Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

A Visceral Winter Trip
by lyontyl

Trip Type: Snowshoeing
Entry Date: 03/04/2021
Entry & Exit Point: Duncan Lake (EP 60)
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 3
Day 2 of 5
Friday, March 05, 2021~East Bearskin Lake, Duncan Lake

Capt'n Tony, Matt, and I began the complex process of figuring out the best way to organize our gear onto the pulks. It was a complex game of Tetris trying to figure out the best way to fit all the gear in the most precise of ways and making sure the weight was properly dispersed.

The doors were locked on the truck, hiking gear put on, and off we went on EP60 to Duncan lake........for about a 100 yards before my pulk tipped over. Well that didn't take long. After a couple more attempts it became clear my packing skills were still green. I made a couple adjustments a made off for Duncan. Overall a fairly easy trip to the portage from West Bearskin to Duncan.

We carefully crossed the portage as best we could with the delicate nature of the weight distribution in our minds. It became evident that we would have to much more mindful of how we packed when exited the BWCA in a couple days from now.

We arrived at rather crowd free Duncan Lake. We were led to believe that the weekend would be crowded from the forest service as we entered at EP60 but we were hopeful we lucked out at they were wrong.

We opted for a spot across the lake from portage and close to a camp spot. We chose to camp on the ice because despite the very mild winter conditions we felt good about the snow staying firm. Like a monkey doing a math problem we pieced together the tent and the wood burning stove and started to unload our gear into our short term lodging.

After the lodging was organized we jump over to an island close by that looked like it may hold the structure that might catch us some lake trout. It didn't take long before found a couple willing biters. Nothing of any significant size but enough remind us what a tug felt like at the end of the line.

Our stomachs began to rumble and decided to retire into the tent for Matt's supper which consisted of ribeyes, wild rice, and green beans. Whooboy that hit the spot and after topping it off with a mug of hot chocolate and amaretto it was time to retire to the sleeping bag after filling the stove with wood.

Unfortunately we chose the wrong night to fall into deep sleeps and forget to fill the stove with wood and it required us to burrow deeper into our sleeping bags as the cold crept in. But all was well as the -30 degree bags did their jobs and kept warm enough to get a good nights rest.