Alright hear me out- I can take suffering. Most BWCA trips involve at least a little bit of "the suck". But, sometimes you see a weather forecast and decide you're going to cut the trip short, or change up your plans, or cancel it entirely. Especially when solo, it's not fun to be camp-bound for days on end, or be perpetually wet.

In my case, last year's solo was supposed to be 8 days and I cut it to 3 because it was supposed to rain for the final 5 days of the trip (and it did). I felt there was no sense in sitting around under a tarp or in the tent, alone, wishing I was out on the water, fishing, taking photos. Before that trip I had an 8 day trip planned with a friend and it was going to rain that entire time as well... we had no desire to be wet for a week, so we switched EPs and hung out for 3 days on an entry lake, and it was a decent enough time with each other's company.

I'm looking at the forecast for next weekend, when I'm entering for this year's solo trip, and all this nice weather is being replaced with wind, rain, and maybe even snow (at least the forecast says it's possible) for the following week. Granted, we're a week out, but the forecast is firming up and it's definitely going to be fairly dreary. I'm having second thoughts and find myself quite frustrated that the weather has not worked out for me in the past few years. I want to finally do the Frost River but it seems Mother Nature doesn't want me to.

How do you deal with this? When do you decide to call it?

The joy of a solo is that you answer to nobody. I routinely change plans when soloing depending on weather, wind or just my mood. I have changed routes, EPs and many other things on the fly. It is so much more flexible than when I trip with a group.

I too will sometimes cut a trip short for the same reason that I don't have a ton of joy sitting under a tarp alone if it is going to rain the last few days. I also have changed days or EP if the wind was going to make it where I didn't feel safe. (I have much more confidence with 2 people in my tandem than me alone fighting the wind and rollers).

As a matter of fact, I was heading up tomorrow on a solo, but 30 mile per hour gusts have caused me to change my plans and head in Tuesday when the wind is a bit less. (There is a luxury in that there are tons of permits available at this time of the year, so no one is missing out by me cancelling a permit for tomorrow and picking up one at a different EP with smaller water a day later).

I love having plans and enjoy going with groups, but the fun of a solo is the only person that I have to impress or agree with is me :)

The nice thing about soloing is no one to argue with about pulling the plug. Having said that I follow some personal guidelines. The first factor is wind and I follow this closely, especially this time of year when the water is cold. I will alter my route to small more protected lakes or just sit it out until it is safe. I I look out on a lake and "think" I might be able to make it across, I stay on shore. If "hope"is your strategy, get off the water or turn around so you have a good escape route. Rain on the other hand for me is a lesser problem if the wind is low, I rather paddle in a cool rain (I have a solid rain suit) than a hot sun. I did bail last summer when a tornado threatened Tofte. Stood at the entry point and realized there would be little shelter on the lake I was headed to so did not go in. Later that day there were 60 mph winds and two inch hail on the lake. I usually spend my days (pretty much from dawn till dusk) moving even in poor weather and I know what I need to stay warm and dry. Hanging around camp is not a priority for me, seeing what is over yonder is.

Wind and the prospect of severe weather are the determinants for me. I paddle a kayak solo on Gitche Gumee, twelve months of the year when the ice allows. I have the luxury of being thirty minutes or less from my launch sites, so bailing on an outing is not as painful as it will be for many of you.

In the past few years, I’ve cut short two October trips to the BWCA and one in January. These were in the company of like-minded people. Ain’t none of us who ever regretted the decision. Going solo makes the calculus even more conservative in my case.

I've never bailed on a solo trip despite the forecasts. I've had trips where it was cold, cloudy, windy, and raining for almost two weeks. Some were mentally challenging, but I don't regret any of those trips. Where would I rather be? At home or in the BWCA?

I haven’t bailed on a solo, yet. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t if the whole expanse of the trip looked like miserable weather. Nice thing about a solo is having no one else to answer to and just being accountable to yourself.

I have changed plans such as routes/duration due to weather/conditions. When you’re mid-trip you can’t always get quickly back to an EP. (Although I always knew as a worst case I could hit any EP, find a way to my car, and deal with the gear.)

Last year I did bail on a night of pre-trip camping because it was going to rain all day and night, and I’d be stuck in a small tent with my puppy. The next day the conditions were still rough so my friends and I cancelled the OP permit and picked up a different one on a different lake for the following day, and figured out the logistics.

Plans change. Being flexible makes it an adventure.

I have bailed on a solo trip quite a few times. I definitely enjoy group trips a lot more than solo. I think a lot of the magic for me is the shared experiences. Of course, I can enjoy those moments by myself, but something's lost when I'm not sharing them with someone else. I've bailed on solo trips because of injury or health. I've bailed on solo trips because I just wasn't enjoying it in that moment. And I've definitely pulled an audible on plans for said solo trip because I wasn't feeling the route I had planned. I've also had great solo trips. Everyone comes to canoe country, or wilderness in general, for different reasons. Mine is because I love the beauty, quiet, personal challenge, the sense of mystery and unknown, and the marvelous ecological variety. If some of those pieces go away, like I am adding a day to the trip that I know is just going to be miserable, and there isn't a sense that it's going to be worth it, then I might just pull the plug. The most recent iteration was leaving a day earlier on this last group winter trip. I was going to be leaving a day earlier than my crew to get back for a work event, giving me a single night solo when the group would be staying on Winchell. It was going to be a night sleeping out in the BW, my favorite place on earth, what's not to love? But I had nothing to prove to anyone, I had thoroughly enjoyed the four days of winter camping before it. I had accomplished everything I set out to do and missed my wife, so I just hiked all the way out instead of stopping. That said, I get that there might be more pressure to stay if you drove a long distance at great expense to get here. The BWCAW is my backyard, and I could be to an entrypoint in 20 minutes. Leaving isn't a big loss.

I travel a long way to get there and a couple of times I've exited a day early, but that's it. I've mostly been solo but one time my brother and I exited early when there was 8-10" rain and strong wind predicted and just a day left.

Egknuti said it well regarding my approach. Weather is so localized up there that forecasts can be accurate and not apply to your experience at the same time. I’ve only cancelled a solo trip once, and it was just a day paddle in nice weather. It wasn’t a BWCA trip. I pulled up to a boat launch in the MN river I’ve used many times. Ordinary water flow, nice day, nothing unusual, but a sense of dread came over me. Sixth sense? No idea, I just turned around and went home. Did something else for the day.

I’ll also say there are very few perfect weather trips, and they can’t be planned, you just run into them once in a while. September being the most frequent (but not guaranteed) time to find them.

As boonie stated - I too travel a long way, from Washington DC area, for my annual trip so it really would take something major for me to bail early, as happened only once due to a rolled ankle. All but one of my trips have been mid June to late July, so normally the weather is decent enough.

I also feel a little cursed lately with the weather on my trips, mostly I've just been craving some clear skies at night (in one of the dark sky treasures of the world) and can't seem to catch a break. I try to remember the 11 consecutive perfect days I had in 2017, maybe I'm still paying off that debt.

But I would gladly take a day or a week of sitting alone under a tarp in the rain with my thoughts and experiences, over being at work. And I've never regretted traveling in the rain, once you get all packed up and resign yourself to being damp it can be incredibly peaceful and rewarding to be out there on the rain speckled water with the loons and ducks and otters etc.

High winds are another thing of course. But that would be less of a concern on the Frost itself. A cold, cloudy, rainy, solo Frost River trip would make for an excellent adventure to have under your belt. And life goes fast, you've got everything set up to go now...

However as others have said, one of the nice things about soloing is being able to do whatever you want, and there's no shame in changing plans.

This is on Long Island Lake on a dreary, cold, rainy day. I wasn't trying for a grainy, black and white photo on purpose, the grey weather and fogged up lens (and post processing I had to do to rescue the picture) made it that way. Still one of my favorites :)

The nice thing about solo trips is that nobody can tell you what you should do (within the rules obviously). For me personally, I'm pretty safety conscious, so if there's enough risk to make me genuinely uncomfortable for my safety, I alter my plans accordingly. Other than that, I have cut trips short by a day or two because of rain. Exiting in an all day soaking rain sucks, I don't care how tough you are. Especially when it comes to loading your soaking wet gear into the car.

It's a tough call but good that you are being thoughtful. Highs in the 50's and lows in the 30's along with rain can be uncomfortable, or downright dangerous in the wilderness. Detailed planning for how to stay warm and dry, even in the event of capsizing needs to be solid.

Camp when you want to camp and don't feel bad if you cancel, postpone, or cut short. At the end of the day your out there to enjoy yourself, not to be miserable just to say you went. I may be in the minority but I canceled my trip this spring due to temps. I'm supposed to be out there right now but it is just too darn hot with highs in the low 80s
I like to travel all day and I would have been miserable. There's always the next trip.

I think my approach has been pretty much similar to what others have said. If I’m planning a short-ish trip and the weather forecast looks pretty certain to be all-day rainy the whole time, I’m likely to cancel. But if I’m going out on a longer trip and the beginning days’ weather looks rough in some way, I find a way to enter on my permit date with the hope of better weather ahead. For instance a couple of years ago I entered early in the morning. It was too windy to safely get to where I planned on the first day, so I stopped at the first campsite on the entry lake that was available and sheltered. I think I set up at like 730 in the morning, but at least I was in! The weather in the middle of that trip was quite nice, but I left a day early due to a forecast of severe storms and high winds on my planned exit day. No regrets, and I had a nice time camping at one of the SNF campgrounds on Gunflint Trail for my final night.

Several years earlier I cut a weeklong trip short on day 3 after sitting on my first campsite for a couple of days because it was brutally hot and humid (heat indexes over 100) and the forecast was for that weather to continue for most of the rest of the trip. One of my dogs on that trip, an older, very thick-furred Alaskan husky was getting sick from the heat so I needed to get her out. With hindsight, l felt I should have cancelled that trip entirely, and instead go a couple of weeks later.

We have a saying about "resting on our laurels." Nothing to prove.
Wind will stop me, cold will stop me, but rain is fine.
I enjoy some solo "hardships" if they are minor. A little rain, etc, it's fun.

Health issues. When I'm solo, if I'm not 100% I will cancel a planned trip.

Family issues.

Wind.

Rain and cold i can deal with.

My only time soloing I bailed early.
Story is, I tipped my canoe coming around a bend when it was fairly windy. It took about an hour to retrieve all my stuff as it blew quickly across the lake.
By the time I got to camp I was soaked as was all my stuff (even in a ziploc bag, food is wet after an hour underwater so lots of my food was no good) and had no way to start a fire. Slept a miserable night, woke up and paddled out.

My logic was, I probably could have salvaged the trip, had juuust enough food to get by. But I basically had no margin of error anymore. Very little firestarting material, limited food, tons of wet clothes, half my first aid kit wet. So why risk it.

I haven't had to bail on a solo trip due to weather, yet. I've weathered some nasty storms so I'll always look for a place to hunker down when I choose to a camp in case the weather turns dangerous. I generally enjoy storms so it hasn't been a deterrent. I bailed a day early to get home to my family during the uprising in the Twin Cities once, and have been out there a day longer and call into work another time because of dangerous sustained winds and waves, but I wasn't too unhappy about that one.

Biggest thing for me is to make sure I'm able to stay reasonably safe in bad weather and in the event of capsize. Ditch kit on my person(fire/ food/inreach), wool head to toe, good rain gear, good first aid kit, splash suit for colder weather, and all my insulating gear in dry bags, in a plastic liner,in a canoe pack, lashed in.

I have come in early before, but never cancelled. Last year on Slim, I had 3 perfect days of weather, sun, light winds and temps in the 70's in the day, low 50's at night. Clear skies, even saw the Aurora one night. I also bring a weather radio, a Midland with a crank charging system, plus solar. The forecast for the 4th and 5th days was heavy rain and storms. I decided that I probably should go out in the morning of the 4th day. Good thing I did, since it started raining as I left Ely. Drizzle and light rain don't bother me too much, I have a good rain suit, but thunderstorms spook me.

Because of the close proximity to the BWCA of our cabin, i've canceled in the past because of fire bans and weather. We get up there often enough.

If I have to sit around my whisperlite trying fry up a steak - i'd rather just stay at the cabin and grill it with some beer - I can get out in the canoe fishing or exploring from there. Same for bad weather - if the whole forecast is crap, i'll get out in the canoe between rain spells and sleep well in the cabin listening to the loons on the lake.

For me to get to the north end of Quetico involves a 24 hour drive across all or parts of 5 states. There is also the need to request time off months in advance, the trip prep, and my inability to easily reschedule a trip for the same season. So, the only reasons I can ever imagine for cancelling a trip outright would be fire, significant injury/illness, or family emergency.

Once I'm in the backcountry, I am always open to adjusting or changing my plans as I see fit or nature dictates. The flexibility that comes with solo backcountry travel is awesome. It's about simply enjoying nature and solitude. I don't have anything to prove to myself or others.

I generally go in March and Oct, so permits are never an issue. And I pick a two week stretch for what is usually a three night trip.
Lucky enough to have a job with flexibility, so if the first week's weather is looking iffy, I hope the following week is better.

Wind will make me change my plans more than moisture......unless heavy snow is predicted for fall or winter trips. Extended rain will also I guess, because rain is miserable in Oct. But mostly that dang wind.

I called off last fall's trip because of the fire ban, it's a big part of my evenings when it gets dark so early. Kind of a night owl.

Like others have said, being flexible while going solo is probably the biggest advantage of tripping that way. Use that advantage how ever you see fit.

I never trust the forecasts and have had many times when I've talked to people who were exiting early because of a rain forecast. I continued on my trip and the rain never materialized. Those people lost out on a beautiful time. I encourage more people to try traveling on the rainy days...better than sitting around camp.