Tuesday, June 20, 2023

I left my house in the Twin Cities at 2:45am. Took an hour nap while my EV charged up in Duluth. Amazingly, my Bolt was averaging 3.2 miles/kwh despite having a canoe on the roof. Did a shorter charging session and nap in Lutsen but was disappointed that the coffee shop was closed on Tuesdays. After charging to 75%, I backtracked to the Tofte ranger station to pick up my permit for Hog Creek. Rangers were warning campers to not leave packs unattended on portages due to bears in a number of areas. Glad I'm able to single portage!

I was on the water by 11am, but didn't plan to go far this first day. I waited at the short portage for a group of 3 to finish as they were returning from Perent Lake. This mini portage is very flat but rocky and had a beautiful landing on the west end. On Hog Creek, I had to get out to pull over 4 beaver dams, but was able to paddle/scoot over a few others. The creek winds around a lot and I took one brief wrong turn into a dead end due to inattention. To my credit, it appeared numerous others have made the same error. I started experimenting with leaning my Advantage solo canoe away from the turns and found that increased its responsiveness a lot. The whole creek took me about 80 minutes.

My husband, Stew, had been on Perent Lake earlier in the spring with a friend and I had laughed at his description of getting turned around on the lake. But he was right, there is something weird about navigation on Perent Lake. For an inexplicable reason, I found it visually confusing after spending so much time winding around in the creek. I was certain I had followed the east shoreline and islands far enough before turning the boat west to aim for the bay and shore with 4 campsites I planned to check out. However, the wind was deceptive, my compass kept floating away in the bilge water in the bottom of the canoe, and pretty soon I found myself completely confused. I came across a campsite, but nothing about the shoreline or compass direction matched with where I thought I should be. After scratching my head for a few minutes, I took the time to mop out the bottom of the boat so the compass would stay in place as I slowly rotated the canoe around. AH HA! I was too far south, so I rode the wind and waves across the bay and took the first site I came to.

I initially hoped to continue into the Perent River, but felt it was too late in the day to accomplish the 11-12 portages needed to reach the next possible sites. I made quick work of setting up camp and planned for an early dinner and sleep so I could start out at dawn the next morning. I would like to make up time tomorrow so no more navigation errors...that is just not like me. Also, rain is expected for 3 days starting Friday and I want to get far enough along on my route to have options as to which day to exit.

I always tether my canoe to a tree at night.
Beautiful start today. Saw a lot of turtles and had a trumpeter swan fly right next to me...boy are they big and noisy. The wind is keeping all the bugs away from my campsite tonight, so very pleasant.
Travel time: 11:00am-1:30pm (2.5 hours) Distance: 5.5 miles Places: Hog Creek, Perent Lake

First BWCA trip with my Durston X-Mid 1 tent. Other sleep gear includes Nemo Tensor insulated pad, Enlightened Equipment quilt, Nemo inflatable pillow.