Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Un-Falls Chain Trip (Saganagons)
by LamboSleeper

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 07/16/2013
Entry & Exit Point: Quetico
Number of Days: 14
Group Size: 2
Part 2 of 2
Gear Notes:

Canoe: Wenonah Spirit II, 17 footer. A good all around canoe. Not the fastest on the lake, but light enough and roomy enough for fishing and suits our base-camping style. Purchased it used from Piragi's in Ely in 2008.


Tent: 3-man Cabela's XPG. Really a 2-man tent. Well made, 2-pole design easy to set up. It's well ventilated and keeps us dry.

Tarp: Well-made sil-nylon tarp, 9 by 12. A necessity.

Sleeping bags: lightweight synthetic fill bags that I purchased 8 years ago, manufactured by Woods of Canada. Adequate for the summer.

Sleeping Pads: REI self-inflating 3 inches thick. Thermarest self-inflating 2.5 inch Basecamp. Work well, but I am considering replacing with two that take up much less space in the pack ( Exped Synmat or Airmat?)

Backpack: Military Molle II. Modular, comfortable, and works well. Military duffel bags with shoulder straps. Work well enough for 30 pound loads or less. Use only in conjunction with dry bags. Stow nicely in the bottom of the canoe.

Water filtration: I use a gravity-feed filtration system that I put together myself. It consists of a 3-liter Platypus bag that feeds a Platypus Gravityworks inline filter. The output (clean) hose of the filter is attached to an adapter that fits tightly in the opening of our Nagene bottles. I also use purification tablets in the Platypus bag. The tablets do a great job of killing any small bugs, etc. While camping I hang the bag and filter about 5 feet off the ground near our cooking area. I am very pleased with this system...sure beats pumping.

Food Storage: All food was stored in two 5-gallon buckets, each sealed with a Gamma Seal Lid (purchased from Menard's). We did not hang these from a tree, but hid them a short distance from camp at night. Also provided extra seating. Worked well. No bear problems to report.

Stove: Single-burner Coleman Exponent, using white gas. Purchased 2 quarts of fuel for the trip. Used about 1.5 quarts. This stove is relatively inexpensive, has good output, but does a nice job simmering. Many of our meals (Bear Creek pasta, for example) required low simmer for 20-25 minutes. No problem. Certainly not the lightest stove around, but a workhorse.

Headlamps: 1 older Princeton Tec Quad, 1 newer Princeton Tec Byte. Both work with AAA lithiums. I really like the Byte, and it's not costly.

Satellite phone rental: rented from roadpost.com. Worked well.

Fishing Equipment: I carry a small tackle box (Plano 4700 two-tier, 14x7x2.75) Works well, but I could easily leave some lures home. I also carry a very small soft-sided bag for soft plastic baits.

Depth finder: Eagle Cuda 168 is powered by a home-made battery pack consisting of 5 CR123 lithium batteries (batteries purchased from batteryjunction.com) The batteries lasted 8 days before I needed to replace them. The depth finder is basic greyscale LCD, but it does a nice job with low power consumption. There are several low-end depth finders on the market that would do a comparable job.

Old Garmin Etrex Legend GPS: used lithium AA batteries which lasted the entire trip. Although its capabilities are limited, this gps still does the job for me. I can't justify a new GPS. I even load up some limited size detailed maps to supplement the coarse base map.

Fishing Rods: Rods are lower-cost, but not cheap 6.5 - 7 foot spinning rods and a 6.5 foot baitcasting rod. At one time I made my own custom rods, but I find good enough rods to suit my needs nowadays from Fleet Farm. I've never broken a rod while fishing in Quetico. I find it unnecessary to buy the expensive rods (brand names withheld).

Fishing reels: Both of us use Shimano Symetre spinning reels. No failures, nice reels. I use small 20-year old lightweight Daiwa baitcasting reel for trolling: works great.

Shoes: purchased some New Balance trail running shoes. I prefer lightweight shoes for summer canoe camping. The good: the shoes were comfortable, dried fast enough, and provided enough protection on the portages. The bad: the soles did not grip well enough in the mud, or on slick rocks.

Food:

Crapola: mixed our own for snacks, mixed with powdered milk for a quick breakfast

Pancake mix, pre-measured in baggies

Small bottle of syrup

1 package of powdered milk, for cereal or oatmeal

Precooked bacon: heat it for a couple minutes. A big hit

Instant oatmeal

Instant coffee, tea bags

Bear Creek pasta. Each is four servings, so split into two and prepackaged

Zatarains, put in tortilla shell

Foil chicken, 7 ounces, bought from Menards or the grocery store

Foil tuna and salmon. Mix with packets of mayo, spread on crackers

Peanut butter Flat bread and tortillas Muffin mix. Just add water and try a jello mold recipe from BWCA.com

Fish coating. Prepackaged our own using flour and seasoning. If you don't carry eggs, this sticks better to the fillets than the shore lunch coating

2 small bottles of vegetable oil.