Has anyone ever thought of / traveled from one end of the BWCA to the other? Thinking of planning a two person trip from Ely / lac la croix area to south east of the gunflint (poplar lake area) next year. Logistically it seems doable. Any suggestions or ideas on timing / preparation? Any must sees or places to avoid?

Thanks in advance.

Not the BW, but we did a cross-Quetico trip several years ago. Put in at Beaverhouse and ended the trip at the Moose Lake parking lot next to Latourell's. A fantastic trip. Good luck with your planning. You'll love it.

Awesome thanks! How long did Quetico take you?

Plenty have done various versions. It's a pretty easy trip the longer you stay along the border. (once things are open hopefully)

If you're planning on doing more of an "interior" trip the options are endless and you can make it up to as hard and remote as you want....or not.

A sometime paddle partner does cross BWCA trips (west to east) every few years as a solo. He is a pastor and needs the away time to rejuvenate.

My spring group did a north-to-south/south-to-north cross over trip of Quetico in May 2009 with the 10 of us in two vans/groups (4 in one group, 6 in the other) starting at Cache Bay and French Lake meeting up in the middle and swapping van keys. I was in the Cache Bay start group and we met Janice Matichuk and she told us we were the first group that season - the 100th anniversary of the park.

Most years there is a Border Challenge where groups have a week to travel from Crane Lake (some even start at Rainy Lake) and finish with the Grand Portage. They go hard and travel long hours.

This summer, my son was on a long trip that spent 29 days traversing the border and doing some more interior sections. They started at Crane Lake, followed the border, then ducked into the Sundial PMA, back up to the border to Saganaga, then did a loop down to the southern edge of the BWCA, then back up to Saganaga, along the border again to the Fowls and then finished with the Grand Portage. So they paddled the furthest western, northern, southern, and eastern boundaries of the BWCA. They had a group of 6 people with 3 canoes. They did one food resupply around day 15 (and got some extra paddles because they managed to break two).

devdave: "Awesome thanks! How long did Quetico take you?"

Eight days, including two layover days. We single portaged everything so we were able to move right along, but in hindsight, I would have preferred to have stretched out the trip an extra couple of days. It was really a fun trip.

Jackfish: "

devdave: "Awesome thanks! How long did Quetico take you?"

Eight days, including two layover days. We single portaged everything so we were able to move right along, but in hindsight, I would have preferred to have stretched out the trip an extra couple of days. It was really a fun trip. "

Kiporby and I did a cross Quetico trip in 2011.
We started at Beaverhouse and exited at Cache Bay.
92 miles in 5 days. It was an epic trip.

Dave D: "Has anyone ever thought of / traveled from one end of the BWCA to the other? Thinking of planning a two person trip from Ely / lac la croix area to south east of the gunflint (poplar lake area) next year. Logistically it seems doable. Any suggestions or ideas on timing / preparation? Any must sees or places to avoid?

Thanks in advance."

sure! Usually "traversing" means Crane to Fowl Lakes along the border. Partly, in my mind, because this is historically where the Voyageurs traversed.

There is nothing to avoid!

A very popular route, especially in the 1700’s. Haha! I started out basically going across one end to the other. And the best was my forty days starting at Gunflint doing a loop East and back, then continuing west doing many inland lakes as well coming out at little Indian Sioux on day forty. The most difficult thing is logistics such as transportation. The boundary waters has so many things to offer as far as history, beauty... about anything you could want in a wilderness. Getting the border route under your belt is a great place to start. We’ll becoming a member here is a good way to start that journey...

As part of our 19 day trip from beaver house to gunflint lake we spent 3 nights getting from prairie portage to gunflint. We could have done it in two nites except we had extremely low water level on the granite river and it took us 10 hours from sag to magnetic lake where we stayed the night. Had lots of wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail and sun just on that section.

Lots of wind that entire trip, actually. Great trip