New Trip Report posted by CatchMe

Trip Name: Solo Border Challenge 2024.

Entry Point: 12

Click Here to View Trip Report

Great to read a report of your first Challenge. Well done! You put in some long hours. I could relate to your woes of the night paddling.

Thanks for taking the time to write up your story. it's amazing you can even remember since you did the trip so quickly!!
love the photos, esp the monument portage. i was surprised to see you actually had water on the granite coming from clove lake, usually that's a boulder mine field.

also happy to hear your son wants in on the challenge, that will make for an interesting read!

CatchMe, Thanks for posting! so glad to have you with the Challenge Crew!

Enjoyed the read, thanks for taking the time to write this out.

I think wind was the theme of the weekend. I was on my little solo trip and can attest to how quickly the wind and waves picked up on Saturday afternoon and how the wind never really stopped even overnight most nights.

Good on you for pushing through. I might do the challenge one of these years, but for this year at least I was quite glad to be firmly planted on Terra Firma reading my book and looking out at the waves instead of riding them.

Way to go! This route is amazing!

Tony

Awesome trip report. Fun to read in more detail your day to day activities and some of the decisions you made as you paddled towards Lake Superior. Those first 2 days with winds forecasted to gust upwards of 30 mph and the big lakes in Voyageurs National Park were definitely a challenge to work around, especially for those in solo boats (you, Lawrence, and Scott). You did great!

When my boat of 3 paddlers caught up to you near the entry point of the BWCA, I felt a sense of relief knowing you made the right decisions to safetly make it across Rainy, Namakagon, and Sand Point Lakes. And we were very impressed with your calm description of your day. Many would have been a bit rattled but you were just a matter of fact in your handling of those lakes and the conditions. After Kendra fed you a rollup and we paddled on towards the Loon River, we nicknamed you "Joe Cool".

Glad you were able to make things work to join the fun after a few years of pondering...and I look forward to seeing you again next year!

Thanks much for your report. I got a real sense of your day-to-day routine and struggles. Well done!

Hope you can join us for Next year's Challenge! Bring friends and share the "fun"!

I found this report only today (while searching for updated procedures for AIS decontamination between rainy/namakan), but it immediately hijacked my attention, and was an exciting read. Sometimes it is difficult to connect with the author as they describe a route, but in this case I am lucky to have some similar-yet-not-same experiences that provoke a lot of the same emotions. It is anxiously thrilling to read about you being spun around by waves far too big for a little solo boat, and knowing the consequence of a capsize might be miles of open water swim. I like how you touch on the mental ups and downs that can almost randomly hit you when you are physically worked to exhaustion. The landmarks along this historic route are familiar to me, and many many others for hundreds of years- but few paddlers in the modern day. I liked the excitement of chasing down an unknown canoe across mountain lake, and the stumbles of finding portages and campsites. Finally, I enjoyed your recounting of running down the low pigeon river and marching the grand portage.
Congrats on your finish- you have overcome a challenge where the outcome was uncertain at times. Growth happens when you are beyond your comfort zone, and now the only uncertainty you have is the wonder of what is actually possible.

(Super happy to hear an old writing of mine may have helped to inspire you).
-muddyfeet