Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Two Rivers and a Big Lake (plus others)
by bapabear

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 06/03/2012
Entry Point: Brule Lake (EP 41)
Exit Point: Homer Lake (EP 40)  
Number of Days: 9
Group Size: 2
Day 7 of 9
Saturday, June 09, 2012 Time leave Brule Lake. Our fourth day in the BW and we’re going to have our first double portage with full packs! I could like this! The day dawns calm and clear and once again the gods of Brule favor us with a calm surface and a rising sun through distant mist. At 7:30 we’re on the lake and heading toward Jock Mock Point on the south shore. The portage into Juno Lake was a pretty easy, grassy in spots, walk. My map shows that we actually left the BW for the middle part of the portage . The trip across Juno was a long paddle as the sun was coming up yet we were able to study an area that was burned back around 1990. There was a great deal of new growth with the burnt remains of the fire still visible. Much of the downed wood was laying in a parallel direction which made us wonder if there was a blow down or if this was entirely from the fire.

There is a very interesting portage between Juno and Vern Lakes. You start climbing straight up to where you can see out over a rough area that contains a large beaver lodge and the Hoover Dam of beaver dams. When I thought the portage was about to end it continued on to get us clear of the beaver dam. An interesting place.

About 11:30 we laid claim to the second site down on Vern Lake. It’s right across from the entrance to Vern River and about a hundred yards from the portage into Whack Lake. We set up camp and had lunch as the wind continued to pick up. We couldn’t get the last portage out of our mind so we made plans to travel back up the lake to explore some more.

We headed back up Vern Lake dealing with the wind around 1:30. Just as we got there we were startled by a huge clap of thunder and a sudden pouring rain. There were dark clouds in the area but they didn’t alarm us until now. A video of me would have been hilarious as I’m grabbing rain gear from the pack, hopping on one foot after another pulling up pants, and zipping and buttoning to stay dry only to have, on the final zip, the rain stop on a dime and the sun pop out. Terry had forgotten his rain gear and was going to “ride it out” while I was going to be high and dry. By the time I got everything off and dried and back in the pack I had worked up more sweat than he had gotten wet in the whole deal.

On the way back to camp we fought some stronger wind but made a few stops to pick up some really decent firewood from all the downed and dead stuff there was.

We were able to sit on our camp stools and observe a susnset worthy of a few pictures before hitting the sack.