Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Wind & Rain Magnets in Quetico
by TrailZen

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 08/25/2019
Entry & Exit Point: Moose Lake to Prairie Portage (EP G)
Number of Days: 10
Group Size: 2
Part 3 of 11
DAY TWO: Monday, August 26. Agnes, Silence, five no-names, Trant. 10.4 miles, 7 portages.


We heard rain on the tent around 4:30. Woke at 6:00, decided to wait for rain to slack. Woke at 7:00 and said we should get up, fell back asleep. Woke at 8:00 and rain had stopped (and we'd slept almost 12 hours!). We fixed breakfast and pondered getting on the water versus waiting for the promised deluge. After a slow morning the sky began to brighten, and we decided to paddle on, but it was nearly 11:00 when we finally got on the water--a late start for us. The wind was back, and again from the south. We looked for the petroglyphs, but didn't go far enough up the lake. After turning into the wind to get back to the portage into Silence we were happy we didn't go further up Agnes—we hadn't realized just how strong the wind was until we had to paddle into it. Our decision to hit Trant set us up for small lakes and multiple portages. The portages today threw about everything at us: beaver dams, steep climbs, bogs, boulder fields, slick roots, and mosquitos. We had light showers all afternoon, and a steady but light rain greeted us as we entered Trant. The first site we checked on Trant was small with several dead trees. Our notes suggested that while another site was a bit out of our way, it was nice. It's not simply 'nice'--it's a beauty! The site is large with multiple tent sites but few signs of use—lots of grass, no erosion, no trash, etc. We were able to rig the dining fly over the fire circle, and could fill our water bottles and pots with rainwater from the fly instead of filtering water. We had hot tea and snacks around 5:00, then set up the tent and bear bag rig when the rain stopped. Dinner was mushroom risotto with ham & spinach—yummy. We read a couple McManus stories after clean-up, then to bed.





On Day Four, while adding pictograph notes to one of our maps, we discovered we had missed the picto site on Trant--guess we'll have to go back in a couple years.