My BWCA Adventure

Linette's Boundary Waters Adventure - June 2013

It all began on March 5th. I was watching Bear Grylls take some British celebrity on a wilderness adventure in Alaska on cable television. She wasn't doing very well, and I thought, "I could do better than that." So I emailed my brother Tim the following...

"I would like to officially ask you to be my guide on a trip to the BWCA this summer. (Jeff is not interested in coming along.) It's something I have to do before I die, and I'm not getting any younger, so it's now or never!!! Please think it over. Thx."

He replied with two words, "I'm in."

Later he asked me who we should bring. He didn't seem to care, so I asked Danica and she was immediately on board. Then Zack said he wanted to come, and our 5th member was JJ, who's always interested in anything fishing related. We also brought along Tim's best friend, Sadie. Sadie is my other brother Bruce's old dog, but Tim won't go up to the Boundary Waters without her.

I spent the next several months learning all I could about what to expect and what to pack. On Memorial Day we had a group meeting with Tim over the phone where he went over the trip itinerary and answered any questions any of us had. We each were encouraged to bring a flashlight, water bottle, wind pants, and rubber boots.

Early on Sunday, June 2, 2013 our adventure began. Our first stop was my brother Bruce's house in Minneapolis. Bruce (aka Pooch) wasn't home, as he and a couple of his buddies were also going on a trip to the BWCA the same time as us. But we were able to pick up the dog and a canoe and some other gear there.

From there we moved on to Tim's friend Mike's house in Blaine. Mike let us borrow all sorts of wonderful things including a second canoe, 2 camp stoves, sleeping bags, Thermarest pads, a hammock, several Duluth Bags, and a bunch of other stuff we never even used.

In case you don't know, from left to right that's 3 of my 4 kids (Mandie couldn't join us) Zack, JJ and Danica, then Tim's friend Mike, my brother Tim, and finally Sadie, Pooch's loyal boxer.

Once the guys got the van loaded and both canoes secured to the rack of Tim's car we were off. All went well until about 80 minutes later when we started to smell a terrible odor. Tim pulled over and found transmission fluid leaking all over under the hood. Not good. Not good at all.

Thankfully, my brother is both cool under pressure, and an excellent problem solver. He called AAA (he has complete Triple A coverage thanks to his father-in-law who renews their membership every Christmas) and they sent a tow truck. Zack ran to the nearest mile marker so we could tell them where to find us. Tim had been told the canoes would have to stay, so we stashed them in the ditch.

It didn't take long for the tow truck to arrive, and was it ever a monster! It didn't actually tow the van. It pulled it up onto the flat bed and carried it back to Minneapolis. And the cab was large enough for all 5 of us, plus Sadie. Which was a better turn of events than our plan, which was to keep half of our people back in the tick-infested ditch with the canoes.

We probably could have left the canoes on the van, but by this time we had taken them off so we just left them there. Tim didn't tell Mike that part until after we recovered them. And although Mike did volunteer to lend us his van, we all felt we should take ours instead.

I couldn't believe the tow truck driver was able to do it, but he backed up through the narrow alley behind Pooch's place and placed Tim's van just where he wanted it.

Then we moved everything from Tim's van to our van, had some pizza, and once again we were off, just 3 hours behind schedule.

It took another hour to get the canoes tied onto our van. The rack on our van didn't work as well as the one on Tim's, but with lots of ropes and knots, they were finally able to get things tied up tight.

During this time 2 state troupers stopped to check on us. Both were very kind and wished us a fun time on our trip. I still wasn't sure we'd even make it there!

But we eventually made it back on the road again and at around 7:00 pm we finally pulled into Fall Lake Campground where we had planned to spend the night. 

The campground was really nice, and our site was right on the water. So after putting up the tent and having a quick meal of roasted wieners, Doritos, and S'mores (the only meal I provided), JJ and Zack went out in Mike's canoe to try a little fishing, and Tim, Danica, Sadie and I went looking for a geocache. I'll explain what geocaching is a little later, but it was really a nice mile hike through the woods to the cache. On the way back we had to use our flashlights as it was getting pretty dark, but that was fun too.

Late that night Tim fired up one of Mike's stoves and served up some scrambled eggs with a few of the left-over wieners tossed in, and corn hash. Tim says corn hash is a camping staple, but none of us had ever had it before. Reading the can we found that it's pretty awful stuff nutrition-wise, but it went good with the eggs. The original plan was to have the eggs and hash in the morning, but Tim wanted to get off to an early start, so we decided to have them as a bedtime snack instead.

Here's what we had for breakfast the next morning.

One thing Pooch had told me before we went on this trip is that we would not be hungry. So true! Tim fed us very, very well. Please note the chocolate milk and OJ. Also note the elfin dagger. Danica bought that knife online to bring on the trip. It's a replica of Sting from The Hobbit. She said she was going to use it to fillet fish. We may not have used it as she intended, but it was often put to service slicing things like cheese and sausages, and in this case, Danish.

At Fall Lake we slept in a large tent. Here's picture of JJ and Danica rolling it up.

This was not the tent we used in the boundary waters. For that we had 2 smaller, lighter tents. One for the guys (and Sadie) and one for Danica and me. But the first night we all slept together. Or tried to. I was too excited to sleep. And it was pretty cold. That was our coldest night for sure. It got down to the 30s. But I had a very warm sleeping bag. And we all had Thermarest pads to sleep on. Those things are really neat. They are like air mattresses, but they are made for camping. They roll up thin and don't take all that much air to blow up, but they are really soft and comfy on the hard ground. I'm so glad we had them. I'm told no one goes to the BWCA without them, unless they are sleeping in hammocks. And we got to do that too, sort of. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So Monday morning we got up early, had our danish, packed up our stuff, 

and got geared up for the trip. Here's what Danica was wearing.

And here's what I was wearing.

When JJ saw this picture he said, "And that's what she wore the entire time we were up there." It's true. I had on 2 pairs of socks under rubber boots, Cuddle Duds, and long underwear under my pants, and anywhere from 2 to 5 tops on at a time. But I was warm and dry the entire trip, which was the goal.

From Fall Lake we went to the Ranger Station to pay some extra fees and listen to the BWCA rules. I won't list them here, but we followed most of them, most of the time.

From there we went to entry point 30 on Lake One and began to unload our gear. Tim knew there was a geocache close by and sent Danica to go look for it.

Geocaching is a hobby of Tim's. To geocache you use a handheld GPS to locate caches which can be found pretty much anywhere. You create an accountant at www.geocaching.com and use it to track your finds. So Tim was always looking for nearby caches. We found a few before going into the BWCA, and a few on our way back home. He told us he likes to find them, but he's not nearly as obsessed with the hobby as his friend Mike. So far Tim has about 800 finds. His friend Mike has around 8500!

Most of the caches are in plastic containers like this one.

Inside the cache you'll find small items other geocachers have left, like toys and trinkets, as well as a log. Danica signed the log with Tim's geocache name, "HEINE HUNTER." (Tim's last name and my maiden name is Heine.)

Back at entry point 30 the guys had the canoes ready to load. The Duluth Packs I mentioned earlier were stuffed with all of our gear, including tents, food, sleeping bags, clothes... There were only a few odds and ends that didn't get stuffed into packs. We had 5 packs and they were very heavy. But since the route Tim had chosen for this trip had very short portages, and he knew JJ and Zack were pretty tough (he called them "mules") we didn't worry too much about weight.

Going in was the best part of the trip for me. It was a sunny day, and the BWCA is beautiful. The further in we got the less people we saw, and the more butterflies!

Here's a Mourning Cloak sitting on our packs. That's Zack carrying a canoe in the background. I only carried the heavy packs once or twice. Mostly I was in charge of odds and ends like paddles and water bottles. And I never tried carrying the canoes. I wish I had, but then again, if I'd have tripped on a rock or root it would have been pretty terrible so maybe it's best I acted my age in this case.

The ranger had told us "the water is cold and high." It made for great canoeing. JJ was trolling pretty much every chance he got. He caught a large Northern Pike in Lake Three.

Zack was his bowman. (That means he sat in front.)

I was Tim's bowman and Danica and Sadie rode between us in the heavy aluminum canoe. You'll notice Sadie is wearing a life jacket. It had a handle on it and that proved helpful whenever we had to get her where she didn't want to go. Sadie doesn't much care for the water so she avoided going anywhere she might get wet. Those of us with rubber boots didn't have that problem. We could jump out of the canoe almost anywhere along the shore.

This is my favorite picture of JJ from the trip.

Here's my brother Tim carrying the canoe with one hand. 

Pretty good for a 52 year old.

He needed help with the lifting and lowering however.

I did help with that on more than one occasion.

This was my favorite portage. It was here that I got a picture of the Spring Azure. There were flocks of them everywhere. Their underwings are light grey and the tops of the wings are a dark grey, but when they fly they look blueish-purple. So pretty.

Our destination was always the easternmost campsite on Fire Lake. If you look on the left of this map you'll see we had to paddle from Lake One to Lake Two, to Lake Three, to Lake Four, to get to Fire Lake. It took 5 hours of canoeing on Monday to get to our campsite. We stopped for about an hour on the way for a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly on flour tortillas, and cheese and summer sausage, trail mix and other goodies. So in all it took us 6 hours to get there. We first put our canoes in the water just before 10:00 am and arrived by 4:00.

 Zack and Danica enjoyed a nap on a warm rock at our campsite.

 Sadie was ready for a nap too.

 Setting up camp was fun.
Tim did most of the work, but we helped where we could.

Here's Danica helping Tim with the tarp.
This is where we stashed our packs and other misc. items in case of rain.

 This is Mike's hammock. We LOVED the hammock. 

It was comfy, and even sheltered you from the bugs pretty well.

 The head net Danica is wearing in the picture below was also helpful. 

There were some mosquitoes, and lots of black flies. But overall the bugs weren't all that bad. I only got a few mosquito bites on my hands the entire trip. But then again, I was pretty much dressed from head to toe. Also, I heard the bugs at Drag Lake were so think they looked like grey clouds in the air, but that was one adventure I did not participate in. Again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

 One of the things I wondered most about before arriving
 is what the latrines would be like.

They were actually not that bad. Every campsite has a fire pit, some logs around the fire pit for seating, a small clearing or two for tents, and up a hill behind this area you will find the latrine. I read in a book that the latrines used to be made of wood, and often were homes to wasp nests. But the ones we used were smooth and comfy, and about as private as you can get in the woods. I got used to them quickly.

I was going to save this for the end, but here's a video I took Tuesday morning. I was laying in the hammock enjoying the peace and quiet, when it was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a guitar. I remember lying there with a huge smile on my face thinking, "It doesn't get much better than this."

Heart of Gold


So that gives you an idea of what our campsite looked like. It was very secluded. In fact we were the only ones on Fire Lake. And when we went "tripping" to Hudson Lake on Tuesday, we never saw anyone there either. In fact from midday Monday to midday Wednesday we never saw anyone. It's kind of a strange feeling to be cut off from civilization for 2 solid days. (World War Z may have begun and we wouldn't have known it!) But it was wonderful at the same time.

Getting to Hudson lake only involved a couple of portages, and we didn't have those big Duluth packs to lug around, but it was still difficult. It was hard to find a place to pull up our canoes. There were so many big rocks and mud along the shores. But it was worth it. JJ's favorite part of the trip occurred on Hudson Lake. He found a spot where the Northerns were biting. He'd catch one, then float a bit getting it off the hook and on the stringer, and then paddle back to the same spot, catch another, and so on. He got 3 in a row that way, and we had them for supper that night. YUMMY!

Here are some pictures I took Tuesday.

 Tuesday evening the rest of our crew decided to go "bushwacking" to Drag Lake. Tim said the fish in Drag Lake hadn't seen a hook in 40 years so he had high hopes of catching a big one. Bushwaking is hiking where there is no trail. Since they could only do this with Mikes's lighter canoe, and since 5 people would never fit in that canoe, it was decided that I would stay behind with Sadie on this trip. Ordinarily I don't care to be left behind, but I was intrigued with the idea of having a little alone time in the Wilderness, so I never put up a fuss.

They figured they would be gone for 3 hours or more, depending on how the fish were biting. So I spent about a half hour in the hammock reading, then I gathered some fire wood, and then I wrote in my journal. I was just about to start working on the fire when they returned. I was surprised they were back so soon. Tim told me, "Drag Lake was a drag." Not only was the fishing nonexistent, they had other problems too. Getting there involved lots of mud, and lots of bugs. At one point JJ was up to his waist in the muddy waters, and at another point Zack got so stuck in the mud he needed JJ to pull him out. JJ said he saved Zack's life, but there was some debate as to whether or not that was true. In short, I'm really glad I didn't go along.

After all the adventures of the day we rewarded ourselves with a huge supper which included mini-pizzas, fresh Northern, and apple crisp. The pizzas and apple crisp were cooked in a little homemade oven Tim brought. I wish I had a picture of it. It was just a few pieces of tin and a rack that you set up next to the campfire. He got the plans from some Boy Scout leader. Tim would have been an excellent boy scout. He was great at tying knots. We were all impressed. He was going to give us a lesson on knot tying on Wednesday night, but that never happened. I think he was too busy setting up his bear resistant food bag pulley system. Tim was always working on something. He was the first one up each morning and the last one to bed each night.

 I tried to help out by volunteering to do KP duty. To wash dishes, I would take a pot of hot water and a scrubby into the woods and wash each item, usually with just a flash light clipped to my cap as my light source. It wasn't much fun, but it made me feel like I was helping in some small way.











On Tuesday it was decided that on Wednesday we would pack up and travel back to Lake One. We would spend Wednesday on Lake One and then on Wednesday evening Tim could start separating the gear into different packs...one pack for our stuff, one for Mike's stuff and so on.

So Wednesday we broke camp and took off the way we came. It rained a bit during the 4 hour trip, but I actually enjoyed that. The loons were everywhere. I even had one so close to my canoe I started to back paddle so we wouldn't hit it. It dove into the water a yard from me. I enjoyed telling the others the story of this loon encounter until I heard the story the boys had about their encounter with a bald eagle. We had seen a few from afar, but on Wednesday the boys saw one swoop down right over their heads. Then it landed on a branch about 20 feet above the water, and as they floated underneath it, they could see the eagle watching them with its yellow eye. Wow.

Our second campsite at Lake One was pretty nice. We soon had things set up. By this time, basic hygiene had become a luxury we had gotten used to doing without. Danica's make-up free face was coloered with a bit of sun burn and a little scab on her nose. Since there are no mirrors in the BWCA I took a picture of her face so she could see it. I love her smirk. So cute.

 That afternoon Tim went out looking for Walleye, Zack took a long nap, and Sadie and I hiked around our new campsite. It was a fairly relaxing afternoon. We also ate a lot there on Lake One. Tim made us a yummy pasta dish, mashed potatoes, pop corn, and soup with dumplings.

 

Our last evening in the Boundary Waters the sun finally reappeared

 just as the sun was setting, giving the trees an orange appearance.

 Just beautiful!

We left camp around 9:00 am the next morning, and by 11:00 am we had made it back to the van. It was an wonderful experience, and I was thrilled to have done it, but I don't think I'll go back. It was A LOT OF HARD WORK! I love paddling and can't wait to get in a canoe again, but we paddled A LOT. It was 5 hours the first day, 3 the second, 4 the third, and almost 2 hours of paddling the last day. We all put on weight this trip, but I think it's all muscle.

I should also point out that while no one got hurt during the trip, I did end up with several bumps and bruises. They all occurred on Thursday. When we got back to the entry point Zack and I were carrying a canoe to the van and I tripped on a rock and fell backwards. I hit my head and started to bleed a bit, but not too bad, thank goodness. I also scrapped my elbow in the fall. I'll tell you about my other owies in a minute.

 So the guys strapped the canoes back on the van and we headed home. But this time we went back via the North Shore of Lake Superior. There were a few geocaches along the way Tim wanted to check out.

 The first was next to this beautiful lookout where we saw two trumpeter swans (or maybe they were snow geese). Too bad it was so cloudy out. This could have been a great picture.

 The second geocache we stopped to find was on "Secret Island," just north of Two Harbors.

 

To get to the island you had to climb from rock to rock out into Lake Superior.

It was here that I got my second set of owies, a bruised forearm and a skinned knee.

Painful. The scenery was amazing though.

 I don't have a good picture of it, but to get up onto the island you had to basically rock climb up a cliff using a rope and some logs propped up as footholds. I was going to try it, but considering I had already injured myself twice that day, I decided against it.

This ended up being Zack's favorite part of the trip. The island was covered with sea gull nests, with 2 or 3 eggs in each nest. The sea gulls were everywhere, swooping down, trying to protect their eggs. At one point a gull swooped down and almost got my brother Tim. Zack thought it was the coolest thing.

From there we went to McDonalds in Two Harbors and ate close to $40 dollars worth of food.
 We were still very hungry. Tim said that during a trip to the Boundary Waters,
 a camper should consume 3000 calories a day. I think we easily achieved that.

It wasn't until we past Duluth that I finally saw Tim rest.

 What an amazing man my brother is. I wouldn't have wanted to go on this trip with anyone else.

When we got back to the cities our first stop was Mike's house to return his gear. It was so nice of him to let us use his stuff. I don't know how we would have made it without his help.

 Here's Mike again with his dog Bear. The kids wanted me to make sure to get a picture of her. She's a cross between a Labrador and some sort of Alaskan Husky, I'm told.  When Mike goes to the Boundary Waters Bear carries her own pack of gear! She was also very friendly, and Zack loved how soft her fur was. Nice dog.

Our last stop was Pooch's house, where he was waiting for us with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He seemed to think we were pretty amusing. I was told that when he saw Danica's rubber boots with the hearts on them he couldn't stop laughing for a full minute.

Pooch let me and Danica shower at his place...THANK YOU
..and then we said our good byes.

I had to have a picture with my brothers. It's one of my favorites.

But here's my favorite picture from the trip.

 It was taken at our last portage. It's perfect.

 

So we all got back in the car and the next thing we know
 Sadie hops in too.

Sorry, Sadie. 

It's the end of the road for you. 

And the end of my blog.

Epilog: When Tim's van died I was sure the transmission was shot and he'd have to buy a new car. But I was wrong. What happened was this. Tim had taken the van to Meineke for an oil change before this trip, and they forgot to put the dip stick back in. As the engine heated up the transmission fluid bubbled out and that's what we smelled. It's running fine now! How about that.