel our permit reservation due to the ongoing border closure. We were anticipating crowding in the BWCAW. However, in hindsight, it didn’t seem much busier than any other August.

Saturday 8/15 – We put in on Snowbank at about 10am and paddled to the Boot Lake portages. We saw no canoes on the water, but the wind and waves were burly enough that I would have been nervous for inexperienced paddlers. Campsites 1260 and 1261 at the Northeast corner of snowbank were open. We stopped for lunch at campsite 1226 on Ensign and decided it was such a nice campsite that we had to stay. We had neighbors at 1225 and 1230. Otherwise, the sites on our part of Ensign remained unoccupied overnight. We day tripped around Ensign in the afternoon and saw lots of open sites and moderate traffic on the lake. Our site was spotless.

Sunday 8/16 – We paddled and portaged up to Knife, encountering just a single canoe along the way. There was lots of traffic on the West end of the lake that we left behind entirely once we passed Thunder Point heading East. 1449 was occupied when we paddled past, but they were the last canoe or occupied site we passed until we reached the North end of Ottertrack the following day. We camped on Knife at 1441, which was also spotless.

Monday 8/17 – We headed up Knife and Ottertrack and ate lunch at the site of Benny Ambrose’s homestead, which was also spotless. We saw one group of 8 with 4 canoes on the North end of the Ottertrack. We portaged into Ester, where every site was taken at 3:45pm. No worries, we camped at site 331 on Rabbit and had that lake all to ourselves. We found one small bungee cord at the site, but it was otherwise clean.

Tuesday 8/18 – We headed Southwest through Ester, Hanson, Cherry, and Topaz. Most, but not all the sites on those lakes were taken by groups that appeared to be base camping or laying over. We ate lunch on Amoeber, where both sites were taken. We arrived at the South Arm at 3pm. Every site from the Amoeber portage to the Bonnie Lake portage was taken. Both sites on Bonnie were open. Four out of Five sites on Spoon were open. We camped at 1416, which was clean except for a pair of child-sized shorts left hanging on a tree branch.

Wednesday 8/19 – We headed South to Fraser, encountering three other groups along the way. From our route, we noticed no occupied sites on Pickle, Kek, Strup, Wisini, or Gerund. We camped at 1395 on Fraser and had the lake entirely to ourselves overnight. 1395 was spotless except for a large lure left embedded in a lakeside cedar.

Thursday 8/20 – We laid over on Fraser, but day tripped to the Raven Lake portage from Roe, heading East through Sheppo and returning West directly from Sagus. We saw one canoe on Fraser as we headed out and saw one group arriving at site 1400 on the East end of Fraser on our way back. Otherwise we saw no occupied sites or canoes on the water all day.

Friday 8/21 – We paddled and portaged through Thomas, Alice and the Kawishiwi River to the North end of Insula. We noticed one occupied site and a single canoe on the water from a great distance on Thomas. On Alice site 1170 was occupied. Otherwise we seemed to have the whole lake to ourselves as we ate lunch on a small rocky island and then paddled to the South end of the lake. We did not see another soul until we reached Insula. There, sites 1323 and 2197 were taken. Otherwise, the entire North end of the lake appeared unoccupied. We camped at 1326, which was spotless. We did not see another canoe on the water during our stay on Insula.

Saturday 8/22 – We paddled and portaged North though Kiana, Thomas, and Hatchet to Ima. Very few sites were occupied along the way. We encountered one group of eight in four canoes on Thomas and several single canoes, including a couple of Forest Service rangers, on the river between Thomas and Ima. The rangers told us they thought the crowding this summer has remained concentrated mainly on the edges of the wilderness and certain very popular lakes. We got to Ima sooner than expected, so we surveyed the entire lake except to the Western bays near the portage to Jordan lake. We also took a quick paddle around Alworth. As far as we could tell, we had both lakes to ourselves that night. We camped at 1194. Our daughter found a small amount of broken glass a little bit out of the site while doing dishes. Otherwise the site was clean.

Sunday 8/23 – We headed back to Snowbank taking the Southern route through Disappointment and Parent. We encountered two or three groups headed East from Disappointment, but never felt like it was crowded until we reached Disappoint where most or all the sites were occupied in the middle of the day. Parent was empty and there was little canoe traffic on Snowbank as we wrapped it up.

Including day trips, our loop was about 97 miles.

Fascinating! This is just so contrary to so much of what we have been hearing about the summer. It sounds like you actually found wilderness!

Similar experience soloing in from Cross River entry earlier in August. Fair number of folks and occupied campsites through Ham and n end of Cross Bay Lake, then fewer people farther in. I spent most of five days in Hairy Lake PMA (with permit, travelling in from Frost L and Octopus L and out via Sora to Copper) and saw no one there. In fact, only saw people on first and last days of trip, mainly closer to entry points. No excessive trash (though I wasn't looking at near-perimeter sites), but a fair amount of stuff being forgotten at portage landings. No problem parking at that entry, though plenty of vehicles.

Nice! That's a solid trip. I really like the north arm of knife, ottertrack, cherry areas.

Nice.....my faith is restored. Thank you for the report.

Yes, it really did feel like we had a wilderness experience. After seeing so many reports about crowding and trashed campsites this summer, we were expecting worse, but hoping for the best. Our trip exceeded our expectations by quite a bit and restored some of our faith as well.

We fully realize our trip is just one data point to add to the analysis of this summer in the BWCAW. I'm not sure if we were just lucky, or benefited from going just a little bit later in the summer (after the start of some school sports), or put the crowds behind us with a bit more paddling, portaging and navigation of low-water rivers than some are willing to do. It was probably some combination of all of the above.

We did an EP 27 trip the 20th to 23rd. Interesting that you saw people where we didn't see any people.
Day one was Snowbank up to Knife. South arm Knife and the eastern end of Knife was very empty. Had our pick of multiple sites on Knife, once we passed the first six sites past Thunder Point.

Day two:
Cherry, Topaz and Ester, Amoeber and Ottertrack were completely empty on Friday. We ate lunch on Cherry in that really good campsite near the narrow spot in the middle and had the whole lake to ourselves for an hour. Bonnie was crowded, Spoon was empty so we camped on Spoon.

Day three: Spoon to Disappointment. Fraser and Thomas were mostly empty and Ima completely empty. Jordan was full. Disappointment had no available campsites on Saturday. Parent was also full.

Day four we paddled out and passed groups on Parent and Snowbank.

We met up with another group of friends who had a campsite on Knife Thursday night and one on Disappointment Saturday night. We shared a site with them on Thursday and Saturday. (only three boats total between the two groups) Without them being on Disappointment I don't know where we would've stayed Saturday night; probably would've paddled out and ended our trip a day early. That would've meant 20 portages in one day on Saturday...doable but not ideal.

We saw one kevlar canoe at one portage end (seemed to be abandoned; no one in sight), as well as three bags (including a food pack) on the north side of the portage out of Knife into Bonnie. One bag says "I'm forgotten" and many bags say "my owners are coming back" but three...?? We left them there.

We also found a pair of very smelly women's pants at our campsite on Bonnie. I wanted to take them but they reeked so bad of mold and urine my wife vetoed that since she carries the backpack and I the canoe.

Actually, now that I think about it, we found trash at every campsite. Mostly small except the pants. We carried all of it out (except the pants).

That was me on site 1449 on Sunday the 16th!

What an excellent thread! There is hope afterall.
Against my better judgement I have a coveted permit for labor day weekend. Going next Thursday. Im taking my niece and that is all that matters.
Tom

So.............the upshot is that site occupancy was/is high in easy to reach lakes, with just a few portages from entry.
Go just a little further and peace and quiet can be found.
Sound about right?

Yep, although, as they say: your results may vary.

I have taken 3 trips so far this summer. Crowded around Gaskin and Horseshoe, as well as Brule Lake itself, but the rest of my loop from Bower Trout thru Brule to Davis and then back east and south to Ram always had open spots and often I had the lakes to myself. I also met no one on a portage except the last portage out to the Ram parking lot.

The 2nd trip from Cross Bay Lake to the Frost River then out to Ogish up to Seagull and then down to Brandt was shockingly well traveled. We were super glad we got fairly early starts and ended early in the day. We had 3 groups arrive on Afton after us hoping for that campsite, and they were forced to continue on. Ogish was completely full by 1:30 in the afternoon and with storms upon us we were forced to camp in a closed site. The next day every site between Ogish and Seagull was full as we passed by. Some lakes were pretty empty, like Little Sag and the lakes between Paulson and Brandt. But Paulson itself had a group arrive 30 minutes after us and when they found both sites full had to continue over the 500+ rod portage to Seagull at 4:30pm. Ouch!

Our 3rd trip to Sag then looping out via Seagull saw lots number of occupied sites, but we never had difficult finding an open one.

Found items over the course of 21 total days): bandana, brand new Menards hat, sock (on a portage...how does that happen?), full roll of toilet paper (someone was bumming), a book (a really good one), multiple tent stakes, cigar butts, plenty of tin foil (foil doesn't burn, folks!), more than a dozen fishing lures, fishing line, plastic bottle caps, twist ties, and a trashed out paddle stuck in a stream that we walked on a day trip. We also found a pair of ripped pants at the Seagull end of the portage to Alpine. But we refused to carry those out since plenty of people exit off Seagull and we were on our way to the brutal portage from Seagull to Paulson. By the time we were back that way a week later, someone had taken them out.

I am a teacher, and last week we had our back-to-school orientations. I was pleasantly surprised when 2 families reported they had completed recent trips (within past two weeks; Lake One and Snowbank entires) with moderate crowds. Totally contrary to what I experienced in mid June and July earlier this summer.