Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

First timers - Lady Lakes Chain
by kac7700

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 07/19/2009
Entry Point: Kawishiwi Lake (EP 37)
Exit Point: Sawbill Lake (EP 38)  
Number of Days: 4
Group Size: 2
Day 2 of 4
Monday, July 20, 2009 We woke up at 5:30 a.m. to pack up and get ready for our shuttle to the entry point at Kawishawi Lake. As we were driving out of the campground, we came across a bear that was scaring the campers. People were everywhere trying to get away from the bear. We couldn't get our camera out fast enough to get a picture before he went into the woods. At the outfitters we loaded our canoe and gear into the van for our drive to Kawishawi. The driver unloaded the canoe, we unloaded the gear, and he took off. We suddenly realized that there was no way back except to start paddling!

Despite all our research, things look much different once we were on the lake. We got going in the wrong direction, and having never paddled together before, and not since we were kids, we had to learn how to work together, steer the canoe and find our way all at the same time. Good thing we're smart people! We quickly realized where we were, and got headed towards the river to Square Lake. 

We're heading down the river towards square lake and encountered our first obstacle...a beaver dam that wasn't on the map or the guide books. It looked like we could float over it, but instead we got stuck on it. 
We figured it out, reloaded the canoe, and were on our way into the lake.

Square lake was rather uneventful, we passed several groups that were on their way out. We found our first "real" portage without issue, back into the river, another small portage and back into the river to Kawaschong Lake to our first big portage of the day - 189 rods.

There were a lot of other people on this portage, most of them going out so it was crowded, and had to make room for people to pass on the trail. We started to get a little concerned, but found out that campsites on Lake Polly were pretty much empty at this point since everyone was leaving. I was concerned about getting a good campsite for our first night out.

We entered Lake Polly and proceeded to try to find a place to camp. We headed towards the north end of the lake on the recommendation of another group leader that was taking some kids from church in and does it every couple of weeks. We also wanted to make sure we were not competing with them for a site, since it was just the two of us, and there were 9 of them. The first site she recommended was too hard to get into with the wind, but when we got to the north end, the site at the tip of the peninsula was vacant and we were excited for our good fortune. It was a wonderful campsite with a great landing, easy in and out, and plenty of space. We set up camp for our first night. 
We had every intention of fishing on this lake, but were rather tired from our first day of adventure so my husband didn't want to fish at all (much to my dismay since we hauled all the gear to do so.) I decided to fish from the shore and caught a couple sunnies. The clouds started to move in and I got bored with fishing so we watched the weather, listened to the thunder and celebrated our good fortune of not getting rained on with a cocktail and campfire. During the night, it started to rain.