Pre Trip: I wanted to go on a BWCA adventure for my 40th birthday with some of my friends, who are not that outdoorsy. I asked my group of friend and only got one taker to go on the adventure with me, my high school buddy Chris. I told the outfitter that I wanted to go somewhere a little remote, wanted a little bit of a challenge, but also wanted good fishing. Canoe Country Outfitters (CCO) suggested Stuart Lake EP19. Once I knew it was just my buddy Chris (a newbie) and I for our trip I started to research lakes near by and saw Lake Sterling and originally thought about doing it for a day trip, when I learned about PMA permits. I told Chris what a PMA was, what it entailed, and that 99% of the people that go to the BWCA never see a lake like this or have been to a PMA, and I was probably crazy for taking a newbie into one. But he was game! I always wanted to take my buddy Chris and his twin brother Brian to BWCA because they were big strong guys, with a lot of machismo, that would be pack mules, strong paddlers, and down for most anything. Brian unfortunately, just had shoulder surgery this year, so it was Chris and I. Granted we were now 41 and 40, we’ll see how much machismo is left.

My 40th birthday was in March (so we weren’t going to be tripping on my birthday). My buddy wanted to get to Canada, hoped to pick some blueberries, and wanted to see the Milky Way. I had a 9 person trip already planned with the family at the end of July/beg Aug, so we settled on Mid Aug, hoping there would still be some blueberries and I was hoping the bugs weren’t going to be too bad for a newbie. We got our permits in Feb and the planning started.

We originally agreed on a 6 day trip, though I told him it was going to be a really aggressive trip for us to do in 6 days. About a week before the trip he let his wife know we might make it out until 7 days, so not to panic if she didn’t hear from us until 7 days out, and we planned to make the trip in 7 days. But I told him I only packed food for a 6 day trip, with one dinner already planning on being a fish dinner. Again Chris was game and said I guess we’ll have to catch more fish. Mind you Chris isn’t really a fisherman either, I had to supply the fishing poles and lures.

We left Friday night from Indianapolis and headed north of Chicago to stay at his brothers house, and planned to hit the road early the next morning. We had about an 8-9hr drive from there, but had to make it up to Ely before 4:30pm when the Ranger station closed to pick up our PMA permit. This was a new endeavor for me as I always picked up my entry permits at CCO who is usually. We made it up to Ely by 2PM, pick up the permits, got leeches, and went to Zupps to pick up some last food items, then on to CCO. We got checked in at CCO, got our bags packed, food in the freezer, and got some last minute trip advice from Brian at CCO. Off to dinner we went at the Boathouse Brew Pub for some hamburgers and beer. We walked around at the shops and picked up a bag of freeze dried green beans from Piragis since we only packed food for 6 days. Then back to CCO bunkhouse to get to bed as we had an early morning planned.