An unusual approach on Rose Falls

Rose Falls has the feel of an ancient place, where if you touch one of the massive cedars it might awaken from a long sleep and say something profound in an eerie voice. Here gravity pulls water out of Duncan Lake through a narrow cut in the rocks, cascading 136 feet closer to our planet's center. All of us have access to this rare, raw power.

I arrived on the Gunflint Trail in late April that year and everything was old, but new to me. New job, new co-workers, my fishing gear stacked neatly in the corner of my new one-room cabin. I shivered in my new bed the first night, reading Grapes of Wrath by lamplight, chapter fourteen: "muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times."

The cabin wall was papered with park maps, there was Rose Falls roaring above my pillow.

Deek and I spent several days ripping old carpet and glue from hardwood floors in Clearwater Lodge, sanding them down smooth. Strangers still but here for the same reasons, we started making plans for our first day off. Fishing wasn't an option, and with most of the lakes still frozen, neither was paddling.
"Maybe we should take a hike," suggested Deek.

Having spent the previous six years stuck in a cubicle, I was in absolutely terrible shape, but it still sounded like a good idea. I had to get out there. Spring was in the air and my legs were yipping.

It had been a decade since I first climbed the Stairway Portage at Rose Falls, during my first summer working at Clearwater. My dad was visiting, we camped two nights on Daniels and caught a pile of smallies. And we took a day-trip to Rose and saw the tumbling waters and sleeping cedars and all the other tourists eating snacks. It was a great trip.

Ten years later Deek and I sat around sipping beers after a long day of lodge restoration, watching the snow melt, imagining the rush of spring water being pulled over the rocks. Yes, we agreed, tomorrow we would hike an unusual approach on Rose Falls.

 The vast majority of all Rose Falls visitors in any given year arrive by canoe during the months of July or August, and that's a great way to see them. The second easiest route to the falls is snowshoeing across snow-covered lakes, but of course the falls are frozen solid then, very quiet and stunning still.
Here in the springtime, though, when the falls are most impressive and least visited, the approach is by rock... A wild beast feeling.

There are a number of over-land hiking routes leading to Rose Falls but the most direct and difficult is the Caribou Rock Trail, running north from Hungry Jack Road. Even for someone in fit condition, this would be a serious test. Deek and I had originally planned on taking the easier route up the Daniels Spur to the Long Portage, but had found the Daniels Spur a knee-deep stream of meltwater, boots swamped. No doubt the Long Portage would have been even soggier. After a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy we decided on a third option: South Lake to the Border Route to Rose Falls to Caribou Rock.

The South Lake Trail was kind to us, and we glided along at a fast pace, shredding layers and searching for moose shed. Dropping into a cool and shaded lowlands, Deek proclaimed, "This looks like a bullpen, I bet there's a huge bull moose watching us right now." He looked serious.

We reached the Border Route before noon and stopped for a break on a massive rock outcropping overlooking South, Rat and Rose Lakes. The day was warm and the legs still felt strong. A light rain started falling. We pushed on along the undulating Border Route, beside a small beaver pond chirping with life and the glowing green of spring.

By the time we reached the falls my legs were getting sore but there we recharged. The falls are at their prime in early May, full of spectacular energy. We could hear Rose Falls roaring ahead on the trail for a full half hour before we finally reached the gorge. Sitting on the rocks below the main drop we had lunch in a cloud of mist, the abundant humidity and thunder erasing all the dry quiet of winter. "That the earth can do that," I said, shiny-eyed, and Deek nodded.

 The sun crept low behind the clouds and we turned south towards the truck along the Caribou Rock Trail. At first I thought the trail builders were maniacs but eventually I realized there is simply no reasonable land-route from Hungry Jack Road to Rose Falls. The trail was steep and mostly slick rock. We'd climb and climb, cling to small branches sliding back downhill, but always keeping an eye out for interesting wildlife.
Deek pointed out blueberry bushes in the making, smoking cigarettes on the top of each vista. Could he be trusted? He seemed to know a lot about plants and I knew almost nothing at the time... and he had worked more summers on the trail, so I paid attention.

We crossed the stream between Bearskin and Duncan and Deek said, "One time here I almost stepped on a huge snapping turtle sitting in the stream." I wasn't sure if he was crazy or a genius. We hopped across the rocks, all of them rocks this time, then pulled ourselves uphill, away from the center of the world once again. My muscles wheezed, then breathed.

And there goes Duncan, and there we see Moss, and there is Bearskin ahead, the lakes were melting in the rain, winter just turned into spring, just then.

The last two miles of the hike something happened, where we got too tired but still kept stepping forward. It was a triumph of will... Or hunger. And this was the same feeling I had the first time I hauled gear up the stairs beside Rose Falls without stopping for rest. The feeling you get in the park so often: lungs and muscles burning sweetly, a wild beast feeling. The feeling after a hard day of work, peeling off your boots. Or catching a toothy fish. Or kissing a girl by the light of a campfire. When you hit the top of the hill on an impossible hike and take a deep breath in a new place.

That you can do that.

But of course there was a price, well worth it: For three days I couldn't hardly walk, let alone sand floors. The hike had the last laugh, but we made it to the falls and back, we heard what the ancient cedars had to say on that day and nobody else did. Or will. After dinner I rolled into bed, by the light of a lamp with no shade, legs whimpering beneath the wool blankets, but laughing. I re-read chapter fourteen of Steinbeck's masterpiece:

"Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it."

An elusive lake

There is an elusive lake filled with trout, says Ed. I read about it in a Sam Cook column. He never found it but we should. It's just loaded with lakers. 

This conversation I file under "future adventures." A few weeks later I am still thinking about it. The difficulty only increases the desire.

There are two reasonable options into this lake. One is shorter but requires more bush-whacking. The second is a longer hike but the trail passes nearby. Looking over my F13 Fisher park-map in the out-house I visualize the approach up the frozen creek. A small space heater roasts my right thigh, and I burn the course into my gps.

The Packers lose miserably on Saturday night... and we move from early ice to the mid-season. On Sunday we watch more football and play cards, we feast solemnly on slow-roasted beef.

Monday rises cold and quickly. Too quickly. After breakfast KB and I lazily gather gear, sip on coffee and watch the sun hit high noon. No urgency. But at one there is an itch, let's go blaze this trail, let's go find the lonely lake. It's too late in the day and too cold, but we go anyways.

Should be three miles in, or maybe three and a half. Wonder what this path used to be? Somebody's old drive-way, some dreamer. Something goofy with almost anyone that would live up here. Someone cut this path and the trees try and erase it. It feels level but the whole way we're going downhill, deep into the park. 

A helicopter flies over, are they counting moose? Are they watching us? We take a few wrong turns. Sections of the trail are so overgrown we are crawling on our bellies. In a cluster of birch sits the metal remains of an old buggy, rusty and haunted. And then we reach the valley, where even in winter the water keeps running north. 

The trail levels out and when it turns back north my gps grows wary. Turn right. Turn right! An organ starts playing in my thorax, somewhere in my guts a bass drum starts kicking. It's over there, I can feel the gravity. Off the trail the snow gets deep but we bounce through the marshlands and tall grass poking through the snow.

And then the landscape opens up. And there it is, the elusive lake. Off a deep point I punch four holes and set the traps. We snuggle against the shoreline out of the wind, chewing frozen granola bars. 

This is fun, but this is crazy. And our eyes say:

This is ourrrr lake!

Yesss it is!

But we've left ourselves too small a window here, and lacking live bait, we fish for just one-half-hour, unsuccessfully, then point sore legs uphill, into the wind. 

We cross the creek, meander along the valley of the marsh gawking at the rock-cliffs, up to the west, across the secondary creek, up and up and up, and under the fallen trees. But I don't remember that tree. Or that one. Then: there's the old buggy. And: look at the size of that cedar! 

We reach the truck in the blue of night light dissolving into blackness. And now we know the way. It is so burned into our thighs. And another day we shall return, but today, oh today so hungry, we are done.

Capsized on Caribou Lake

Capsizing a canoe is rarely a choice, and it's also rare that one would make that choice in May. But this has been a really warm spring, and therefore, I think the decision was correct. I'm not sure I would've made the same choice, given the chance, but it's impossible to know.

Erik and I wanted to put some walleyes in the freezer so we paddled four miles out to the far end of Caribou Lake the other afternoon with dark clouds to the north and calm winds out of the south. It was an ideal afternoon for paddling. We passed four guys on the portage over from Clearwater carrying their loaded canoes in teams of two. They hadn't caught any walleyes. I wondered why they were leaving the lake now... primetime was near. We saw four other canoes on the lake as we paddled east, one of them had a stringer of fish hanging off the back of the boat, and every campsite was occupied. The lake was busy. The air was very warm, the water was also warm. We got to our spot and started jigging minnows, and I caught a little pike right away. A saw-whet owl squeaked at us from the hilltops. I switched to one of the bigger creek chubs, hoping for something monstrous. But nothing happened.

There was not enough wind for drifting. Eventually we gave up on live bait and decided to be more aggressive. We started trolling crankbaits along our favorite section of shoreline. On the second pass Erik caught a nice 16-inch walleye. I took the picture above and Erik put the fish on the stringer. Luckily the camera is waterproof. I put it in my pocket, then I bombed my rapala away from shore, and then I heard a commotion and the canoe rocked quickly to the left and then hard back to the right, all the way over on its side, and I twisted my neck to keep my eyes level with the water as it touched my right knee, and then my arm... I sort of jumped out and pushed back on the canoe to keep it from rolling completely and the water was not so warm anymore. I spun around and Erik was in the water behind me. Either I couldn't breath or I couldn't talk, I wasn't sure. We were in deep water but fairly close to the shoreline, and somehow everything had stayed in the boat besides us. Even my fishing pole was floating in the boat, which was filled with water but upright. I'm not sure how it ended up there. I still couldn't talk, but we both started swimming for shore with the boat on our right, my knee-boots were full of water but I didn't have difficulty swimming. Then we were on the rocks and we gathered our gear by the cedar roots. Finally I caught my breath, the shock of the cold water loosened its grip on me.

What happened?

The walleye almost got away. I mentally tied the stringer to the canoe but I guess I didn't, Erik said, and I looked down and saw the walleye swimming away with the stringer, so I decided to dive in after it. I had to laugh. I tried picturing it. What would I have done? He said he caught it by the last loop on the stringer somehow. I knew we would capsize, he continued, but I jumped in anyways. I couldn't let that walleye and stringer get away.

We still had an hour of daylight left so we wrung the water out of our clothes, I emptied my boots, and then we got back in the canoe and resumed fishing. The saw-whet chimed again. The air was still really warm so we were fine even though we were still wet. It had been years since I had capsized, and Erik had never capsized before. We made it through 300 miles of Quetico together, with a fully-loaded canoe across diabolic waves and never came close to capsizing... We laughed, thinking about what the people on the campsites on the opposite shoreline were saying about the show. Well, I said, we gave them a professional demonstration on how to handle the situation.

After a few more passes and no fish, we turned for home one final time, and just before we ran up into shallower water I felt a ting-ting, and then a heavy strike. I set the hook and gave a yep, calling for the net. And then we had a second 16-inch walleye! Erik attached it to the stringer and then threw the stringer safely in the bottom of the boat. The sun was down and we had about an hour of visible light so we gave maximum effort across the three miles of Caribou Lake. We had just enough light to keep the headlamps in our pockets through the portage, which was good since they may have not worked anyways, and as we finished the final mile of paddling on Clearwater a planet rose and shined brightly in the west - probably Mars. Back at camp we cleaned our meat, and then I drove back to my cabin and put on dry clothing. It was well after ten. I had the next day off. I was mighty thirsty. My arms felt electric.

Bed of Thunderstorms

Winter camping has a way of turning the natural world upside-down. This has been something on my to-do list for a long, long time, and I finally had the chance to give it a try last week, returning to the park I spent seven months of 2011 exploring. And this was a good excuse to visit my good friends Erik and Tori, who are lucky enough to have each other and an off-grid cabin in the northcountry complete with a wood-burning sauna.

And what better way to see the Boundary Waters in winter than by dog-sled?

The reason Erik gets to stay up north year-round is he works as a dog-sledding guide in the winter months, and so we followed up a perfect fall trip into The Quetico with a two-night winter trip up to Knife and Ottertrack Lakes on the border-route. Myself, Erik and Tori were joined by fellow adventurers Ed and Nick, out of Duluth, and so five sleds and twenty-five doggies set out into the Park on Tuesday morning over a crisp two-inches of snow. My team, pictured above, featured a crazed yearling named Proby (top), lead dog Possum, Xena, Brillo and Cash.

Everyone else in the group had already run dogs before and as we harnessed and hooked up the teams, the lake access became a scene of organized chaos. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was definitely a bit intimidated, but was told Possum would follow the track automatically, and that I should use the brake as needed through portages, and then suddenly all sleds were cut loose and we were off into the frozen wild. In the moments before we turned the dogs loose they were all going crazy and yipping and howling and barking, but once the sleds were set free it was business time and the quieted huskies happily began churning out miles and miles of pristine borderlands. The cold froze in my beard and stung my face but the dogs simply loved it. You could tell. They ran with purpose. This was a paradise.

A twenty-mile day by canoe is a strong effort, but we quickly gobbled up nearly that much distance in just a few hours, and I only crashed my sled once along the way (but I didn't let go). We quickly found a wind-protected bay on Knife Lake and got the dogs all settled in and fed (frozen mink - yum!). Then we got to setting up camp and collecting a huge pile of wood, and finally Ed and I peppered the bay with traps. Although we didn't spend much time fishing we did pretty well during the trip, each catching a nice Lake Trout.

There is really no way to prepare yourself for spending three days in sub-zero temperatures without the benefit of permanent shelter. It's one thing to travel through The Quetico when it's around the freezing mark at night... quite another to travel through the northcountry when it's well below freezing the entire time. No matter how big a bonfire you build, things simply freeze and never thaw. Putting your contact lenses in upon waking becomes a hazard, assuming your contacts are not frozen solid. And although we had a big tent with a wood-stove, I was determined to earn my 'sleeping on the frozen lake' badge. I had my 15F bag stuffed inside a -60F bag, and the first night was very comfortable sleeping beneath the stars. The second night the lows dipped to 30-below and it was colder than that with the wind-chill. Weather radio warned against exposure... keep your pets inside, it cautioned, as our dogs slept on the snow nearby. The clouds and flurries of the day broke around midnight and as the stars twinkled above the lake really started to sing, seismic molecules whistling like whales from the deep.

As I snuggled into my sleeping bags, the ice shuddered and boomed, and I could not sleep on this bed of thunderstorms. Like everything with winter camping, the world was askew... the storm on the horizon was beneath us, and the only calm in the Milky Way overhead, vivid and steady.

In the morning we pointed the dogs west and our faces were burned by the wind. Like every trip to the northcountry it was over too soon. And you would think there would be comfort in a heated cabin, in a huge cheeseburger and good beers, in a sauna so hot it made breathing difficult... but there is nothing in life like the power of a thunderstorm, real or imagined. Already, I miss this frozen bed, and how I got there.

-30-


For more information on dogsledding in the BWCA, visit White Wilderness.

I can can jam

[Bluegrassy]
The fireweed flowers reached their ay-pex, beware the end-of-summer-scaries...
Scott and T are heading back to schoool, now it's time to split the berries...

Fifteen cuuups we thaawed by the hot stove, wild strawberries-tinily-sized,
picked one-by-one in the sunniest spots, by animalized humans, harmonized...

~Oh they speak... (Oh they speak) With the shruuuuuuuubbery~

Oh I never have canned, 
No I never have canned, 
I'm making grandma proud, 
So now I sing aloud, 
Yes I can can jammed...

I kill potted plants, can't raise a tom-ay-toe...
I don't have a pantry and my garden won't grow...

Don't know shit about PEC-tin or purrr-ezza-vation,
But now the Clearwater Crew has a phat berry raa-shun...

~That will last... (That will last...) The whole weeeeeeeenter~

(Insane banjo solo)

Yes I have canned, 
Yes, Yes I have canned, 
I'm making grandma proud, 
So now I sing aloud, 
Yes, I can-can jammed...

Lennie would say 'we're living off tha fattathaland'...
Eating wild berries picked with my own hand...

I agree with that and the proverb, wise:
He who chops firewoood, warms himself twize.

~Oh I can't wait... (He can't wait...) To spread it some toaaaaaast~

(Satisfying harmonica solo)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you about BLUUUUUUE-BERRIES!

Author's note: If anyone with real musical talent feels compelled to write actual banjo and harmonica parts to go with these lyrics, let me know. 

Humidex

It's been a filthy hot week up here in the northern wilds, so I've been swimming before and after work in Clearwater Lake on a regular schedule. We get two radio stations up here: Community radio WTIP - 'The Tip' - and a terrible Canadian rock station out of Thunder Bay called 'The Giant'. It's fundraising week on The Tip so I was listening to some Fine Young Cannibals on The Giant while painting some signage in the workshop - I really enjoyed their weather reports, which are fairly accurate for our location. Of course they use Celsius! But my favorite part is the regular updates on wild fire smoke- and haze-forecasting and the use of 'The Humidex'. This is Canadian for 'heat index'. Today the Humidex reached 35!!! 44-thousand hectares or forest were burning out of control, haze everywhere! Whoa!

When the heat wave hit the north I knew it was time to trim down on the hair. I gave myself an emergency hair- and beard-trim with a tiny scissors, looking in a tiny mirror, but I think it turned out OK. I kept trimming here and there for several days as I discovered lingering longies, and my brains have breathed perfectly throughout this spike in the Humidex.

This abnormal humidity-event was capped today by an unusual storm, which dropped 9 inches of rain in total on July 20. I awoke to a strobe-light monsoon at 4 a.m., and between then and 8, we got 8 inches, which nearly sunk the fleet. Had we not gone out in the storm at 7 a.m. to emergency bail the vessels, they probably would have sunk. All our roads were washed out. I spent the day shoveling gravel into the roads-turned-stream, and then after dinner it rained another inch. The lake is up nearly a foot already in one day!

And yet the humidity persists and I sit by my fan... I cannot get far enough north to escape this heat, this suffocating Humidex... These fires of summer...

:::
Addendum (7.22.11): I wanted to also note the concept of a 'personal humidex'... as in: Geesh, my humidex is at 50c right now... I need to jump in the lake.

Cloud camp

One of my goals for the summer was a multi-night solo camp, so last week when I was the only one off work I set out on a trip to a nearby 'mountain' lake that was full of brook trout. These are not actual mountains, but the eastern section of the boundary waters is often called the 'Minnesota Mountains' - and it is exceptionally rugged terrain. The overall elevations are not impressive on paper, but the climbs you can find here are certainly challenging, especially with a full pack and canoe on your shoulders.

My destination was 'three lakes in' and well above neighboring West Pike Lake. To get there, I paddled the entire six miles of Clearwater after the day's work was done, into an east wind, then portaged 214 rods to West Pike, then paddled a short distance to the final portage, which was 80 rods of steep climbing. It's like carrying a canoe and full pack up a ladder made of wet rocks and roots, and I was shot by the time I reached the top, where I saw the lake's only campsite unoccupied (whoo!). By this time I had about 30 minutes of light and there was thunder on the horizon, so I paddled across to the site and got to work on my rain fly and hammock.

Since our Clearwater Loop trip I've been fascinated by hammockry, and I intend to camp only in hammocks if possible from here on out. It's a good thing I brought that rain fly, because five minutes after I set it up over my hammock the rain started, along with energized wind. I was too tired to start a fire in the rain with wet wood so I quickly cooked a few Zup's wild rice brats in the frying pan and writhed into the hammock for the night, where I sipped on whiskey and read a large slice of Bill Bryson's Walk in the Woods, which was given to me by a guest that had hiked three days on the Border Route Trail the week before. All the while I watched lightening and listened to the thunder and rain.

It seemed the clouds were right on top of me.

The next day I had a delicious breakfast: One pound of thick pepper bacon (also from Zup's!) and four eggs, with an entire pot of coffee... Then I tested the box shitter... Then I sawed up and split a couple large chunks of cedar and read more of my book, before heading out to look for brookies. I got about halfway around the lake on my first trolling run when I caught a nice 11-incher (below). Later I got a foot-long brookie in the same area, casting the same lure, but with the added bonus of seeing the strike, which always thrills me (he escaped getting his picture made, the rascal!). Had I not brought a pile of delicious meats with me, I would have eaten a great brookie dinner, but I was well-meated so I let them go.

I didn't fish very long. Like solo camping, solo fishing is relaxing but lonesome. I'd much rather have company.
Solo camping did offer the opportunity for lots of hammock-reading and note-taking for my book project, thinking, and napping. The sunset on night two was outstanding, and I cooked my brats on a one-person cedar fire, making sure to leave plenty of good split firewood for the camp's next visitor (bonus camping points!).

Click images to view full size panoramas

Since I had to work at 1 the next day, I planned on getting up at first light and setting a course home, but I awoke to the densest fog I have ever seen. My hammock was maybe ten feet from the shore, and I couldn't see the lake. Could barely see the tree my hammock was hanging in! It was an odd feeling, like cloud camping. Regrettably, I didn't get a photo of this, but I'm sure the Fuji wouldn't have done the scene justice. I went back to sleep for another hour (or two) and then had to turbo-paddle to get back to the lodge by noon-thirty. Being out of the office and up here for over two months is starting to show - I worked a full shift and cooked dinner for 16 and wasn't even sore, even though the entire adventure required a great deal of energy.

July is here and there is lots more to do: I'll have posts on berry picking (strawberries are here!) and slip bobbering leeches on a dynamite walleye lake in the near future. And next week I am heading west, meeting up with Slowhand Lucious, Chinwhisker Charlie and Warden Cass for some big water trolling and cabin shenanigans at the other end of the boundary waters.

Solstice Wolf

I spent a whole summer up here and never saw a bear. Or a wolf. Less than two months after getting up here this year and I've got both of them in my sights, plus a mamma moose and a baby moose and a bull moose. Ever since I saw those dark black wolves skipping across two feet of snow on Squirrel Lake at about 80 mph back in Wisconsin, I've been yearning... aching... for another encounter with the canine rex of the woods, and on the longest day of the year, my wish was granted.

Click pic for big version

I was out in the remotes, driving a hiker to the far end of the park, when we came around a corner and saw it running directly at us, up the roadway... It's a baby moose, was my first thought, but it quickly stopped it's trot and wheeled to the north, escaping our sight up into the brush... And there was no question, that was the closest I'd ever been to a timber wolf, and it was a lunker. I stopped the truck where it ran in and whispered out... here, chip chip. whoo whoo whoo...

Nothing. The woods shimmered, we're hiding him, get along, so long, so long.

So we proceeded, never got a picture, goose-bumps both. I told the hiker, most folks never get that close, I've not done it, no, that's a rare thing you just experienced... I rolled down the window and gave a loud yip into the wilds. That's something most don't get to see, that's a good omen for your hike. We both smiled... We knew it was special.

I marked the mileage and on my way back through I stopped on the spot... a straightaway a mile past a moose pond. No track though. No sign. A ghost like all the rest, probably... A long gravel road and just me and a truck and the silence. Three miles back to the turn, 14 miles to the road home. Nothing. Maybe he was watching me. Nope. Alright let's go... 

I took a sip of coffee and put the truck in gear, went around probably three corners and then I saw him again, running in the same direction but away from the truck this time. He was at least twice as far away this time, but you could still tell how big he was. A tall beast. Lanky. His head would have reached up over the front of the truck, easy. The legs on this thing... an easy trot, gliding west.

But this time it held the road, finally turning back and looking at me, idling in the road. I got my camera out and fired off a few shots, blindly out the window, mesmerized. Smokey mixtures of grey with red shoots out of the back, it gazed back at me with a calm curiosity, then trotted off to the north again... hiding out until the roadway was cleared... The same wolf twice! Or maybe it was a different member of the pack, if there was a pack on this long and rainy day, this solstice, noon exactly.

Nice print, notice the next step in the upper right.

I caught my breath and pulled up to where it dissolved into the woods, put the truck in park and got out, leaving the door wide open. Up ahead I caught the tracks in the shoulder of the forest road, big wolf tracks, almost as big as my hand out-stretched. There was moose tracks on the same line, too. Was my boy following the moose? Coincidence? Hard to say. Back to the truck and home, full of hope, excitement, coffee. Back darkness, today we appreciate the light. 

Monsters on the Clearwater Loop

Me and the fellers got out to the beach yesterday, as it finally got above 70 and we all had the afternoon off. Great time. We met a few other fellow trail residents, including a couple with a big friendly black dog named Monster. All of us had a blast playing catch on the endless sandbar, and it felt like summer for the first time. 

Johnson Falls, cooking

A week earlier the majority of our Clearwater crew got the rare opportunity for a group camping trip in June, and with two nights on the table we set out on the Clearwater Loop - one of our most popular trips in the mountainous eastern boundary waters: Clearwater to Caribou, to Little Caribou to Pine (passing Johnson Falls) to McFarland, to John to Little John to the Royal River, to Royal Lake to South Fowl to North Fowl to Moose to Vaseux to Fan to Mountain and finally back into Clearwater. Although we paddled this route in June it had yet to feel like summertime in the northern wilds, with vicious winds peppering our faces as we looked across the water into Canada. But it was no longer springtime, either. The bugs were thick, the nights no longer cold. 
After work on Monday we set out on calmer waters, racing all the way to the middle of Pine, one of the biggest lakes in the region, finally securing a dynamite campsite on the north shore, which featured a huge granite slab on the shoreline. Once night fell, Martini led a fantastic craw-dad hunt amongst the rocks, and we managed to fill the kettle for a breakfast feast. 

I was feeling alive, like an animal, so I grabbed my sleeping bag and set up on the slab under the stars that night, the first time I've done that in a long time. Clear skies and the Milky Way running over my left shoulder, the sound of doomed craw-dads scratching at the pot to my right, I remember thinking, wondering, I guess, what the chances were that this was real... giggling...
In the morning the light was uncoordinated, probably because of the storm moving towards us.

We waited out the rain and ate tiny lobsters, then began a long day of paddling into the wind. For all of us, it was the first serious paddling of the year. By afternoon we had made our way out to the border lakes and into Moose, where turning back west, the waves worked with us.
Approaching a mild point, Erik proclaimed someone would catch a fish here, and sure enough, it was his trolling line that was soon crushed by a monster laker, which we later ate for dinner on Mountain.

 Tuesday night I was seduced into the art of hammockry, and I must say it was comfortable sleep-floating between two pines. Erik and Tori, also in hammocks, reported the sounds of a terrible attack on the Canadian side of the lake during the night.
They said it sounded like an animal had become a meal, screaming. 

The wind shifted back to the west on Wednesday, and we struggled home, sore and happy. Once unpacked we hit up Trail Center for Prime Rib Night and feasted ourselves, satisfied. Then it was back to work, and thoughts of new adventures...

Passport renewal portal

Planning a month-long trip into Canada's Quetico Provincial Park this October, I need to renew my passport so I can get my RIBC for extended paddling operations across the border... Which meant I needed to find my old passport and get new pictures taken. Luckily I packed my 1999 passport and the Grand Marais Postal Office has a 'specialized' 2x2 photo setup.

Thought it would be interesting to look at them side-by-side, and I wondered to both of them, who is that person? What are you thinking? What are you looking for?
Same as always, I guess: Adventure. But that doesn't say it all...
I think about everything that's happened since 1999 and it just baffls the mind. How far have you come in the last decade and change? Then naturally I think: Who will I be in another 13 years?
Today is tomorrow, though.
2011 finds me living amongst the capillaries of civilization, near the skin and nerve endings, but maybe this wild country is more civilized than the tikky-tak down south? At any rate, I get to sit in a canoe at 5 in the morning and look at things like this:

And this:

Remember, Friendo, Today is Tomorrow... I'm not sure whether to appreciate or laugh at the absurdity of time

:::

Here's a few more random pics from the last week:

Banjo Creek is full of tiny brookies!

Herb garden rabbit-proofed with stumps, shoots showing.

Magnetic Rock Trail, berry scouting. Magnetic Mystery Rock and debris field originated from impact crater in the Upper Peninsula, I'm told.

My spiritual, fitness and wardrobe guru, Doctor Kwas, with a nice false morel.

Lakers in the fridge

The first week of the Minnesota fishing season passed uneventfully here in the eastern Boundary Waters... Too cold, nothing doing. 

But we kept after them, day after day, paddling after work against the gusting winds. Crankbaits, spoons silvery blue and copper with pink, dead oily ciscos, tiny spinners and monstrous depthraiders. We hit 'em with the kitchen sink and the cast iron stove and a pile of buttermilk pancakes. We whistled at 'em, called out to them from the shoreline during the work-day.


Hey so yous get any down at the other end of the lake? Oh you don't say? Interesting, very interesting. Heard the folks in cabin six got a couple, too. Gotta get back out there after work tonight, storm is moving in, air feels right.


Yep yep. 


Finally amidst a mist Erik cracked the cork on Clearwater, right where we'd been expecting them, just before sunset. A real nice one, too, just over 23 inches, spotted and slippery. 

The clouds hung around the entire next day so we planned on hopping up to the border lake north of us after work and doing some trolling in a richer environment. We flew threw the portage and within 15 minutes of starting our run Erik popped another one on the same bait from the night before. Another nice one, just under 20. We circled the bay and the next time through I finally got my first laker of the season. May 24, ten days since the season opener. We got a few legit bites in other spots, but it turned out we had some kind of action every time we'd pass this one ordinary-looking stretch of shoreline. I got another one just before sunset, and on the next run, Erik got our fourth of the night, ensuring we got our limit for the day. Those lakers went in the fridge, and our first fish dinner of the summer is now on the menu for Saturday night, coinciding with the arrival of our final crew member and the completion of a productive month.


Tonight they've predicted lows in the 20s again and the herb garden has been covered. The window on lakers has just opened and in a few weeks the nights will warm and the mysterious predators of Clearwater Lake will retreat to freakish depths, taking canoe trolling out of play until autumn. 


And as the nights warm the mosquitos will rise up in great numbers, and the hum of traffic on the trail will similarily increase, and I will associate the difficulty and reward of lake trout pursuits with the quietness of May and the beginning of my active isolation. Funny how a month up here changes your definition of busy. 


:::

More photos at my Wild Almanac Logbook

Cold Waters

I've never missed a Wisconsin fishing opener until this spring, and it hurt to spend the first Saturday of the month painting boats on shore rather than rocking across a lake with my buddies, but I knew I'd miss certain things in order to live up here: Fishing trips, weddings, the comforts of familiar surroundings.

Such is the price of animalization...

Fishing opener is one of the most important holidays for me, and I try to explain this to people, but most fail to grasp the importance of shivering in a boat floating above cold waters. Saturdays in early May are rarely balmy, favoring hard winds and some form of precipitation most years. Since the water temperatures are also frigid, the fishing itself is also usually poor. But it doesn't matter. If I can be out there I will be out there with a smile on.

The Minnesota fishing opener was one week later than Wisconsin's, but being so much further north, I was sure we'd be seeing some nastiness from our friend Clearwater, who'd only dropped her winter-time ice on the preceeding Wednesday afternoon. Me and the boys worked out a scheduling change so we could work in the morning and then fish the entire afternoon in pursuit of Lake Trout - a finicky mystery of the deep that only nears the surface when the water's the coldest.

That's not to say cold waters will lead to actual catches. Lakers are tricky fish.

After trolling and casting the steep shorelines and numerous rock reefs of Clearwater from noon until sun-down, the three of us had nothing to show for our efforts, aside from the usual wind-burn and ideas (good or bad) on how to improve our tactics.

On Sunday we were back at work, but before dinner I set out again (in a canoe this time) to slowly troll a Little Cleo around our neighborhood bay and the adjouning "General Sherman's Reef"... Again, nothing was interested. Surely Ol' Sherm was giggling at my rustiness, watching my lure drift by as I struggled to keep my canoe in a straight line against the clipping east winds.

I've seen some slow fishing in the early season, but going Oh-for-Two didn't sit well with me. I was hungry for Lakers din-din!

On Monday afternoon we decided to give Clearwater a break, opting instead for a stocked Rainbow Lake down the way, but that, too, proved impenatrable. While I had a trout follow my lure to the boat and turn away, and I saw two more chasing each other (not me spoon) in the shallows, we got skunked for the third straight day.

Things were getting serious in camp. Drastic measures were required to unlock these cold waters. We decided to give the finicky trout a break.

Tuesday night we put a canoe on the tow boat and motored down to the back end of Clearwater to portage into a 'secondary lake' - that is, one step out from motored lakes. Generally, the further you get from the motors and cabins up here, the better the fishing. A simple concept, but it's not a condemnation of the perimeter lakes, either. We could have continued bashing away at the deep mysteries of Clearwater's Lakers, but by Tuesday we just wanted to put a fish in our hands.

And it worked. We landed three small pike trolling rapalas in the shallows, and returned to camp happy, even without a fish dinner on the table.

Kwas and I had off on Thursday, so Wednesday night we paddled back into another new lake that had a single campsite and was best fished early in the year, since it was shallow and weed-infested by mid-summer. By noon on Thursday we had landed ten pike, most of them small with a few in the mid-20s. It appeared we were the first to use that campsite this year, as dry wood was plentiful.

Today is Friday and for my first week of fishing in the Boundary Waters I've managed eight pike with nothing big, and been shut out on trout.

But I've also been able to fish every day of the week, and it's only going to get better as the waters warm, so I'm perfectly happy with the results so far.

The trout still haunts me, though, so I think my best bet will be getting after them at first light, before work, when the lake is glass calm. When it comes to Lakers you can never guarantee anything, but I'm fairly confident the next week will be better than the first, and that extends beyond fishing altogether.

Crazy Hike

Myself and Mike Kwas failed to reach Rose Falls a week earlier, due to the Daniels Lake Spur being a raging stream, so we set out again via a different, and much more difficult route along the border, ending with a stretch along the infamous Caribou Rock Trail, which I am told is rated as 'extreme'...

The 11-12 mile route was all hills, featuring lots of great vistas over South, Rat, Rose, Duncan, Moss and West Bearskin Lakes, several of those looking north into the Canadian wilds. I had paddled up to Rose Falls once before, but with the early spring melt going full-bore, the falls was really churning on this fine Sunday.

I was really sore (still am three days later), and I was definitely not in good enough shape to try this hike, but I am glad we took on the challenge and completed it safely. Saw a few grouse and many interesting plants. I have more pictures and information about our route in my Wild Almanac logbook, if you are interested.

Baby Clearwater Cabin

"I up in the woods, I down on my mind... I'm building a still, to slow down the time." - Bon Iver

I'm already starting to lose track of the days up here in the Baby Clearwater Cabin. It matters less that's it's a Tuesday night, but that the sky is clear and the stars are out. That tomorrow we're sanding a floor, that out here on the dead end in the north, sitting by space heater, it is quiet. Down the hill the lake is still frozen. The Minnesota Mountains present a far different climate than southern Wisconsin. I wake up shivering in the Baby Cabin, and is this really May 4?

Baby Cabin sits at the far edge of camp, isolated in an isolated pocket of wilderness. It's about 24 square feet with a door that doesn't quite fit it's frame and two windows that leak cold air and maybe bears. It's got a nice little front porch and a spot to park my truck, and maps of the entire Boundary Waters and Quetico lining the north and eastern walls over my bed. It has electricity but no running water. I wish it had a wood burning stove, but that won't matter once we hit the heat of northland summer. The handle to the screen door is a canoe paddle, and so far as I know, it is not haunted, but it might as well be. I've yet to really unpack, so I move stacks of clothing around from bed to bin to bin. A bright red rug I brought from home ties it all together nicely.

I've always wanted a little cabin in the woods and now I've got one, but I've never been more home-sick than now. Moving to the capillaries of society is scary and thrilling, and I've done it before, but I got used to that office job and that comfortable home. There's a guy here that drives sled dogs in the winter, and he's got a sweet little husky that's lived outside all her life and is just now being introduced to the strange comforts of space heaters and couches, car rides and leisure, and I feel like that doggy, inverted. I'm starting to realize the comforts of un-comfort, again - fresh air and hard physical work, deep sleep and troubling dreams in a 12-by-12 room in the woods. Feeling my heels harden. Hiding, and opening myself up. But just as that sled dog is still wary of being inside, I miss my home and those I left behind very badly. There is so much beauty around me but my heart aches. Loneliness is amplified by isolation, but that's no surprise.

I don't know what I'm doing up here, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, but I intend to use the next five months to think about that in this Baby Cabin. And until then, I intend to write about whatever I want.