Boundary Waters Day 2
Day two at the Boundary Waters was the first day that we actually made it into the Boundary Waters. But, before we could do that, we all did a gear check in the bunk house to make sure that we weren't duplicating anything needlessly. I was able to leave a lot of my stuff in the car, though no one wanted to take any of the water-proof disposable cameras I had bought, instead opting to take their own digital cameras. I took two of the three disposables with me. During the gear check, we realized that the lighter I had was busted, it's flint wouldn't strike. We would need to get matches or a lighter from the outfitters when we got the rest of our stuff.
The rest of our stuff was to be provided by the outfitter I had chosen, River Point Outfitters, food and a canoe. We had opted for the more expensive, but lighter, 3 man Kevlar canoe. It's a We-no-nah Minnesota 3 which is listed at 49lbs. This is important because I would have to carry it on my shoulders during the portages.
For food, I requested all freeze dried food to save weight and make cooking and cleaning easier. I wanted something that was just-add-boiling-water-and-eat simple. Something that you don't have to clean, and something that doesn't take much time to prepare. Instead, they gave us a couple of freeze dried pouches like that, but also a full mess kit, steaks, eggs, bacon, freeze dried pancakes and hash browns -- all of which had to be cooked with pots and pans. They told us that matches would be in the mess kit (along with towels, pot holders, soap, etc.). They gave us a ton of food. Way more food than I expected, or really even wanted. I think I actually gained weight while out there. There was that much food.
They gave us a brand new canoe, loaded up our gear and drove us about 45 minutes out to our entry point on Snowbank Lake.
We had a restricted permit, which means we were supposed to camp on Snowbank lake every night. I suppose for Memorial Day weekend, that's as good as we could get, but it clashed with our plans of getting far into the wilderness. We would settle for day trips.
Jon wanted to camp on an island, and no one else opposed, so when we put in the water at about 9:30am, we immediately (though not very directly due to steering issues) made our way towards the islands that were marked as having a camp site (since you can only stay on designated camp sites that have a fire grate and latrine). If you click on the Snowbank Lake link, you'll notice a red dot in the middle of the lake, just under the shaded portion of the lake. The dot is bigger than the island. That's where we stayed. The island was about 2-3 acres in size and had one camp site. We claimed it as ours (by setting up our tents), grabbed our first day's lunch and dinner, and headed out to do some paddling.
It was a cool and overcast day. I put on my light weight windbreaker/rain jacket to keep warm, which was just right considering the work out of paddling the canoe. It threatened to rain, but it never did, and that was just fine by us.
We did a loop through a number of lakes. In order, they were: Parent, Disappointment, Ahsub, Jitterbug, Adventure, Cattyman, Gibson, Swing, Abinodji, Haven, Boot, and finally returning to Snowbank. This involved about 460 rods of portages (a rod is 16.5 feet -- I have no idea why portages are measured in rods).
I carried the canoe every step of the way, and Mike and Jon carried my water bottle and the rest of our gear. Mike and Jon would help me put the canoe on and off my shoulders because after a couple of portages I was too tired to lift it all by myself.
It was an amazing isometric exercise for the arms to hold the canoe while walking. The canoe was very well balanced and didn't really require me to hold it tightly, but on uneven terrain and with such a long moment arm, I couldn't afford (the canoe costs $2500 and is easily broken) to let it get tilting too far.
Unfortunately, this meant that my arms weren't free to fend off mosquitoes. However, the 100% DEET that we applied worked reasonably well, as long as I didn't sweat or get wet. Pretty hard to do in a canoe with 1.5 miles of portages thrown in for good measure.
During one of the portages, Mike discovered that his water bottle had opened and had soaked a lot of his day-trip gear, including his digital camera. I tried hard to not say "I told you so" since it didn't actually die by falling into lake water.
We ate lunch (a cold lunch of rye crackers, beef sticks, and cherries) along the way, at the portage entering Parent Lake, but couldn't find an empty camp site to cook the steaks, so we had dinner at our camp site. Steaks, hash browns, corn, and pudding.
It was there that we determined that we didn't have any matches (other than the three in Jon's emergency pouch) or a lighter. However, we did have my portable camp stove which has a piezoelectric igniter, so we were able to set bark on fire and use it to light our camp fire. Disaster averted.
Mike later checked our packing list and, sure enough, the matches weren't checked off as being in our kit. Next time, don't take their word for something so important. Though since I knew we had my stove, I wasn't too worried, but it's always nice to have a backup, and we really should have done a visual on the matches. That's the kind of screw up that can get you killed in the wilderness.
We didn't eat the pudding, and we almost didn't eat the hash browns because they had to be fried in a pan, and the only one we had was in the mess kit provided. However, it was fused to the pot above it. I bashed it on a rock (denting it slightly -- oops), and deformed a couple of their knives before I was finally able to free it. After that, the hash browns took probably more than 20 minutes to cook, and we had to cook them over the fire using the mess kit's pan, something that we had been told not to do. But what were we supposed to do? When we noticed the pan deforming in the heat, we moved it off the direct heat and it straightened itself out. Took us at least 20 minutes to scrape the soot off of it though. This definitely didn't go along with my idea of quick and easy meals.
We were all pretty tired and called it a day around 10pm, which isn't completely dark up near the 48th parallel. However, it was cloudy, so we didn't get a view of the moon or stars.
The smell of cigarette smoke from the previous night had gotten into my sleeping bag. As soon as I put my head down, I couldn't breathe. Even though my one-man tent was 20 feet from Mike and Jon's two-man tent, no one got a good night's sleep. A bonus for them, however, was that the clouds broke at about 2am and they reported having a brilliant view of the stars, something that's nearly impossible to find in CA. Too bad they didn't think to wake me.
The rest of our stuff was to be provided by the outfitter I had chosen, River Point Outfitters, food and a canoe. We had opted for the more expensive, but lighter, 3 man Kevlar canoe. It's a We-no-nah Minnesota 3 which is listed at 49lbs. This is important because I would have to carry it on my shoulders during the portages.
For food, I requested all freeze dried food to save weight and make cooking and cleaning easier. I wanted something that was just-add-boiling-water-and-eat simple. Something that you don't have to clean, and something that doesn't take much time to prepare. Instead, they gave us a couple of freeze dried pouches like that, but also a full mess kit, steaks, eggs, bacon, freeze dried pancakes and hash browns -- all of which had to be cooked with pots and pans. They told us that matches would be in the mess kit (along with towels, pot holders, soap, etc.). They gave us a ton of food. Way more food than I expected, or really even wanted. I think I actually gained weight while out there. There was that much food.
They gave us a brand new canoe, loaded up our gear and drove us about 45 minutes out to our entry point on Snowbank Lake.
We had a restricted permit, which means we were supposed to camp on Snowbank lake every night. I suppose for Memorial Day weekend, that's as good as we could get, but it clashed with our plans of getting far into the wilderness. We would settle for day trips.
Jon wanted to camp on an island, and no one else opposed, so when we put in the water at about 9:30am, we immediately (though not very directly due to steering issues) made our way towards the islands that were marked as having a camp site (since you can only stay on designated camp sites that have a fire grate and latrine). If you click on the Snowbank Lake link, you'll notice a red dot in the middle of the lake, just under the shaded portion of the lake. The dot is bigger than the island. That's where we stayed. The island was about 2-3 acres in size and had one camp site. We claimed it as ours (by setting up our tents), grabbed our first day's lunch and dinner, and headed out to do some paddling.
It was a cool and overcast day. I put on my light weight windbreaker/rain jacket to keep warm, which was just right considering the work out of paddling the canoe. It threatened to rain, but it never did, and that was just fine by us.
We did a loop through a number of lakes. In order, they were: Parent, Disappointment, Ahsub, Jitterbug, Adventure, Cattyman, Gibson, Swing, Abinodji, Haven, Boot, and finally returning to Snowbank. This involved about 460 rods of portages (a rod is 16.5 feet -- I have no idea why portages are measured in rods).
I carried the canoe every step of the way, and Mike and Jon carried my water bottle and the rest of our gear. Mike and Jon would help me put the canoe on and off my shoulders because after a couple of portages I was too tired to lift it all by myself.
It was an amazing isometric exercise for the arms to hold the canoe while walking. The canoe was very well balanced and didn't really require me to hold it tightly, but on uneven terrain and with such a long moment arm, I couldn't afford (the canoe costs $2500 and is easily broken) to let it get tilting too far.
Unfortunately, this meant that my arms weren't free to fend off mosquitoes. However, the 100% DEET that we applied worked reasonably well, as long as I didn't sweat or get wet. Pretty hard to do in a canoe with 1.5 miles of portages thrown in for good measure.
During one of the portages, Mike discovered that his water bottle had opened and had soaked a lot of his day-trip gear, including his digital camera. I tried hard to not say "I told you so" since it didn't actually die by falling into lake water.
We ate lunch (a cold lunch of rye crackers, beef sticks, and cherries) along the way, at the portage entering Parent Lake, but couldn't find an empty camp site to cook the steaks, so we had dinner at our camp site. Steaks, hash browns, corn, and pudding.
It was there that we determined that we didn't have any matches (other than the three in Jon's emergency pouch) or a lighter. However, we did have my portable camp stove which has a piezoelectric igniter, so we were able to set bark on fire and use it to light our camp fire. Disaster averted.
Mike later checked our packing list and, sure enough, the matches weren't checked off as being in our kit. Next time, don't take their word for something so important. Though since I knew we had my stove, I wasn't too worried, but it's always nice to have a backup, and we really should have done a visual on the matches. That's the kind of screw up that can get you killed in the wilderness.
We didn't eat the pudding, and we almost didn't eat the hash browns because they had to be fried in a pan, and the only one we had was in the mess kit provided. However, it was fused to the pot above it. I bashed it on a rock (denting it slightly -- oops), and deformed a couple of their knives before I was finally able to free it. After that, the hash browns took probably more than 20 minutes to cook, and we had to cook them over the fire using the mess kit's pan, something that we had been told not to do. But what were we supposed to do? When we noticed the pan deforming in the heat, we moved it off the direct heat and it straightened itself out. Took us at least 20 minutes to scrape the soot off of it though. This definitely didn't go along with my idea of quick and easy meals.
We were all pretty tired and called it a day around 10pm, which isn't completely dark up near the 48th parallel. However, it was cloudy, so we didn't get a view of the moon or stars.
The smell of cigarette smoke from the previous night had gotten into my sleeping bag. As soon as I put my head down, I couldn't breathe. Even though my one-man tent was 20 feet from Mike and Jon's two-man tent, no one got a good night's sleep. A bonus for them, however, was that the clouds broke at about 2am and they reported having a brilliant view of the stars, something that's nearly impossible to find in CA. Too bad they didn't think to wake me.
posted by Mark at 9:01 PM
2 Comments:
I'm glad no bear sniffed your ear. At least the snoring was good for keeping them away. And I'm certainly glad I pushed for the disposable cameras too. Funny that it all came true. Welcome home alive! =)
Any time you need a piece of gear, let me know, I have multiples of so much stuff, it's a little embarrassing.
Pete
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