Boundary
Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
Brief Tour of Fall, Newton and Basswood Lakes
September 3-7, 2024
This trip was to be a 10-day outing to celebrate my 75th birthday. The original plan was to enter at Lake One (EP30), travel to Lake Insula and maybe on to Lake Alice, where I’d never been before. It didn’t quite turn out that way.
The
boat
A Hemlock Peregrine (15'8", kevlar/graphite/fiberglass with wood trim). Naked, it weighs just 32 lbs., but with removable portage yoke, a couple of tarp poles lashed into the stern, and two paddles secured in the bow it weighs in at 47 lbs.
The gear
- Paddles: Bell/Mitchell 10-degree bent, Bending Branches Black Willow straight shaft.
- Shelters: Sierra Designs Zeta 2 tent (7 lbs.), CCS 10x12 tarp (3 lbs.), 6x8 lightweight poly tarp.
- Packs: Knu-Pac with NRS wraparound pack carrier (42 lbs), a Sea to Summit Hydraulic Dry Pack (65 liters, about 35 lbs.), and a day pack (about 12 lbs.).
- Water filter: Platypus CleanStream, Katadyn filtration water bottle.
- Camera: Olympus TG-1 (waterproof).
- Cookset: 1.3-qt. stainless steel pot, Esbit solid fuel stove with wind shield, small utensil bag, covered mug.
- NRS water shoes with knee-high Gore-Tex socks.
Total gear weight: about 90 lbs.
The food
Meals are pretty straightforward:
- Breakfast: Mountain House granola with blueberries.
- Lunch: beef jerky, tortillas and trail mix.
- Dinners: Various freeze-dried meals from Mountain House, Mary Jane’s Farm, and Hawk Vittles (sadly, now defunct). most of which I bring back home.
Trip Statistics (you really want to know this)
Total distance: about 17 mi.
Portages: 4 (340 rods)
Portage-walking distance: 1,700 rods (5.3 miles)
I triple-portage on this trip in order to minimize the stress on my osteopenic back. The extra walking distance is a pleasure and my back feels fine.
The map
I tracked the route on my phone using Geo Tracker. These two graphics show it pretty clearly.
First, the way up.
And the much more direct way back.
Day 0 – Tuesday, Sept. 3 – Through the Portal Partly
The drive to Ely takes 8-1/2 hours from my home in Wauwatosa (Milwaukee). I suppose I could have done it in less time, but of course I have to stop at almost every rest area. Damn prostate ….
I check in at Voyageur North Outfitters, where I’d bunked several times in the past. After talking with a couple of the staff there I decide against entering at Lake One, where I have a permit. Two factors cause me to change my mind: the forecast of a strong southerly wind (the Peregrine is notoriously hard to handle in wind), and reports of campsites being hard to find in the Numbered Lakes. Plus I have doubts about how much work my arthritic left shoulder would tolerate. Several permits are available for Fall Lake (EP24) so I make the switch. I’d been there before, in September of 2011, so it feels pretty comfortable. I plan to travel up through Pipestone Bay and then decide from there where to go, maybe all the way up to Basswood Falls. Good intentions ….
Dinner is a not-very-memorable gyro at the Boathouse Bar and Pub. I would have gone to the Chocolate Moose but I was told it’s gone too far upscale.
Day 1 – Wednesday, Sept. 4 – Forced March
It’s a pleasant day for landlubbers and kite-flying, partly cloudy with temps in the 70s – and a strong southerly wind. Leaving from the Fall Lake landing is uneventful and as long as I’m in fairly sheltered waters paddling is straightforward. But in open water where the wind builds up, the boat refuses to weathervane because I can’t put enough weight in the stern. So it insists on turning perpendicular to the wind and is very difficult to turn away, a maneuver that requires a cross-back, the strongest stroke I know. And even then it turns slowly. At times I get a nice tailwind, but mostly it’s tough going.
The two long portages (80 and 90 rods) around Newton and Pipestone Falls are pleasant. They’re little boulevards for motorboats that carry portage wheels and are the easiest portages in the entire BWCA.
Here’s the view just downstream of Newton Falls, the reason for the portage.
The next portage goes around Pipestone Falls.
It takes six hours to find a usable campsite after stopping at several that don’t have a level tent pad or are otherwise unusable. Most others are already taken, and one that was shown on the map isn’t there. The one I end up at is barely adequate, having a no real landing and a steep, rocky approach, and being quite lumpy. But the single tent pad is level enough.
Despite the usable tent pad, this site may be the worst I’ve ever stayed at.
But I’ll still lay over tomorrow to rest my forearms, which had started to cramp, and my shoulder, which had started to complain. Otherwise the body holds up OK. At my age I suppose this is something to celebrate.
A gentle rain starts around 8:00.
Day 1 summary:
Total distance 10 miles
2 portages of 170 rods in 2 hours
Day 2 – Thursday, Sept. 5 – Two loons
It continues to rain during the night but by mid-morning the sun is a blessing.
In preparing for this trip I think of it as a retreat and consider a couple of matters that would be good to reflect on: the dynamics of aging and the vagaries of chronic Lyme disease. I think about those things from time to time and decide to just let them be. Age will do what it does, and I’ll continue to be as active as possible. Lyme will do what it does, and I’ll continue to be grateful for the remission in major symptoms that’s ongoing this year. There’s so much more to be grateful for but I don’t bother to catalogue them.
There’s good cell service, and although I value being disconnected, it’s nice to share some of my experience with family and friends … but not too many. Don’t want to get caught up in technology. I need to be quiet and present in this place. But still … texting, weather forecasting, Google: what’s that bird? etc.
At some point I notice a maple tree that has an aspen branch growing directly out of the trunk. Really.
Another retreat theme arises: I belong here. This thought anchors me to the present time and place in the moments I remember it.
*****
A note on aging*
It occurs to me
as I approach 75
that when it’s time to go
I will not have died too soon.
* contra Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”
*****
Day 2 summary: 0 miles, 0 portages
Day 3 - Friday, Sept. 6 – A surprise
It takes the usual 2+ hours to break camp. I’m on a small lake a few hundred yards across. About halfway to the exit I see an eagle doing the breast stroke. It’s swimming toward the shore about 50 yards away. I sit still and watch, and when it reaches land it climbs out with a big fish in one foot. I imagine it – and maybe, too, its family - will eat well today.
By the time I reach the lake’s outlet my left shoulder is complaining loudly. It’s quite a surprise, since two days ago it was mostly OK and yesterday it was just fine. As I continue paddling, I realize that continuing the trip means at least three more travel days. I recoil at the thought of putting my shoulder through that, so instead of turning north toward upper Basswood Lake, I turn south to head back.
Oh, well. At least the wind has eased. A gentle tailwind and smooth water makes the return trip quite pleasant despite my aching shoulder.
Day 3 summary:
Total distance 7 miles
2 portages of 170 rods in 1:40.
Day 4 - Saturday, Sept. 7 – On (to) Wisconsin
I reach the Fall Lake landing by about 1:00.
This gives me plenty of time to get to a state park in northern Wisconsin. Surprisingly, Amnicon Falls SP is full, and the Copper Range campground in the Brule River State Forest is almost full. I end up at a nice site in the south campground of Brule. It’s on the Bois Brule River, which I paddled back in 2009. The memory behind this picture is much better than the picture itself.
Day 5 - Sunday, Sept. 8 – Back home again
So now I'm 75. Doesn't feel any different from 74. So to celebrate I take my time breaking camp. Yup, I know how to have a good time. Despite the setback, I'm glad I made the trip.
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