Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Island River to South Kwishiwi
by docmosi

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 07/20/2014
Entry Point: Island River (EP 34)
Exit Point: South Kawishiwi River (EP 32)  
Number of Days: 7
Group Size: 4
Day 2 of 7
Monday, July 21, 2014

We got up around 7am, some coffee for me and hot chocolate for my oldest daughter. The other two were adjusting from their routines of going to bed at 4am and sleeping till noon. That only took one day. :D

We had french toast that morning, it was quite good.

We paddled and paddled that day. Many small portages and one longer one. It was very hot and sunny. The kids just wanted to see some trees that were not burned.

As we pasted Quadga there were some green trees. Almost like a line was drawn through the wilderness. Green on one side, burned on the other.

We had lunch at a small site on Isabella. Summer Sausage sandwiches. We considered staying here, but there were lots of bugs and no breeze. So we decided to push-on, to the last site on Isabella River, just before the portage to Bald Eagle. We figured we be rested for that 140 rod portage the next day.

Once we got there, we didn't like that site either, and we knew (Mark showed us) that there were some prime sites on the south end of Bald Eagle.

So at 4pm, we started the 140 rod portage into Bald Eagle. It was hot, humid, and generally miserable. We made it, triple portaging, out by around 4:45.

We got the second sight from the south on the east side of Bald Eagle. It was a very nice site. Camp was made with the intention of laying over the next day. We all swam that night and had a little BWCA bath. :D

Beautiful sunset that night.

We had a small garter snake that lived in the rock pile wind break for the fire pit. He left when we showed up. The mosquitos came out at dark and were fairly intense, so we went in the tents.  There was terrible wind that night. It sounded as if someone was driving a train off the lake into our campsite. We had no rain and no downed trees that night. Later I learned that several people were airlifted out due to tree falls.