Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Kawishiwi to Sawbill in the rain
by RRHD

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 06/23/2014
Entry Point: Kawishiwi Lake (EP 37)
Exit Point: Sawbill Lake (EP 38)  
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 3
Day 2 of 5
Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - We woke up to thunder and lightening at around 6, so we stayed in the tent and played with the puppy till it seemed like it would blow over. My 20 year old daughter made the call after we hadn't heard thunder for a while that we should make a move or we'd never get anywhere, so we packed up, stuck some energy bars in our pockets, and hit the water as fast as we could. During the first portage it started raining, but we all had our rain jackets on anyway, and frankly the rain at least suppressed the bugs, which were brutal. In retrospect we should have also put on our rain pants. We paddled and portaged through the burn down in sometimes driving rain, though no wind, and passed a lot of people going out. The dog got progressively more chilled, and my son ended up duffing the whole day so he could zip the puppy into his rain coat. His sister is the stronger paddler, and we really wanted to get to camp fast and get out of the rain. We found a nice site on Polly, by then it had stopped raining and the bugs were back, but we got our tent up, a tarp and laundry line up, and got my mildly hypothermic daughter out of her wet clothes and into her sleeping bag with the shivering sodden puppy.  My son helped me hang all the wet clothes on the line under the tarp, and then he too changed into his long underwear and dry wool socks and retreated to the bag. I squared away camp, pumped water, and finally gave up and retreated to dry clothes and a nap. Once we were all rested, dry, the tent organized, and less crabby, I crawled out and made curry noodle soup, lots of cocoa, and checked on the drying clothes. I coaxed the kids out to eat and warm up, but the bugs drove us back to the tent pretty fast and I faced a lot of complaints about never camping in June from the kids. Every portage this day was muddy and miserable, and the recently repaired Wynonah Sundowner from the late 70s was way too heavy for me to portage. I was feeling pretty blue and miserable.