Adventure: A Week in the BWCA
Last year we started a fun new tradition that takes me off the grid for a week in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I absolutely love this wilderness area and I go up there twice a summer now to get away from everything. This year we had planned on going up in a group of 6 (3 canoes), but one of the guys had a family emergency and had to back out last minute. So we scrambled to find a solo canoe to supplement our other 2 tandem canoes.
The crew consisted of: (Right to left in photo)
- Myself
- Robby (partner in crime at a lot of my wedding shoots)
- Jason (my brother-in-law)
- Clint (Gerhardt’s Cousin)
- Gerhardt (my best friend for many years)
We had a pretty smooth trip up from the cities and the weather was pretty much perfect for the first day. When we planned the trip, we underestimated the length of one of the lakes we were to paddle across at the end of the first push. We ended up paddling for about 2 hours more then expected and were forced to really push hard to find an open site to camp the night. It was a pretty nice site and had a great view of Winchell Lake. That night we had two seperate moose encounters. The first was a Mother/Calf pair that came ashore very close to our campsite and the second was a teenage size moose swimming across the lake directly in front of our site. Robby and I persued the swimming moose across the lake and was able to get a great view from about 50 feet behind at all times. Robby and I were hanging out at the site and we saw what looked to be the beginnings of a great sunset developing. It had been clouded over up to that point, so we weren’t expecting much and had most of our gear in their waterproof bags. So we gathered up our stuff quick and hit the lake to get a decent view.
The landing area of the first campsite we stayed on
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The next morning we voted to move on and try to get a site another lake over. The lower site just around the bend from the portage landing was rumored to be a primo site, so we got up early to get a jump on everyone else. While we didn’t get on the lake quiet fast enough as there was a big group just landing at the portage before us. We quickly caught them and found out they didn’t know how to pack well since they were having to take 2-3 times to bring everything over the portage. We had our gear slimmed down enough to allow us to bring everything over in one pass (canoes included). So we pretty much just landed our canoes, loaded up and passed them over. We scored the primo site and then did some cliff jumping to rinse off. Sure enough, about 30 minutes after we had claimed the site, the other group came paddling by to see if it was available. I was feeling pretty happy about our awesome portage skills.
(L To R) Me, Gerhardt, Robby
Me taking a long dive off a tree on top of the cliff
We loved the site so much that we decided to layover there for 2 days. Glad we did because the weather really started to whip up some rain and wind for those two days. It was pretty sporatic, so all it did was make everything a little bit more varried and entertaining. I don’t remember this much, but according to Robby. . . I woke up in the middle of the night freaking out and touching the floor of the tent since the rain had formed a small lake under the tent. I asked him if he felt the water on his side of the tent, he said nope and I yelled “FANTASTIC!!!” and then went back to sleep. I really don’t remember this at all, but I don’t doubt that it happened.
A few shots of the site:
Gerhardt taking in the view on a hammock
The only dry place outside the tent and the hammock was this giant rock.
Gerhardt getting his line wet.
Notice all the rain in the canoes. . . Yeah it came down in sheets overnight
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We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do.
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A few shots from the views just from our site
One of my favorite shots from the trip. Gerhardt and Clint were out doing a little fishing at Dusk as the sun set behind the thunderstorm
I love the symmetry and the clouds in this photo. It looks much more impressive when seen at full size
I believe these are lady slippers, but I wasn’t certian at the time since I had never seen one in the wild before. Gerhardt and I had been out exploring the island we were camping on and stumbled on a group of 6 of them.
