Tuscarora Lodge & Canoe Outfitters
Boundary Waters & Quetico Canoe Trips and Gunflint Trail Cabins
Ironically, it took the sky raining ice for the lake ice to finally dissolve on the Gunflint Trail. We’re still not ice free yet, but it’s going fast.
Here are the latest ice out photos from this morning, April 25, 2016.
Round Lake
Gunflint Lake near the Cross River
Seagull Lake Blankenburg Landing
Saganaga Lake Corridor, Tow Boat Dock
Lares Trek campsite
I recently returned from Peru, which, among other things, included a three day, two night backpacking trek through the Andes. With a weight limit for our personal items, we had to think strategically about our packing and weigh the importance of each item I packed. What I learned during the packing process is applicable to any camping trip and might help you pack your personal items for a canoe trip in Superior/Quetico country.
Dress like an onion: The saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes, it’ll change,” rings as true in the rural areas of Peru as it does in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. In both places, it’s not unheard of to experience all four seasons in a 24 hour (or less!) period of time, so dressing in layers is key. Because I was only on trail for 3 days, I packed just one outfit to see me through all weather: lightweight nylon pants (not zip-off, but ideally they should have been), tank top, long sleeve tech shirt, wool turtleneck sweater, Primaloft packable vest. I also packed a pair of wool long underwear to use as pajamas or as an extra layer if it got really cold. We hiked mostly in 50+ degree weather, so I only wore the tank top and long sleeve shirt, but I sure wanted the sweater and vest in camp at night when temps dipped into the low 30s. At the end of the hike, the clothing remained fresh enough that I could have worn it for a couple more days.
(Another “pack light” tip for ladies: if you have a tank top with a shelf bra, use that as your base layer and leave the bra in the apres shower/clean laundry bag for the end of the trip.)
Wool is king: Cotton just isn’t the fabric of our camping lives. Although wool gets a bad rap as bulky and itchy, recent advances in merino wool/nylon blends have created a plethora of lightweight socks (some “smarter” than others) and undergarments perfect for camping. Wool wicks moisture, is breathable and warm, and feels clean for much longer than cotton. Personally, I’d rather spend more and enjoy dry feet all day, rather than having my feet rotting away in a pair of cheap cotton socks.
Other things you won’t be sad you spent a little more on: rain gear, hiking boots, a sunhat with a chin strap, and a reliable and easy to use headlamp.
Headed uphill on the second day to the 15,500 ft pass
Repack your pills: When you’re out in the woods, you want to nip any medical issues in the bud, so I basically lugged around an entire pharmacy: ibuprofen, Pepto-Bismol, Diamox (high altitude/motion sickness pills), Benadryl, Immodium, Gas-X, Ny-Quil, etc. etc. Our physician told us to keep the medications in their original bottles for the plane trips, but before the hike, I should have spent two minutes repacking six of each pill (or the daily maximum of pills x the number of days on the trail) into a small pill organizer case. I appreciated having all of the medications along; I just didn’t full bottles rattling around my backpack, since you only need one or two of each pill during your trip, if you need them at all.
Children from the nearby farms we hiked beside.
Be comfortable: I like to pack light, but within reason. To me, it was worth the extra weight to throw in a couple items to make evenings in camp a little cozier. I knew I wanted to change out of my hiking boots and I wanted to slip into something warmer than a pair of lightweight flip-flops, especially with night temps close to freezing. I settled on wool clogs with rubber soles which felt warm, sturdy, and secure as I navigated the campsite after dark. On a similar note, throw in a small towel or washcloth and heat up a little extra water when you’re starting dinner so you can do a quick sponge bath each evening.
On the downhill descent towards the Sacred Valley
You need far less “goop” than you think you do: I needed far less personal hygiene items than I predicted. My mom gave me a 1 oz. tube of 70 SPF sunscreen for the trip, which seemed pretty darn pithy. Yet, despite frequent liberal sunscreen applications, at the end of the trip, I’d only used half the tube. I packed 4 oz of Purell, but used about an ounce. While it’s better safe than sorry, you probably need less than half of what you think necessary.
One thing that worked out perfectly were the OFF! Deep Woods Insect Repellent wipes. We didn’t visit at a buggy time of year and wore long sleeves almost exclusively, so having these towelettes available was way better than lugging along a big spray can of basically untouched bug spray, even though the towelettes meant a little more trash to pack out.
A crew of llamas relieved us of most “portaging” duties.
What have your travels taught you about the “bare necessities?”
Update: We’ve developed this Boundary Waters personal gear packing list based on the packing list I used for Peru.
The Gunflint Trail hasn’t been exempt from the unseasonably warm weather that’s swept across the Midwest the past couple weeks. This weekend, temperatures soared to the 50s on the upper Gunflint Trail and that leaves us in a strange limbo season: not quite winter, but definitely not quite spring either. Until we hear winter’s final death knell, we’re planning to wring as much winter recreation as we can out of this fleeting season. We’ll just be wearing sunscreen and sunglasses a little more often than we’ve been in the last couple months.
Winter campers are still heading out into the Boundary Waters. One group this past weekend landed 17 lake trout on Tuscarora Lake and also caught a brook trout as they passed through Missing Link Lake.
We fished Seagull Lake on Friday and while we weren’t quite as successful as the Tuscarora group, we did manage to get a couple lake trout on the ice.
The snow layer has melted off the lakes’ surfaces, which makes travel across the lakes very easy. It’s nice not to hassle with snowshoes, although you’ll want those if you’re traveling through the woods since the snow is a little punchy off of packed trails. (If you’re a cross country skier, Bearskin Lodge is reporting “surprisingly good” ski conditions.) We’re planning to take advantage of the smooth sailing this week to get some ice fishing in on the western end of Seagull Lake. A couple evening cookouts on Missing Link are on the docket too.
No doubt it will be an earlier ice out than we’ve had the last couple springs, but we believe the lakes will be safe to traverse at least until lake trout season closes on March 31st. The cool down (and grey skies) predicted for this week should help maintain the ice, so barring a string of 70 degree days, we will not be beating 2012’s record ice out dates this year.
We drilled a hole in Round Lake yesterday (Sunday, March 13) and found 21 inches of ice. There’s about 4 inches of slush on top, with about 17 inches of ice underneath.
Until the ice is off the lakes, we wish you Bon Hiver!
If this winter had a buzzword, it would be “hygge.” I’d never heard of hygge until this fall, but since then, I keep bumping into the term: on my newsfeed, in news articles, and all over Pinterest. A Danish word, “hygge” is most often translated to English as “coziness,” but really, it means something closer to “existing in a state of coziness.” Hygge can exist in any season, but it’s particularly relevant during the dark winter days and nights. (You can learn more about hygge in this sweet video from Visit Denmark.)
You know that feeling of trying to express something for years and then discovering there was a word out there that summed what you were trying to say in two measly syllables? That’s how I felt when I discovered the term “hygge.” I think Minnesotans have been doing hygge for decades without even realizing it. When you consider that it’s perfectly normal for the Gunflint Trail to be snow-covered for 5+ months each year, you kind of have to revel in the winter season. Winter’s simply too long around these parts to spend your days muddling through it and pining for warmer days.
So we do our best to embrace winter and live the season intentional. Instead of counting down the days until spring, we hygge.
Two black dogs on a forced march across Missing Link Lake. Tuscarora portage, ho!
One of the best ways we’ve found to make winter fun and cozy is to get out in the elements and explore. When some family and friends called up last Sunday to ask if we wanted to go for a hike, we knew it was a great time to spend time together and simultaneously check out lake conditions. We set off across Round, headed into Missing Link, and over to the Tuscarora portage. There was a good packed trail for the most part, although the start of the Tuscarora portage was soft enough that snowshoes would have been a nice thing to have for a short stretch of the trail. All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon filled with good company, loads of fresh air, and nearly six miles of trekking. Nothing like pure exhaustion to make home seem especially cozy as you settle in for the evening.
If you’ve been following our Facebook page this winter, you know another favorite way to get some fresh air is to head out with the ice fishing gear. We’ve been using this winter to explore a lot of area lakes we’ve never fished before and have been coming home with a lake trout or two to bake up for a tasty “just caught” supper.
Speaking of suppers . . . when we’re at our busiest in the summer paddle season, it’s not unheard of for supper to be a camp food entree pulled from the food room shelf mixed with unmeasured amount of boiling water. So when things slow down in the winter, we take a cue from Dinner: A Love Story and do some “project cooking.” Whether it’s Julia Child’s 13-hour croissant recipe, Cubanos inspired by the movie Chef, or spending days (no, really) making sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day, there’s nothing more hygge than having a delicious smelling kitchen.
One of my most favorite things to do each winter is to pick up a book series I haven’t read in years. It’s so cozy (or should I say, hygge?) to spend the evenings reacquainting myself with familiar characters and re-learning important plot points. This year’s pick? The Harry Potter books. Although I was a mere tween when the first book was published, the final book didn’t come out until after I’d graduated from college. It’s been especially fun to re-read this series because as a teenager, I reread the first four books countless times, but I’ve only read the final three books once, right when they were each published. It’s been a joy to read the books back to back instead of in the fits and starts of two year intervals.
How do you hygge?
Lately, Andy and I have been searching for Mavis.
No, not that Mavis; Mavis Lake, located a half mile south of Round Lake and just east of Missing Link Lake. It’s a little puddle of a Boundary Waters lake that the DNR keeps stocked with brook trout. You can access Mavis from the easternmost point of Missing Link Lake via a 40 rod portage.
But what if there was a way to get into Mavis directly from Round, allowing you to bypass Missing Link altogether?
According to local old timers, back in the Leeds’ family time at Tuscarora, there used to be a portage from Round to Mavis that took off not far from the Round to Missing Link portage and cut southeast along a flowage. In fact, this portage was the preferable route into Mavis since the Missing Link to Mavis portage features a pretty steep uphill climb.
The trail’s not just a figment of locals’ imaginations. If you go onto the DNR’s LakeFinder website and look at Mavis’s fish survey, the DNR indicates that as of Autumn 2003, there was indeed a portage trail from Round Lake to Mavis.
Curiouser and curiouser.
There’s just one little problem. While 2003 isn’t exactly ancient history, it doesn’t take very long for BWCAW forest to reestablish itself and reclaim a portage path. Anyone who’s tried to bushwhack through Minnesota woods known it’s a very slow process mostly spent untangling yourself from balsam and aspen saplings. If the trail really hadn’t been used for over a decade, we also knew some of those saplings were going to be decent sized trees by now and portage’s path wasn’t going to be too obvious.
But even if the chances of success were low, we couldn’t not look for this neglected path. “Because it’s there,” as George Mallory would say.
We set out a couple weeks back, choosing to cut up the Round Lake shoreline just below the cliffs near the Missing Link portage. We waded through snow, clambered up cliffs (and occasionally slide down cliffs), had amble amounts of snow fall down our necks and while I was sure we just had to make it over the hillside to reach (or at least see) Mavis, Andy’s GPS told a different story. After a half hour crashing through brush, we’d only made it about 2/10ths of a mile away from Round Lake. We ceded defeat and turned around. At least we enjoyed some great views on a beautiful bluebird day.
Looking towards the Brant Lake entry point across Round Lake
But we weren’t going give up just yet. Thanks to some information that came in from a Leeds’ family member, we were able to pinpoint the starting point for the elusive Round to Mavis portage. Last Sunday afternoon, we set out again, slightly more hopeful that we’d clamp eyes on Mavis this go-round.
We found the starting point easily enough along the shoreline and we wound our way through the young forest, trying to determine if we were going through growth that wasn’t older than 12 years.
Where’s Waldo?
But it didn’t take long before we ran into this particular winter’s obstacle of brush bent over by the weight of a very heavy snowfall back in mid-December. The bent over brush really changes the look of the forest and it was hard to tell how to navigated around the low areas most affected by the “bend over.”
Undeterred, we pressed on. . . through waist deep snow that pushed up our pant legs and through low hanging balsam branches that tried to steal our hats. It was pretty clear we weren’t on the right path, but by the time we acknowledged that, we were closer to Mavis than to Round and it made more sense to just keep moving forward, albeit at a snail’s pace through the thick forest.
Then, at long last, in the words of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame: “Ocian in view! Oh! the joy!”
Beautiful Mavis lake.
We weren’t about to turn around and head back the way we’d just came, so we found the portage to Missing Link and looped back to Round Lake.
Oh the joy: flagging! Mavis to Missing Link portage.
By the time we were back at our starting point, it was about two hours later and we’d gone a whole . . . wait for it . . . mile.
Moral of the story: It’s totally possible to make it to Mavis Lake from Round Lake. But for this winter at least, the Missing Link to Mavis portage is the best bet. We’ll leave rediscovery of the Round Lake to Mavis portage for a time when there isn’t 30 inches of snow and miles of downed brush in the woods. For the time being, Mavis remains both lost and found. Until next time . . .
