This isn't a BWCA trip but, a North Shore winter camp trip report.


Due to the drive from southern Minnesota we didn't get onto the trail until about noon Saturday Jan 19. Our plan was to hike the Superior Hiking Trail from Castle Danger to Gooseberry Falls and be done Monday morning Jan 21. Miles 8.5

The first 1.3 miles were up and back down Wolf Rock. This trail was never intended to be done with pull sleds and pulk's, although we did make it with them. If you do this trip in the winter with sleds plan on some technical work, there are several steep icy climbs on Wolf rock, each is fairly short but a safety line would be a great thing when you have a sled tied to your butt.

The Superior Hiking trail is different than the BWCA in that you have to stay in the campsites, even in the winter. We made our first campsite nice and early and there was no reason to push on because the next campsite was well out of reach for Saturday.

Making camp early gave us time to cut lots of firewood and eat a big supper.

This was our first time in a heated tent, and there aren't enough good things to say about the Snotrekker tent set up. The heated tent was also the reason we were pulling one of our two sleds over this terrain. So there was a trade off.

Sunday morning it took forever to hit the trail again. There was difficulty making enough water as well as just being slow from the typical first camp break and packing thing. We didn't leave camp until 11:00, with way to many miles ahead of us.

The next part of the hike was very nice. There is not much for hills until Mikes Rock. It wasn't easy with sleds but nothing compared to Wolf Rock the day before.

We had traveled this far with nothing but ice cleats on our feet, but at this point we ran out of packed snowshoe float and were on packed trail but with no fresh tracks since the last snow we would break through on occasion. Not enough to put the snowshoes on but slower.

This part of the trail follows the Gooseberry River and has lots of ups and downs. It is very scenic. Other than some of the low swamps the whole trip is scenic.

There are three campsites along the Gooseberry and we wanted to reach the farthest one so that we would have a shorter walk on our last day. As it turns out there was a little misinterpretation on our map reading and the distance between the 2nd and 3rd campsite was way off.

With the late start in the morning and slow going, this coupled with fatigue; we should have stopped at the second site, but not knowing that it was as far as it was we pushed on. We were spent when we got to the last site. The sun was going down and we hadn’t gathered fire wood. One of the boys went into zombie mode, the fatigue and cold got to him and was going into shock. We got him into a sleeping bag on a thermo rest and stuffed it full of hand warmers. It was only moments after that we knew he was going to be ok. Shock didn’t set in hard. We made him stay down and gathered firewood, and set up camp.

Not long after that we were warm and drying out. A quick bowl of noodles for all and it was lights out by 7:00. We took shifts all night with the stove, as the fire box is small and in the cold temps it needed to be fed real often. The first night it was hot and cold hot and cold, with someone watching the fire we could keep a nice even temp. This way three people could sleep good at a time. Whom ever was feeding the stove was making water. By Monday morning everyone was hydrated, rested, fed and in great spirits again. We hit the trail about an hr after sun up and the 2 miles from there to the parking lot was a walk in the park (Gooseberry State Park) with packed trails and easy grades.

Other than the couple of hours on Sunday evening that got tense all was great.

I would say this isn’t a good winter trip with the heated tent, and sleds. If you were with packs only and the temps were above zero it would be a great trip, just watch out for Wolf Rock.

Jeff

Great trip report! Sounds like you have learned a few things. I can relate to having trips planned out and campsites being further than anticipated! Man that sucks!

Two things I have learned (from experience and exemplified in your trip report): (1) Temperature, ice conditions, trail conditions, snow depth, terrain- Any one of those factors can totally change how far I can go on any day (especially winter trips). It is always best to have a couple routes planned and fall back idea's. I can literally go as many as 12-15 miles with a large sled or as few as 2 (as happened this year with 5 inches of lake slush) when conditions change!

(2) Empire Canvas Works tents sell a small, medium and large stove. ALWAYS get the large stove. We can get bigger sized logs and more of them into our large stove. Well worth the extra couple lbs. This allows us to sleep for a few hours before stoking the fire again!

Nice thing about winter camping, you do not have to travel far to get away from the people, unlike the BWCA in July;-)

George

Any suggestions for a next outing. We are planning to go out in Feb. I've put off the Angleworm lake loop twice this year and without other suggestions will probably do that but I'd like to hear some of your favorite winter hikes, something that won't require 500 foot climbs would be nice.

I only have one suggestion, and it may not apply to you. My philosophy for winter camping has changed over the years (from cold and going far and light to near and heavy...that obviously does not mean it is the only right way, I just found I enjoy one way over another more).

We used to see how much distance we could cover winter camping. Basically that meant a ton of work. This is because every morning (or many mornings) we had to get up as soon as possible, eat, break camp, bust butt to find new camp, set up, eat, go to bed. Only to do it again the next day. This is especially difficult in January when you have very limited sun light.

One of the best things about winter camping is that you do not have to go very far at all to get away from people. So now, we go in a few miles (anywhere from 2 to 8 miles) and set up a base camp.

By having one base camp you can still hike, even hike all day if you want, but you do not have to break camp and set it up again. Plus you can use any leftover wood from the previous day AND you can spend time making a really awesome base camp.

Anyways, again, some people do have more fun moving everyday. This is just another way of doing it. Nothing wrong with either philosophy, you have to find the one you like best.

PS: One of my favorite trips is Going from Ely to Lake One Entry Point. We travel all the way to Lake three and set up a base camp. There is a trail that goes to smaller lake to the west of Lake Three that is known to often have a wolf den (See BWCA West book).

http://www.amazon.com/Boundary-Waters-Canoe-Area-Western/dp/0899972373/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201104456&sr=8-2

Last year we hiked to this lake and saw the pack crossing the lake. I took some pics but they look like very small dots. If you ever take this route, there is a short cut from the entry point into lake one that is only open during the winter. If interested e-mail me and I'll try to draw it out for ya: georgethaler@hotmail.com

There are a lot of very beautiful area's to ski and hike from Lake three with cliffs, even sledding hills, etc.

PS: On this route I have made it all the way to Lake three in about 2.5-3 hours BUT I have also only made it to the beginning of Lake Two in about 5 hours. Ice conditions can make it a freeway or quik sand!

All the postd pics here are from our trip into Lake Three last year. It was one of our funnest trips to date, as we saw a lot of wolf tracks, wolf kill (a turtle) wolves, and beautiful scenery. OH, the pic with all the text...there obviously were no hidden wolves, but it is a funny photo;-)

Wolves... Killed a turtle... In the winter...


Isn't heavy drinking in the winter supposed to be dangerous?

Ah ya. They are turtles, they do not head south for the winter. It would take to long.;-) Here is a pic of the remains....wolf tracks and blood all around it.

That is freaking BIZARRE!

Doesn't that strike you as... A bit strange?

I wonder if it died in the fall and the wolves found it... Because they bury themselves in mud for half the year... Underwater... Under the ice.

That's probably the most fascinating thing I have ever seen on this site.

Maybe it died and floated up and popped up in some open water... Or something.

Ya, to be honest we were all taken aback. But it was a turtle with wolf tracks all over the place. My buddy added the red arrows to the pic. I thought it was a nice touch to the pic;-)

I have had the best luck seeing wolves and traces of wolves on Lake One Two and Three. Here is a pic of some wolves we saw on a lake west of Lake three during a day hike:



Sadly you cannot make out the wolves, they appear as fuzzy dots. Also, I was not on this day hike. I stayed back and chopped wood. Which I regret to this day.

The book BWCA West stated there is a den that lives in that area frequently.

We also had a pack come within 30 yards of our tent three years ago. We were camped at the end of a portage on lake one and did not see them. However, in the morning we came across their tracks and scat. Pretty cool but a bit alarming that they would come so close to our site.

Jeff, did you make a polk or did you get the black river sled? I am interested in hearing about it. Post pic's if you have them. Thanks!

Jeff, did you make a polk or did you get the black river sled? I am interested in hearing about it. Post pic's if you have them. Thanks!

George,
I picked up the sled from Fleet Farm several years ago. It was in the toy section not the sporting goods. The sleds in sporting goods were too wide and not stiff enough. This one had a nice reinforced gunnels.

I pulled it several times with a rope and I was never happy with it. It didn't track well. After joining this forum, (thanks to who ever runs this!!!!) I found the link to the Pulk site. I jumped in there and got some great ideas. A trip to Fleet Farm again to pick up 3/4" heater hose and a couple of fiberglass fencepost and I added the bars to my sled. I had a piece of aluminum angle I cut and bolted on for fins. The belt is a safety belt from a construction lanyard I had laying around.

It was great, tracked well and was easy to steer. With the crossed pull bars you can swing your hips and steer it away from cliffs and around trees. ( I love the Internet, such a great place to get good ideas.

Great job on the polk! Glad it worked out well.

Fleet Farm - why shop anyplace else!

Nice job on the sled

This was my third outing this year, but the only one in the BWCA.

Trip report

Angleworm Lake

March 14, 15, 16 2009

Leaving EP20 about noon we followed two cross country skiers out of the parking lot. They were the first ones on the trail since the fresh snow earlier this week.

The two of us in my party were each pulling pulks and we found that the warm temperatures were causing the sleds to stick in the snow, and they pulled real heavy.

The first 3/4 of a mile is down hill and even then the sleds were so sticky they didn't chase us down the hills. When we got to the bottom of Spring Creek the skiers that we had been following had left the trail. They headed north in along Spring Creek and we continued on the trail to Angleworm Lake. We had to break trail and found the going even harder.

After only two miles we set up camp on the south west side of Angleworm Lake and spent the afternoon and night.

I drilled a hole in the lake for drinking water and got to use my Steri-pen for the first time. I'm writing this on Thursday and my partner and I are still not sick so it must have worked. We found the ice to be very poor and only about 10" thick. It wouldn't take many days of this near 60 degree days to make it completely unsafe.

Sunday we decided that the temps were way to warm to pull the sleds, so we day hiked to the Hegman pictographs and back. It was about 3 1/2 miles round trip and the portage trail between Angleworm and Threse was good. Threse was a little sloppy but we felt safe. We were back before noon and just hung out in camp the rest of the day.

As long as we stayed in camp we could stay dry but the warm temps made it wet and sloppy to try to travel any unbroken trails. We decided that we would get up early on Monday and break camp and get on the trail before the sun came up making the snow heavy again.

We hit the trail Monday morning about 5:45am and had great travel. The moon was in the third quarter and the skies were clear but in the heavy pine forest the moon was no help and we used our headlamps to navigate back to the parking lot. As we descended into the Spring Creek valley the temps were even cooler and the snow was great. By the time we got to the parking lot though the snow had started to get sticky already.

We only wore our jackets about 2 hrs all weekend and I only wore gloves to keep from burning myself while cooking. I think we will be the last winter campers this area sees this year.

This was another nice trip in the BWCA, I again missed my goal of circling Angleworm but I'll be back next year to try again.

Jeff

Jeff,
Nice report! We were in the BWCA the same weekend and experienced the same warm conditions. I probably wouldn't choose them, but as they were, it was great! We too got in early enough and back out to keep from becoming slush-puppies!

BTW, We drank and cooked with unpurified water out of the lakes without any problems. I'd considered bringing my pump...but was told by others it wasn't needed in the winter? I will say that MOST of the water I drank came from my 70 ounce back pack bladder. It is SO nice to have plenty of water to drink when hauling stuff around, etc. Thirsty work, that stuff!