Monday, May 26, 2025

Today is Memorial Day. I’m waking up at Myran Park in Chetek, Wisconsin. This weekend was our annual Memorial Weekend paddling trip that I do with friends. They’ve been doing a paddling trip this weekend for over 20 years, I only joined 2019. I can’t recall the exact number but I believe we paddled about 25 miles over 2 days on the Red Cedar River. It was good to get some paddling in before heading up to the Boundary Waters as I haven’t been out on the water yet this year. Had I not been in the Northwest part of Wisconsin, I probably wouldn’t have done a BW trip this year. It’ll be less than 4 hours to the outfitter in Ely compared to the normal 7 hours from home.

The agenda for today is to get leeches, last minute food, and pick up a friend at the Duluth airport. My goal is to make it to Ely Outfitting Company by 7PM. After having led a group of 8 last year and preparing and packing all the food on our own, I’m feeling much less nervous about the trip this year. The weather is looking perfect, and much warmer than I expected. I am worried about rain and a potential fire ban. There’s rain in the forecast but it’s been very dry. Time will tell.

I made my stop in Superior and made sure to grab some beer. Being that this group is high school friends from Wisconsin, we will be having a few beverages tonight to eliminate any last-minute nerves. After my stops, I had some time to kill in the Duluth/Superior area so I went to Ursa Minor Brewing Company for some pizza. Turned out to be a great choice as I could sit outside in the sun, review my lists and relax a bit before the inevitable chaos of packing our canoe packs. I grabbed a pizza to go knowing that some people might be hungry tonight. A little time was spent reorganizing the car one last time for my friend and his gear. He’s flying into Duluth from San Diego and has been on every trip so far with me so I’m glad he could come again. The other three in our group are all new to the Boundary Waters. They’d be driving up from Appleton & Manitowoc, WI together. I had a list of things for them to grab that I couldn’t fit in my vehicle. Most importantly a cooler full of food.

We made it to the outfitter by about 6PM which I’m grateful for as it gave us time to pack, plan, and prepare before the other 3 members of our group arrive. I’m also happy to be back at Ely Outfitting Company. The bunkhouse situation here is much better than the outfitter I went with last year. We actually have space to lay things out! My friend spent most of the time preparing fishing rods and equipment while I would be organizing packs and trying to make sense of all our gear. I’m concerned with how much gear some of my friends have packed, it’s their first time and I find it’s always hard to tell people how much to bring. Ultimately, I’d rather have them overpack than under pack.

Everyone is a little nervous but we’re in good shape for the most part. We wind down the night with pizza, beer, and a movie on an iPad. Cast Away was the choice tonight, but we spend most of the night talking instead of watching.