Up North - Cabin, Super Full Beaver Moon, and Maggie

Jenny, Maggie, and I went up to Jenny and Andrew's cabin on Gust Lake in Cook County to close it up for the winter, to see the super full beaver moon, and to look for moose. Click here to watch the video montage.

The super full beaver moon did not disappoint. There were some clouds but they only added to the effect. The "beaver" designation is from indigenous people describing this season's full moon used by beavers to finalize their lodges for the winter.

On Thursday we hiked the Daniels Lake Trail from Clearwater Lodge to enter the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. We made it to the BWCA after all!

The trail starts off very wet and marshy but becomes clear and dry and arrives at Daniels Lake in about 2 miles. We saw LOTS of moose tracks but no moose ☹️

Daniels Lake

East Bearskin Lodge's Instagram account had mentioned that 2 moose were around the lodge so on the way back down the Gunflint Trail, we stopped to explore. The US Forest Service was conducting a prescribed burn right next to the lodge, so we weren't too optimistic on seeing the moose. The lodge is closed for the season, but we asked someone cleaning up if they'd seen the moose. They had just seen the pair the day before. We drove around and around but still nothing!

We went into Grand Marais on Friday for some shopping and lunch. All this time, Maggie enjoyed exploring the cabin and its famous "catwalk."

Dave, a Gust Lake neighbor, introduced a very friendly fox to us before he left for the winter.

We all enjoyed the wood-burning stove (which kept the cabin very cozy). We ate well, played cards, and read books. It was a lovely break from the city.

Click to view the video montage.

Another Trip to the North Shore with Maggie

Duluth from Skyline Parkway

Maggie and I made another quick and short trip up to the North Shore of Lake Superior. Instead of staying in a motel this time, we tent camped at Cascade River State Park. Link to video montage.

On the drive up I finally took Skyline Parkway (instead of I-35) which traverses the bluff at the top of Duluth. The views are thrilling. We also stopped at Silver Bay Marina for a lunch break.

We arrived at the park a little earlier than our campsite set up time but no one was there so we went ahead and got all situated. To be honest, I set up on the wrong site but was smart enough to double check 😊 The correct site was better anyway 😊😊

Maggie had dinner and then we went on a hike. This is the same park we had visited in March when it was cold and there was some snow. We took the hike toward Lookout Mountain but didn't go all the way to the top. The flowers along the path and the river were so very lovely. A perfect time to visit.

Comfy on the sleeping bag and therm-a-rest

After dinner at the Cascade Lodge Restaurant, we snuggled into the tent for the night. It was crazy windy, and I was afraid Maggie would freak out with the wind noise and twigs hitting the tent, but she was calm and quiet. I expected Maggie would sleep in a corner or snuggle up but instead she insisted on sleeping on the therm-a-rest and sleeping bag with me. If you've ever slept on a therm-a-rest, you know there is not much room beyond your own width. It was a tight fit but we both slept pretty well.

The next day I fixed a hearty breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs with red onion, jalapeno, and cheese. Maggie didn't eat breakfast this morning. After breaking down the campsite, we headed to Grand Marais for a pastry treat and more coffee. I ran into my friend and ex-boss from Nash Finch, Holly, and her husband, Bob. We had a quick catchup before Maggie and I drove up the Gunflint Trail to Gunflint Lodge to meet up with Jenny B. The flowers along Gunflint Trail were spectacular. There was no way to photograph it. I highly recommend going to the North Shore at this time of year.

Lookout Point - Gunflint Lake

Maggie ate some lunch before Jenny, Maggie, and I hiked up to a Lookout Point over the spectacular Gunflint Lake. This is the lake we entered to go into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) Wilderness just last year, Jenny was staying at the Lodge because she was supervising groups of middle schoolers going into the BWCA.

Jenny treated me to a Northwoods canopy zip line tour. I had no idea this adventure even existed. The day was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and not too hot. The views are amazing and to be at the tops of the majestic White Pines was an honor and awe-inspiring.

Maggie and I drove all the way back to Minneapolis after the canopy tour. It was a long six hours!

Link to video montage.

Boundary Waters - 2024

Clove Lake

I probably say this every year, but we had another fantastic adventure in the Boundary Waters.

Same foursome as the past 20+ years - Jenny, Julie, Brian, and me. This year we drove up to Jenny and Andrew's cabin on Saturday and paddled into the BWCA on Sunday.

Our usual route to the Gunflint Trail, the Grade, was closed due to a construction project so we had to drive all the way back to US61 then to Grand Marais. We took advantage of the detour to stop for coffee at Java Moose.

We made good time up the Gunflint Trail to Gunflint Lodge to pick up our canoes. We got good guidance from Carson (not Carston) at the outfitters. He estimated it would take us 4 hours and he was spot on.

I had wrongly anticipated that paddling up a river, the Granite River, would be easy going. The river was very pleasant but some of the portages around the rapids and waterfalls were tricky...especially the one marked as "split rock."

We had intended to make it to Larch Lake but decided to stop at Clove Lake which is a wide spot along the river. It was a great choice. Our campsite had a sandy beach and the sand extended well into the lake. It was so easy and comfortable coming into and out of the site.

The theme of this year's trip was, "Well, you are practically a scientist." This was based on our ability to determine (make up) several things including 1) why there was a sandy beach 2) why the snowshoe hare was so "friendly and 3) what makes a super moon.

There was a flat, grassy tent site and the perfect setup for the hammocks. Clove Lake was not busy and had an eagle nest on one side. The parent eagles would fly around occasionally and there teenage offspring flew around frequently.

There were several beaver lodges and on one of our day trips, we interrupted a family of otters playing in the reeds.

We were also visited by a snowshoe hare which was a first for us. This hare appeared very accustomed to humans and got very close at times. We also had some friendly chipmunks and a song sparrow.

The weather was perfect and we even had the supermoon. We were hoping for northern lights but the moon was so bright and we were facing south so didn't see any aurora.

The video is just over 6 minutes and available here. I suggest you watch the video in landscape.

Boundary Waters - Cross Bay Lake

This year's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, BWCAW, trip had special meanings. Last year we were not able to make our annual trek into the Wilderness and this year is the 20th anniversary of our foursome.

Click here for the video recap (the video is best viewed in landscape).

Recapping the trip...on Tuesday, August 22 Brian, Jenny, Julie and I drove up to Jenny and Andrew's cabin at Gust Lake to spend the night and prep for our trip into the BWCAW. The temperature in the Twin Cities was headed into the 90's but before we even hit Duluth it was 30 degrees cooler. Good timing for our trip.

Wednesday, we got up early to drive up the Gunflint trail to Tuscarora Lodge and Canoe Outfitters. Our two canoes were dropped off at Cross River which is where are journey started. You don't actually enter the BWCA until reaching Cross Bay Lake.

I believe we had 7 portages (land between bodies of water) to get through. The weather was overcast and cool, perfect for paddling.

Things went fairly smoothly though we did have trouble finding the portage into Cross Bay Lake and ended up on an old, non-maintained portage (oops). Our destination was Long Island Lake.

We had stayed on Long Island Lake before (2005) but had entered via a different route and with 5 campers instead of the usual 4.

It took us 7 hours to get to Long Island Lake. Whether it was lack of paddle practice or age or directions, that was a LONG paddle. Add that I had a big arthritis flare up as we got to Long Island Lake. We had been given heads up to some available campsites. The first site on the lake was already occupied and didn't really meet our requirements (western facing with a swimmable area). The next one was available, and I had to confess that I could not continue paddling as my arthritis made it nearly impossible to continue.

Turned out the campsite was great, and we proceeded to setup our gear. I wasn't much help due to the previously mentioned arthritis. My flare up also meant that we were destined to have stormy weather...and it proved to be true.

The camp site got set up in no time as usual. To our amazement, there were nearly no bugs! So, we were able to have a campfire and stay up after sundown. This is usually not the case. From this point, the video really shows how the camping went.

We did have rain that first night (Wednesday) but it was not bad and sounded soothing on the tent. Thursday night was another story. We had a severe thunder and lightning storm and very, very heavy rain. So much rain that the base of the tent got soaked and so did pretty much everything on our camp site.

Friday had been forecast to be rainy but another piece of luck, it was sunny and warm. We were able to dry out pretty much everything and most importantly the tent and tarps. We re-assembled the site in time for another rain shower. We retreated to the tent to play cards and let the rest of our gear get all wet again.

We paddled out on Saturday expecting another 7-hour trip. Somehow the paddle out only took 4 hours...we shaved 3 hours off! We really don't know how. The weather conditions were the same and we were never really off course going in or out. We certainly didn't complain that we were more efficient.

Once back at the cabin, we put out everything to dry and ate a very filling meal. We drove back the Twin Cities on Sunday with a stop in Duluth for Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory caramel-dipped apples.

And now for the 20th anniversary. I found photos of that trip! Boy were we young!

2003 - Brian, Jeff, Jenny

2003 - Brian, Julie, Jenny

Boundary Waters 2022

This year's Boundary Waters trip was very different. Our original paddle and portage trip was cancelled. So we opted for a late Fall trip up north to Jenny and Andrew's cabin situated next to Gust Lake just off The Grade.

We had no idea the weather would be as amazingly fantastic as it was. It was very late in the season, and it could have as easily been freezing temps instead of 60's.

Our foursome became a five-some with the addition of Maggie, my cat. Maggie has been to the cabin before, so she fit right in.

Brian cooked awesome meals...meatloaf one night and an incredible frittata another night. I made an apple pie with Jenny's apples. Reading (our normal BWCA activity) and puzzling were always active.

There was an excursion to Grand Marais on Sunday. We collected rocks for a project Jenny was working on. Also, a stop at the local bookstore resulted in several purchases,

I climbed up the mountain the hard way :-)

A hiking adventure at Oberg Mountain on Monday brought us back the big lake - Lake Superior. The park rangers had arranged a "monster" hike along the path. It was very clever and educational.

There were high hopes for northern lights (aurora) as the ratings were very high all weekend. However, no luck seeing northern lights, the stars were out in full force especially with the moon setting very early.

As is my thing these days, I created a video of the trip. Click here to view in YouTube.

BWCA 2021 Edition

 Well we did it again. The foursome of Brian, Jenny, Julie and Jeff ventured into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, BWCA, Wilderness.

This was the 20th anniversary edition. I think Jenny is the only one that has made them all.

I created a video for this year's trip. The link will be below. But a short recap...

The plan was to paddle Hog Creek from Entry #36 to Perent Lake and find an island campsite on the lake. That would be no portages. Side note - portages are where the team carries the gear and canoes from one body of water to another.

We had been warned that because of the drought our planned all paddle / no portage trip would be twice as long with several places where you had to get out of canoes and transport gear. Well, fortunately it did not turn out that way.

There were a few places we had to do just that but mostly the slow downs were caused by three large beaver dams that we would have had to negotiate anyway. Beavers are amazing architects and construction workers.

We did make it to Perent Lake and landed a very primo campsite. Nice layout on a private island.

We had an unbelievable encounter with a bald eagle. Saw a darling trumpeter swan family. Also, more loon action than we had seen in a long time. And a pesky red squirrel who we are pretty sure is now the proud owner of an orange spork.

Click here for the video. I suggest watching in landscape mode. It is 6 minutes long.

BWCA Flora and Fauna

 In addition to the crazy brilliant beaver rock dam, there were other wonders of plants and animals. Alas, there were no moose sightings again this year though we wouldn't have seen the beaver rock dam if we hadn't gone moose stalking.

Near Jenny and Andrew's cabin is the "Moose Pond" that has to be surveyed on every trip to the cabin. The Grade is being worked on (widened?) and as part of the project the culverts are being upgraded which has resulted in the "Moose Pond" being lowered. No moose this year but there were two beautiful swans. The Moose Pond is very close to the road so you can see truly how big these birds are.

The bear for the 'Daryl and the Bear' story was supposed to be here

We had lots of song birds at are campsite. They are often difficult to see though. From the vantage point of the latrine I as serenaded by a small flock of red breasted birds. And we had a robin and a song sparrow fist the campsite and show themselves.

Two really enjoyable bird events were: 1) an eagle pair flew very low and near the campsite and performed their aerial talon intertwining right next to us. We have had the good fortune of having seen this before but it is always breath taking. .. and 2) an adult Merganser duck with 15, yes 15!, ducklings. The ducklings were practicing diving while mom kept a watchful eye and made sure no one swam out too far. It was hilarious watching the little downy ducklings go underwater but because they are so buoyant, they actually pop out of the water before quickly swimming along.

We also saw a Merganser with a single duckling on her back. It was too adorable. After the two eagles performed their midair dance, a very large bird landed in a tree that was super far away. With our binoculars we could see it was huge but couldn't tell what it was. It might have been a Golden Eagle as they are bigger than a Bald Eagle and we could almost make out that it wasn't a Bald Eagle.

There was some sort of small mammal in the little cove next to our campsite. I'm going to call it a mink. I only saw it one time.

We had several chipmunks around camp and frogs and toads. We also enjoyed watching the fish in the crystal clear waters at camp.

So may variety of evergreens

The variety of evergreens in the BWCA is always amazing and stunning. I must have hundreds of photos of trees reflected in the water. There were not a lot of big trees where we were. You could tell the area was coming back from long ago fires and blow downs.

Tree reflection

There were a variety of bees on this flower

The mid summer flowers were wonderful though there were not many water flowers and hardly any water lilies on the lakes we paddled.

A water lily from under the water. The water is crystal clear.

Annual Boundary Waters trip (full recap)

Our annual Boundary Waters Canoe Area, BWCA, Wilderness adventure did go on this year. We considered the COVID-19 situation and took precautions prior to departure. Afterall, we were going to be spending a great deal of time in very close quarters where wearing a mask was simply not possible or practical...the long drive up north, canoe paddling and sleeping in a tent together.

After careful consideration and precautions, the group decided to go forward with the trip.

Getting ready to paddle in

This year’s itinerary had us entering the BWCA far up the Gunflint Trail. We spent our first night up North in Jenny and Andrew’s cabin as usual but instead of paddling out of the BWCA and returning to the Twin Cities all in the same day, we returned to the cabin to spend the night and rest up. It was a good pre-decision.

There were really only two “tricky” parts to the trip this year. One was that we had planned on pitching our tent on a campsite on Ogishkmuncie (Ogish) Lake. But because of COVID-19, the BWCA and all camping facilities in Minnesota are super popular and there were no available campsites on Ogish. We knew that it was going to be along paddle to Ogish to begin with and never expected that it would be full of campers.

Seagull to Alpine to Jasper

We entered the BWCA from Seagull Outfitters on Seagull Lake. Seagull is a very big lake and we were to paddle pretty much the full length of it to get to our first portage. We got an early start but by the time we arrived at Ogish and paddled from campsite to campsite in and around confusing islands, there simply wasn’t a spot to stay so we proceeded to the next lake....Jenny Lake!

We ended up at a fantastic campsite on Jenny Lake. It was secluded in a deadend portion of the lake...which means there was not a portage near us so paddlers would not be going by on their way to another lake.

We did arrive in daylight (plenty of) and as usual got the site setup in no time at all. Brian fixed a great dinner and sleeping wasn’t a problem as we were all very, very tired after what ended up being 8 hours on the water and portaging. I think that was a record and not one we need to try to top.

We paddled into the BWCA on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday mornings we did our usual reading and napping and reading and snacking and reading. By mid-afternoons we were ready to do some adventuring.

Thursday we went to Eddy Falls. These are water falls from Eddy Lake to South Arm Knife Lake. Since we had passed the Lawrentian Divide, the waterfall flows to the north. And one advantage of COVID-19 is that most youth group camps up the Gunflint Trail are not in operation this year so there was no one at the falls. Jenny said there sometimes is a line of groups!

While you can’t jump into big pools of water here you can sit and enjoy the water running over you. It was incredible. We were able to spend 20-30 minutes by ourselves playing around before a boy scout group showed up.

Rock dam

Friday we paddled and portaged through Kekekabic Ponds looking for moose. We didn’t see any. We did come across the most interesting beaver dam we have very seen. It was a rock dam…entirely of rocks! We think they built it to catch fish. It was amazing.

We broke camp early Saturday morning. Though we had several portages none of them were all that long so we mad good progress getting back to Seagull even with some rain. Then there was Seagull. We had had some rain and heard thunder in the distance on the paddle but nothing bad enough that we had to stop for comfort or safety. Then the wind picked up on Seagull and we had two sections that were crazy difficult to paddle.

Taking a break after a portage

Small whitecaps started up in the first section. Whitecaps while in a canoe are not a good thing. Julie and I were in the front of our canoes and Jenny and Brian were steering. Not much was said as we battled through this. We reached calm water and rested a bit.

Before reaching"the outfitter, we hit another wind. This time coming right in our faces. It took what seemed like forever to get to the outfitter’s dock. We had paddled for two hours just on Seagull Lake.

Getting back to the cabin to spend a comfortable night was a brilliant idea. We ate and slept great and made it home on Sunday suntanned and a little sore but with great stories.

You will have to ask about Darryl and the bear, the eagle pair, mink?, Jenny the ghost, “I’m good,” and other stories I’m not remembering.

Click here for all my photos and movies on One Drive.

Annual BWCA Trip - part 1

This past week was what has become a near annual camping trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) Wilderness.

The usual foursome of Jenny, Julie, Brian and me drove up north on Tuesday. We spent the night in Jenny and Andrew's cabin on Gust Lake off the Grade (road). We paddled in on Sawbill Lake from Sawbill Outfitters.

There is a very long and, looking back, funny story on how we ended up where we did but I'll make the text of this post short and post the photos that I took. There will hopefully be more photos when the others get theirs off their cameras and phones.

Paddling in on Sawbll

Around the campfire grate

Fire grate and some of our cooking gear

A Jack Pine pinecone. The Nut Hatches really like these.

Dramatic sky while paddling. We did have storms during this trip.

A double water lily. We saw lots of these on our river paddle.

We love to swim in the lakes. We always where our life jackets.

A dramatic sunset. The reflection off the lake is always a winner.

One of our campsite sitting rocks.

We all happened to wear our Gust Lake t-shirts!

BWCA - just photos

At Kiwishiwi ready to go

Clearest sky that we had

An old dragon fly still making its way

Portaging. A view from under the canoe.

Smoke on the water...

There was a lot of this going on

Beaver action. Very impressive dam.

BWCA Annual Trip

Starting with this photo because I think it is very nice but also it is quintessential BWCA. We did a lot of river paddling and portaging this year.

This happens to be the Phoebe River which we did on a day trip. The haze is smoke down from the Canadian fires.

Here we are all set to leave Jenny and Andrew' cabin. This is Thursday morning. We drove to Kiwishiwi Lake to put it...about an hour's drive.

Our map. We would be so screwed without the maps. The lakes with islands are the most confusing. The campsite markings make all the difference.

Here we are at our campsite on Lake Polly. This is a very staged photo. We had a very nice campsite thanks to Jenny's chiropractor's recommendation.

We had a nice rock front that jutted out into the lake. The tent pad was fantastic. We all agreed that we had our best sleeps on this trip ever.

This is portaging for those not familiar. We rent Kevlar canoes which are pretty light. This is Julie on canoe duty. We usually take turns on who takes the canoes. You cannot see much other than what is directly in front of you when you are carrying a canoe.

Jenny and Brian paddling. Since we did a lot of lake navigating, there were lots of lily pads. The blossoms were so beautiful.

There were also numerous beaver dams and lodges. What we refer to as "beaver action." The last photo is one of the dams. Beautifully arced and with fresh branches with leaves making the dam particularly lovely.