Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Return of the Cousins Camping
by BonzSF

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 08/18/2022
Entry & Exit Point: Mudro Lake (EP 23)
Number of Days: 11
Group Size: 3
Day 3 of 11
Saturday, August 20, 2022 Up to overcast skies around 7. It didn't rain most of the night and was drying quickly.
Though there were still a few mosquitos waiting on the underside of the tarp. Coffee from the french press, I'll never go without that again! Still in fresh food mode so we cooked up the eggs and hash browns. By the time we ate and got packed up, we hit the water about 9:30. Lots of clouds that were clearing away to blue skies. Plan was to hit Beartrap Lake for lunch and head downstream to Sunday Lake for a two night stay. I heard of 6 hour trip from Beartrap to Iron so I figured we could easily knock it out Sunday Lake in 4. Boot and Fairy we quite calm and we scooted across in pretty good time except for missing the Fairy/Gun portage by a bay.
Then we hit the wind on Gun and it slowed our pace. Next was the full on headwind on Gull, the bog on Mudhole, and the final kick of an elevation change on the last portage into the serene waters of Thunder. Getting there at around 2 and were all beat by the day. The triple portage routine seems to add a lot of time and effort. We figure it's too late to get to Sunday lake and hope for the Beartrap campsite. As I pass by the camp on the point on Thunder, I chat with the folks there. They say that the site on beartrap was empty as far as they know. YAY. I am so ready to stop for the day and have read great things about that site. We get to the portage and get the solo across with some gear to confirm the availability. The other guys are hungry for some lunch so they pause to get some food out. I shove off saying if I don't come back, we got the site. Actually I dropped the packs and came back around the point to wave my paddle in the air. It is a great site complete with precut firewood logs. We'll be able to use the splitting axe that we brought. (hey when you have 8 bags for three guys, you have it all).
Fishing, dinner with fresh food and a great sunset finished off the day. the mosquitos weren't nearly as bad as last night. No swarms and they disappeared after 1/2 an hour.
~Boot Lake, Fairy Lake, Gun Lake, Gull Lake, Mudhole Lake, Thunder Lake, Beartrap Lake
Total people/groups seen. Once again, we saw nobody else in a canoe and had the lakes to ourselves. Saw one group of two tandems on the portage headed from South Gull to Gun. Campsites were occupied but there were still plenty available.