In a week, I'm taking a group up, but I just snagged another permit for Lake One for this Friday. Lord knows how it opened up, and I'm free for the weekend, so I'm going to head in with a buddy for a couple of days. I've entered Lake One several times for trips to insula and Alice, but have never gone in during the busy time of the year. Most of my trips are early May and late September early October through Lake One.

I know from reading how busy it is in that area, and being that we only have a couple of days because this is a very very last minute trip, just wondering what you all would do to find a campsite at this time of the year in that area this weekend? I'm not picky on campsites as I don't spend much time at them. Just want to have a place to park for the night.

If it were you, would you start paddling to every single site between Lake 1 and Lake Four, or would you head all the way past the portages into Lakes Two and Three before you started to look for a campsite? Again I'm not picky, just not sure if every single campsite in that entire area is going to be full on a Friday morning? Would love some strategy thoughts.

Again, this is not my norm to go in. It just happened to work out that it opened up and I have two free nights. Quite honestly, two nights in the Boundary Waters for the weekend sounds much better than sitting on my couch watching Brewers baseball.

Every day will be different but...on July 26th of this year my wife and I paddled out from Hudson and I noted the empty campsites. Of the 8 on Hudson, 3 were out of view, one was taken and the rest empty once we left our campsite. I could see 5 empty campsites on Lake 4 and at least 2 empty on Lake 3. We had left camp at 8AM and paddled out so our time frame was morning.

You’ll have no problem finding an open site, especially if you’re not picky. The good thing about this EP is every lake has campsites and there are short portages between lakes. If one lake is full move onto the next, you wont have to go far. Hudson Lake up north towards Fire Lake also stays quieter.

Have a fun long weekend.

Just became a solo trip!!!! No problems now, might even paddle into Insula without having others to worry about!

We just came out of Lake One on Tuesday morning. We basecamped on the south side of Three as I had mostly a new group with me. I would say overall it was not very busy on the numbered lakes. South side of Three where we were at was quiet. When we were paddling around fishing and then on the way out there was a surprising number of open sites, even most of the prime spots on Three and Two were open.

I've realized that during summer trips its totally random when people are coming and going. I was at a popular spot a few weeks ago and Thursday tons of sites were taken but Friday & Saturday had lots of open sites. People come in and start their trips whenever they can fit them in and get a permit - just go with the flow!