Hi Everyone,

I'm doing the Border Route Challenge starting this Saturday, September 12th, traveling from Rainy to Lake Superior solo.

I'm not part of Beav's "Border Route Challenge" group, however, I will be doing it at the same time coincidentally. Just in case anyone would like to follow along, I'm going to add a link to my Spot Tracking so that you can click to follow my progess. I'm not racing through this thing, but I will be moving quite a bit each day. I'm bringing my fishing gear to try and catch the canoe country Grand Slam while I'm out there. Click the link if you want to follow along.

Tony's Border Route Challenge

Tony

Good luck and be safe!

Thanks for the link. I always love following along on these ventures. I hope to do it some day.

Have fun, thanks for inviting us to follow along.

Hope you are having fun and staying safe! Good luck in your quest to catch the grand slam on the way.

He has made it to the end of the granite river- going upstream for a while .

That is why I did (tandem) the other way. Got the GP our of the way first and once to North lake, never upstream again!

Tony, are you the person that periodically met up with Magic Paddler on the route? He was doing the challenge and described meeting someone that fits your description in his trip report.

Yeah, I’m flattered that he called me a “young man”. I also was leap frogging with Mzee and Voyager along the way. Those guys are hard core. I only paddled in daylight, made camp between 4-7 everyday. Those guys would paddle in complete darkness (it was a new moon, so it was pitch black), until 10 pm-1am. The very first night when I was camped on Little Vermillion, Mzee and Voyager paddled past my site at 12:30 am. The next night I was on Lac la Croix camped close to the Bottle Portage and more challenge paddlers cruised by at 10 pm. Then, my third night on United States Point on Basswood, more challengers ended up cruising by late. It went on that way all week. I’d paddle past some of the challengers during the day, make camp around dinner and they’d paddle by me later. MagicPaddler and I did Long Portage together, I finished well before him and then grabbed a site on Moose, he paddled past me a few hours later and actually finished the next day. Great group of people. Several of us camped together at Fort Charlotte Friday night, that was the only night of the trip that I didn’t make camp alone. I’m working on a video of the trip that I’ll probably post on this site and my YouTube channel (GopherAdventure). It was a great trip, and it felt pretty good crossing Grand Portage off my canoe country to-do list.

Tony

Kinda reminds me of the tortoise and the hare story. :)

Look forward to doing this historic route next year!