PRE-TRIP:

To clue ya’ll in, each trip up, we acquire a theme name for our group – This year it was “THE FIVE WORN OUT INDIANS”, and we also create nicknames for each person while in the wilderness.

New people or first timers to the BWCA have “virgin” in their names. Myself (“Girl wearing hoops, hate ‘em skitters”) and my boyfriend (“Old virgin portage-shocked man farting with wolves”) flew in from Florida a day earlier than our crew (July 25, 2014).

We met up with my sister’s crew (read PinkCanoe’s Trip Report). I was blessed to be able to ride out with them the following morning for their put-in (July 26th) on Lake One. We met up with our crew who drove up to Ely, MN – Canadian Border Outfitters from Indiana on that same morning, July 26, 2014 (“One-eyed girl carries picture box stalking critters”, "Young virgin boy with many knives chopping wood”, “Crazy portage man dances in canoe”). Stick people are generally created after a trip.

Our group got together in the outfitter's dining hall and reviewed our trip route, making mental notes to our goals for each day. We re-sorted all of our food since we were packed for 6 but only 5 were present (In this process, we actually eliminated approximately a barrel’s worth of food!) We gave our frozen hamburger to the outfitter to keep frozen overnight (stating to each other – don’t forget the hamburger in the morning…. Lol).

This pic is in the outfitter's dining hall and we are reviewing our maps:

This pic is sorting through our pre packed food

Old virgin portage-shocked man farting with wolves" and I, "Girl wearing hoops hate 'em skeeters" had shipped our personal gear from Florida and so we had to get our backpacks packed as well. The group went to town for some shopping and an early dinner. We arrived back to outfitter, nearly 20 miles from town, fairly early. We noticed our canoes were loaded on trailer, so a couple of us did an inspection… thank goodness! One canoe had a hole already in it that we could stick our finger through! I immediately went up to office and they made note and they switched this canoe out the following morning. We went to bed early that evening to be ready for what we hoped an early start the following morning. Weather report checked – a hint of rain for our put-in day and no rain expected in “the area” until at least Thursday. Temps were to be decent as well.

This picture is of my sister and me on their put-in day in Lake One.

This is a picture of "Girl wearing hoops, hate 'em skeeters" during pre- trip planning, still hoping someone will carry her over the portages.