Tomorrow, Dobbins and I will head up to the Twin Cities to start our Boundary Waters Trip! I'm looking forward to getting away from the office, the city and immersing myself in the cool, still Minnesota Wilderness for a few days and "reset" myself.Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) is located in north-eastern Minnesota bordering Canada. It's about 10 hours from Madison. It is an area that is extremely dense with rivers and lakes. I've been wanting to go for years, and Andy and I ususally take a "high-adventure" trip together every two years or so and since we haven't done any canoe trips, we thought this would be pretty neat.
I bought some maps and we got some books at the library to help us pick out a route. We plan on driving to Ely, MN on Saturday morning and after making a stop at the ranger station to get our permit, off we go for the next 5 days.Early tomorrow afternoon, Andy will be arriving to Madison with the canoe on his car that he borrowed from his uncle. We'll load up, make sure we don't forget anything (which we will), and head to Shawn's place in Eden Prairie for the night. Once there we'll relax, have some dinner and a campfire and get a good nights rest so we can get up early on Saturday morning.
It'll be a rude awakening on Saturday morning as we get up at 6 to start our 5 hour drive to Ely. I hear that once we get past Duluth, the trees will blow your mind. It's just all you see and they are huge. I'm sure we'll have some great tunes in the car on the ride up, it's always one of my favorite parts of a long drive.
As soon as we park our car at the entry point, we have a 180 rod portage (about 1km) to the first lake which is wood lake. From there we have about a mile paddle and a short portage to Good Lake and after another portage or two we'll be in Basswood Lake. Basswood is a large lake that borders Canada. There are hundreds of campsites all along our route so finding a place should not be difficult. We hope to stay overnight on a few islands as well; perhaps even venture into Canada for a while. But based on previous experiences, I may want to avoid it.
Tonight, Amber and I are going to do some shopping for food and any gear I still need like a mini-lantern and stove fuel. I might get a new sleeping bag since mine is no good. I love REI and Gander Mountain!
I will be sure to do a post about the trip including pictures next week when we get back!
