I am looking for some experienced words of wisdom and advice. I have been on solo trips in the BW a couple of times-------40 years ago. However, I have not gone on one since. I am heading up June 1st for the first time in all these years on a solo trip.
In the past 40 years I have been in the Quetico 2-3 times a year and the BW once a year. I have a fair amount of canoing experience but essentially no meaningful solo experience. I am thrilled to be going solo again and am confident in what I am doing but am curious as to any advice some of you might have for what amounts to a first timer. I have access to a solo canoe that I will paddle at least once on a local lake before I go, know to carry two paddles and beyond that expect to use my usual stuff.
Any thoughts or advice? Thanks in advance

have a general plan, not an agenda. dont chase good campsites, settle for what you can find. enjoy the weather no matter how crappy it might be. spend down time taking photos of the little things...moss, fungi, flowers, bugs. journal...i love that. youll find your own groove, follow it. watch every step on portages. use boulders or trees to help you in shouldering the heavy pack. you will overpack food, i can guarantee that. :)

have a great trip!

A PLB is probably a good idea just in case something happens to you. Better safe than dead.
Enjoy your trip if your base camping or looping, just go at your own pace.

Have fun be safe.


JB

I went on my first solo canoe trip last year. The last solo camping trip of any kind I had been on was about 30 years earlier. For me, the main challenge was psychological. I like being alone in the day, but less so at night. So I went out for 3 nights, which I thought was right for me going solo the first time. I kept the itinerary flexible and didn't push too hard, because I found going solo is a little more taxing. At the same time, it was a great adventure.

So my advice for someone like me (you may not be) is to not bite off too much for the first trip, stay flexible, and have fun!

My one other piece of advice would be to try to get out in your solo canoe more than once before you go, including on a windy day. Take the canoe out loaded (which is easier to handle in rougher weather). I was glad I felt really comfortable with the solo when I was on my trip.

Congratulations!
Well being the "Rookie of Solo" I didn't even canoe trip till 2009. Then in 2010 did solo 1, and 2011 solo 2. Just turned double nickels, so a card carrying AARP member.... Here's my thoughts.
Solo tripping is the same thing as group trips only by yourself.
The biggest thing is being able to "say NO" to what you take with more than one tripper. Because, you can split the load. I take a lot of stuff, cause I like the luxaries, and don't mind the carry for the comfort. Other's opt for "less stuff" and still enjoy the trip.
So figure out what it is you want for comfort, and can do with or without, cause won't be anyone around to help you carry it.
So I take stuff like reflector oven, hammock, axe, saw, camera's, chair, lots of GOOD FOOD. Other's would not take all this stuff, and that's ok.
as far as paddling ahead of time, I did a lot of that before my solo's to get used to the boat. I would fill dry bag with water and lash in the front with bdb's for ballast.
Loaded solo canoe's are damn stable, unloaded are fairly unstable in comparison, (not that I know shit about it, just a general statement) So practicing unloaded is way different then loaded. (surprise)
Have Fun, take it at your pace, with what you want to take, and Enjoy the World around you!
SunCatcher

Rule number 1. Have fun.
Rule number 2. Plan something where you can enjoy your time and don't rush or press to get someplace. Rushing or pressing for distance can lead to injury or poor decision making.
Rule number 3. Relish the quiet and solitude. Enough said.
Rule number 4. Take pictures. You will relive the experience many times and pictures keep the memories fresh.
Rule number 5. Wear your life jacket. You're not easy to find 40 feet underwater.
Rule number 6. Leave your itinerary in your car. People don't want to guess where you are if something happens and you don't come out when you're supposed to.
Rule number 7. Be aware of your surroundings. Watch the weather and lake conditions.
Rule number 8. Greet others with a smile, a wave and a good word. You are in the middle of Gods country. He doesn't like it when you don't treat others as he treats you.
Rule number 9. Keep your food safe. If Yogi gets your food you don't eat for a while. That's not fun.
Rule number 10. Leave no trace.

These are the rules/guidelines I work to follow on my solo trips. They are easy and really common sense. If you want to add some go ahead. Just remember to follow Rule number 1 as much as you can...

I will quibble with point 6 above. Leave a float plan at home. Not in the car. (float plans on the windshield of cars are done at some Provincial Parks. I think its too easy to break in to the glove compartment find your registration and find where you live and the thieves then go raid your house. They have your schedule in plain sight so they know how long they have).

And have a cut off time that you promise to call a loved one by at the end of your trip. Otherwise they get to call for rescue. You may already do this on your many trips a year.

You have the skills. The hardest thing is going to be the psychological aspect of being alone. If you are like me, your bowel sounds will sound like an animal growling and scare you.

Its all your trip..so enjoy it at your own pace. Likely you will be suffering from solo withdrawal at this time next year.

Jan hit the nail on the head about chasing good camps,i did that for a few trips.paddling like mad at the end of the day for just the right camp will take the fun out of things.once the tent is up and the fire going every camp will seem like home.
my big bit of advice is to shore line.i mean stay close like just a few canoe lengths at most.you will see a lot more and discover things that you would never guess are there if you paddle out in the lake in that point-to-point style.what looks like a reedy bay might have a moose feeding in it or a tiny creek that has a short bush whack next to it that leads to a hidden lake.you also run across what i call hidden camps,sites where the fire place has seedlings growing in it.i could go on and on but the others have all the good advice i would just be repeating...lots of time to open water so come back with and for more ideas.

Have fun, take your time and be careful.
I like to read and it is a perfect situation to become absorbed in a story.
Be a bit silly and laugh at yourself.
Pre-trip planning needs to include family, just for their sake.
Make something, if it doesn't work out nobody needs know.
If you find you do not like being alone, take solace in the fact you are not alone in that feeling.

Let us know how it works out for you!

butthead

a solo trip isn't much different than a tandem trip. You still need much of the same gear. Except you have to do all the chores yourself. Navigate, put up the tent, cook, dishes, portage, keeps you pretty busy throughout the day.


Take you trip slow and easy especially on the portages. Make sure you watch where you put your feet every step on a portage. Turning an ankle on a solo is absolutely no fun.

The best part is you get to make all the decisions. If your tired stop if you want to push on go ahead. You decided when to eat when to sleep and when to fish and what route to take. You don't have to worry about anyone else's itinerary.

tony

Lots of good advice already. Solo trips are, of course, very individualistic. That's why we do them - so we can do what we want. Some like to travel long and hard every day, some like to basecamp, fish, and take long naps. Some like to do a combination. It's your trip, so do what you want. Not sure what that is? Try different things.

Solos are more physically challenging - solo canoes are 3/4 the size /weight of a tandem with half the paddle power. Packs are a little heavier since there's no one to share the weight of community equipment. Paddling into wind will slow you down more than it will a tandem, but paddling downwind won't help you anymore. There's also no one to help with camp chores, so they take twice as long.

Personally, I plan a little less aggressive travel plan since I tend to travel a little slower as a solo and camp chores take up more time. I also plan an extra layover day and more route options to shorten or lengthen. I leave some things behind that I might take on a tandem trip and I simplify food preparation to cut weight and time.

You'll have to discover your own personal solo style. Good luck and enjoy your trip. Do whatever you want to do!

"Solos are more physically challenging - solo canoes are 3/4 the size /weight of a tandem with half the paddle power."

Uh no..My lightest tandem is 45 lbs. My solo is 23 lbs. Skin friction counts so less energy is expended if you paddle a dedicated solo boat as the wetted surface is far less. Paddling into the wind with less boat skin presented to the wind is still a PITA but far less force required than tandem.

Now how much.. Has anyone done skin area calculations for wetted area of a typical solo (like a Magic) vs the MNII?

I don't find handling of small solo boats to be physically challenging at all. I am 65 and cannot imagine soloing a tandem in the wind..though I play soloing a tandem with great delight in calm water.

That said I am looking forward so much to my next solo on the Gulf of Mexico in a small Colden DragonFly..its been a month and already I am in serious withdrawal.

I find I travel far faster solo than with a group. In a group there is one that lost something,,another needs a drink. Another needs a pee. Etc. I have camp take down to a habit so it takes 55 min with breakfast. Period.

Totally agree that the trip is yours. You own it and need not answer to anyone.

The one downside is that whining has absolutely no effect. No one is around to notice!

Butthead must have seen my making a spoon attempt. This was not a good idea on a solo trip for me. I almost cut my thumb badly.

being alone in the wilds is scary only if we let ourselves think that it is. statistically it is not. i have just returned from a five day BWCA solo trip. i skied at night, in total darkness, pulling the sled across frozen tracks. I set up my first camp to the light of my headlamp, and watched as the northern lights lit up the thick low clouds. that night, two wolf packs howled, one to the north and one to the very far south, just as i had imagined. the lake ice creaked and howled. to me this is the symphony of the north.

i love my quite time alone in the northern wilderness.

i suspect that alone time is not something that most Americans are comfortable with. alone is more scary than wild. just what may happen in my head after four days of no conversation? what crap lives there?

i have played classical piano for 45 years. years of playing the same greatest music ever written. chopin, bach and beethoven. memorized and analyzed, learned under some of the finest teachers in the midwest. and i love this music like you can't imagine, and can play it, for me, perfect (stupid teachers, not so much). so for four days and solo nights all i hear playing, on my very developed brain audio system is ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down".

this is our greatest fear.

quote yellowcanoe:

Butthead must have seen my making a spoon attempt. This was not a good idea on a solo trip for me. I almost cut my thumb badly."

A few years ago I was with a couple of buddies in the BW and it was raining a lot one day. One of the guys I was with stayed in his tent a lot. But me and Ron tried to keep from being bored. We each started wittling something and part way through we realized we were both making spoons as our other buddy who insisted on bringing utensils forgot a spoon for cooking. Luckily no cut fingers here either. Our friend carries them on his trips since.

But yes, keeping busy on solo's is key. And keeping busy isn't hard to do... Just be carefull and use your head. I like to try things like different tarp setups and sleeping under the stars. My dog doesn't like sleeping outside. So I don't do that a lot. When I'm with people it's always go go go. When I'm alone you still gotta keep moving, but I feel more relaxed to take it all in.

quote yellowcanoe: ""Solos are more physically challenging - solo canoes are 3/4 the size /weight of a tandem with half the paddle power."


Uh no..My lightest tandem is 45 lbs. My solo is 23 lbs. Skin friction counts so less energy is expended if you paddle a dedicated solo boat as the wetted surface is far less. Paddling into the wind with less boat skin presented to the wind is still a PITA but far less force required than tandem.


Now how much.. Has anyone done skin area calculations for wetted area of a typical solo (like a Magic) vs the MNII?


I don't find handling of small solo boats to be physically challenging at all. I am 65 and cannot imagine soloing a tandem in the wind..though I play soloing a tandem with great delight in calm water."

My comments merely relate my experience, which is different from yours. I don't own any canoes, so I rent from outfitters. The typical kevlar tandems we rent weigh about the same as yours, but the solos are usually about 33 lbs., so yes, I'm carrying 3/4 of the load my brother and I would typically split. The same applies to the community gear, thus I usually have say two 55-lb loads when solo vs. say two 45-lb loads when tandem.

I don't know what solo canoe the OP has access to nor do I know what they paddle as tandems, but the OP will need to consider his own unique situation. If the OP typically paddles aluminum barges tandem, but takes a Colden Dragonfly, he'll cut weight. If they paddle Savage River tandems and he has access to a royalex Wilderness, he'll increase his load even more.

I assume the OP's solo paddling skill set will also fall somewhere between mine - self-taught, seldom practiced, and little experienced - and yours, although he did say he has no meaningful solo experience, but hopes to get out and paddle it at least once. So far I have found the SR Quetico 16 to be a handful for me in strong Sept winds, the Magic more manageable, and the others I have rented somewhere in between. Perhaps someday I'll get to paddle a small solo.

I hope this helps the OP to decide where on the continuum of experience and circumstance between us that his will fall.

Thanks for all of your advice and suggestions. I can not wait to go. You would think at my age, after dozens and dozens and dozens of trips over years and years that I would not get this excited about another trip.
I am a very lucky man to have this kind of passion and excitement for the woods and water----------and a solo trip!
Life is good, very good indeed.

quote GraniteCliffs: "Thanks for all of your advice and suggestions. I can not wait to go. You would think at my age, after dozens and dozens and dozens of trips over years and years that I would not get this excited about another trip.
I am a very lucky man to have this kind of passion and excitement for the woods and water----------and a solo trip!
Life is good, very good indeed."

Yes, but this trip is different...it's an adventure again - a journey into the unknown - and that's exciting. Hope it goes well for you. Have you decided when and where yet?

solo canoes can feel very squirrelly, they take some getting used to. with gear they feel and act more mellow. i find the toughest part of solo paddling is the portage landings. needless to say you should plan on wet feet here. i dread dragging my canoes on rocks, so loading and unloading the canoe is a rather tricky affair. keep ropes handy, you don't want to be the guy whose canoe blew away at a portage landing.

tying off the canoe is the first thing i do...landings, put ins, campsites.

Yes, it is an adventure again. You are right, that is the reason I am more excited over this trip than others.
I am entering at Mudro June 1, actually two other of my normal running and canoeing partners are going solo at the same time so we are able to ride up and back together. Not sure where from Mudro but will certainy heed the advice above about not pushing too far.

quote GraniteCliffs: "
Yes, it is an adventure again. You are right, that is the reason I am more excited over this trip than others.
I am entering at Mudro June 1, actually two other of my normal running and canoeing partners are going solo at the same time so we are able to ride up and back together. Not sure where from Mudro but will certainy heed the advice above about not pushing too far."

I liked my trip through Mudro, Fourtown, Boot, Fairy, Gun, Moosecamp, etc. I always just plan to travel two miles less per day when solo. I also find some of the landings and loading/unloading to be more difficult when solo, plus you have to take off and put on the yoke - make sure you know how and where to put it. I put 25-feet of rope on each end and fasten with BDB's so I can tie off like J and K. I'll be interested to hear your perspective on soloing when you return - we're all so different.