Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Spring??? in the Misquah hills
by TuscaroraBorealis

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 05/25/2018
Entry & Exit Point: Ram Lake (EP 44)
Number of Days: 4
Group Size: 3
Day 3 of 4
Sunday, May 27, 2018

Another unseasonably warm morning dawns, with high humidity to boot. Our breakfast conversation revolves around our travel plans. In the final analysis, we decide to stay on Ram Lake and keep (relatively) close to camp.

Yet again, fishing on Ram proves to be unfruitful. Much like her mother, Aurora has developed a curiosity for finding unique rocks. So, having spied some neat ones at the portage landing (on our way in), we paddle over to do some closer investigation.

Finding a few we eventually begin wandering north up the shoreline towards the campsite there. At the peak of the shoreline ridge we come across a well worn trail. Our maps show nothing of the sort, nor had I heard anything about this is planning the trip. Soon we stumble upon a pipe sticking out of the ground, which I surmise is some sort of water gauge. As we continue to work our way northward, it becomes obvious that the trail will lead us to the campsite - which it does.

Backtracking, the trail leads us all the way back to the top of the stone staircase at the portage landing. We notice that the trail also runs south as well, so we set off that way.

This path is much more overgrown but, still relatively easy to follow. And, where it does become a little confusing there always seems to be a tape trail marker hanging from a nearby branch. This really peaks our curiosity as we follow the trail southward around the lake. Along the way there's even a marginal over view of the lake, and different colors of old tape; indicating this trail has been here for awhile.

Just as the vegetation along the trail is becoming a bit too dense for comfort, totally surprisingly we emerge into an opening where there is a 15-20' swath of open forest running in both directions! We follow it right down to the lake and begin to take note of the remnant shrub and small tree stumps throughout the swath. It resembles what you might see along/under a power line. It appears that this swath terminates at the most southern point of Ram Lake. Knowing that the wilderness boundary is very close to the lake, initially I think that perhaps a private landowner has cut this. But, after hiking back up the hill and seeing just how far the swath extends....I'm of the opinion that this was more than just a short little bushwhack and required either a lot of man power or some heavy machinery. And more likely the later. Needless to say, we are stumped (pun intended) as to it's origins or reason for it's existence.

Having gathered up a King's ransom in birch bark, after we hike back to the landing we cross paths with a group of 5 young men who look completely exhausted. They inform us that Little Trout was full the day we entered and, more importantly for them, the day before (which was their entry date) as well. They wound up having to portage all the way to Vista Lake and had to settle for the crumby site in the north western arm. Also, they didn't have much good to say about the Little Trout - Misquah portage.

Our CCS tarp affords us some shade which provides a welcome measure of relief from the heat of the day. Both Vickie & I exhaustively conclude that we must be getting too old for this stuff until we turn on the weather radio and find out that the temperature has soared into the 90's! One of the primary facets of why we prefer May & September/October tripping is the cooler temperatures. Obviously we miss out this trip but, considering how stormy our past couple of spring trips have been, I guess the law of averages would have suggested weather like this. At least Aurora has enough energy to give our local frog population a run for it's money.

Aurora's persistence compels both Vickie & I (each in turn) to join her on an exploratory hikes back behind camp. While the site proper, near the lake shore, is flat; behind camp the terrain has a pretty good incline. The trade off is that, since there are several large white pines in the immediate vicinity, the pine duff keeps the brush a weeds to a minimum making exploration much easier. Still the humidity wears us 'older' folks down rather quickly.

We spend the remainder of our last evening relaxing and soaking in the relatively quiet peacefulness of our surroundings. The only real excitement of the evening comes when a pair of bald eagles perch just across the small bay and fight over a fish. At least someone had some luck fishing on Ram Lake this weekend.

As evening falls, Aurora has thoughtfully taken the time to create an early Father's Day card for me; using the resources we had gathered from the forest earlier today.