I am going on a snowshoe trip next week and am planning on entering on Fall and going up to Caribou Point on Pipestone Bay. For those of you in the Ely area, are the roads plowed to this entry point or will I have to enter farther west on Fall near Winton? I assume highway 18 is open, but Im not sure about Fall lake road.

Just got this from my tripping colleague regarding the snow pack on lakes and down fall. Heads up on any winter travels. I'll be up there in two weeks. Regards, Boneli

I talked to my friend that runs dogs into Ramshead and the BWCA, and there is a very serious problem.

They tried to make it into Ramshead last weekend, and they sawed the trail out. It was covered with down trees and brush from the heavy snows.
That would be a problem now if we were to choose another route that was trail based.

Now for the serious problem, there is 12 inches of fluffy snow covering 12 to 18 inches of slush and water over six inches of ice. They could not even make into Ramshead, as they really struggled to break a trail across Lamb. They got the trail broken and turned around.

What does this mean? Here is what needs to happen to make this trip a possibility, we need a few days of above freezing temps to get the fluffy snow to fall and pack down or even settle into the slush, then we need some good cold weather to set a solid crust over this mess. Without this happening you are looking at an extremely hard pull to the lake and then days in camp only as there will be no where to go because of the adverse conditions. Brian, my buddy, is going to keep us updated on the conditions. He has a friend returning there this weekend and then he will give it a shot the next week, so we will have very current info.

Don't know how much this helps but here it goes:

I was just in the BWCA skiing the Banadad XC Ski trail. I ventured on the lakes several times with disastrous consequences. Drilling an ice hole allowed me to examine the ice structure. It was as follows: ~12-14" of ice above the water, 2-3" liquid water above the ice, 4-5" snow above the water.

When I tried to ski over that my skis sunk into the water/slush and became covered with water which flash froze to them. They were pretty much useless at that point. I wonder if snowshoes would fare better and not sink into the water but don't know.

As I see it, no danger of falling into ice water, but definite chance of wetting feet and equipment. Also going through that terrain would probably be difficult.

Thanks for information, I am leaving early on the 5th and any updates would be excellent if anything changes. Anyone know anything about the road conditions?