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.

Hippos Fest 2011

Trout fishing in the snow - you don't see that very often. Earlier in the early season I was seeing snow on the banks, but to actually be putting on the waders in a medium blizzard? That's nuts. It's what me and the boys found ourselves in on Saturday, April 16. This place was 'Hippo Water' with crazy animals around every deep bend in the river. The 16-incher above was my best of the trip, and our group finished with 16 trout total, including 4 other 15" or better. I had so many flashes (hits) in one stretch of the stream I just couldn't believe it. You get a couple, give them a minute. Then throw the same lure back and another one would fly out of the depths. Just wild.

That is def one of the coolest aspects of early season lure troutin' - seeing the strikes. They're like lightening flashes, contained in a 6-inch box of moving water. You see just about all of them you catch and, if you are really paying attention (and wearing some decent polarized shades), twice as many that miss the hooks or were just chasing the lure for fun. After a while you get the sense that there are so many trout in the stream that you never see.

I don't know if I'll get out after any more Wisconsin trout this season, as I'm heading north for the BWCA soon, but I'm guessing I'll hit up some home waters one or two more times. Optimism.

Here's my Wild Almanac logbook for the weekend, with many more pics and a video of a foot-long with a weird dent in it's gill-plate. If you click on the event page itself, you can see some of the Warden's pics and videos as well. Logbook bonus: Picture of a mystery skull and a picture of Catfish Man Who Uses Shrimp for Bait.