the dharma blog

It’s been a month. I owe you people something, if there’s anyone still out there. The Dharma Blog sure hasn’t gone anywhere, in both a positive and negative sense. I’m motivated to write now because I’m going somewhere. Namely, the Boundary Waters. Two weeks from tonight Rosie and I are driving north; the next morning we’re heading out for six nights of paddling and camping. Hallelujah.

I was ready to start packing a month ago. A trip can be like that. We’ve been discussing routes and food and gear and logistics since sometime in early August. Last night we went to the fabulous Midwest Mountaineering and bought a bunch of food (including some of Cache Lake’s wonderful frying pan breads) and some other random gear:

• A 2 1/2 gallon collapsible water jug (sick of carrying a bunch of bulky Nalgene bottles around with us)
• a Bell anchor bag (there’s nothing more fun than trying to hold a canoe in position while fishing)
• Chota tie-downs (for easy portaging of paddles and fishing rods)
• supplemental Patagonia Capilene long-underwear (it could be quite cold along the Canadian border in late September)

I also got a steal of a deal from Patagonia on a pair of rain pants. I’ve never bothered with rain pants before, but again thinking of the potential of cool temperatures (30-40 degrees not unlikely) and rain, and how that can quickly add up to hypothermia, I took that leap.

What I have coined “the great footwear struggle” ended a week ago with me buying some terribly trendy Crocs, the purchase of which I have been justifying to anybody who will listen ever since. For the record, here’s where I was coming from:

• I have worn and will continue to wear 8-inch Gore-tex/leather Red Wing boots most days while paddling
• In the past I have brought both Teva sandals and old sneakers for wearing around camp
• (It seems a little silly to bring three pairs of footwear into the backcountry)
• So I wanted a new pair of footwear that would meet the following criteria:
  • Toe-protection Not offered by sandals.
  • Lightweight: Because I travel in the boots, these are going to be carried from camp to camp.
  • Stay on my feet: Ruling out flip-flops. The footwear need to be safe when walking down steep rocks to water’s edge, etc.
  • Something I can wear with or without socks: I’m a dork, but I think these with socks should look much less dorky with socks than Teva’s, for example. Anyway, on a cool late September evening, bare feet aren’t going to be warm feet.
  • Comfortable: It feels good to take those boots off at the end of the day; whatever I’m replacing them with should feel just as good to put on.
  • Quick-drying: If I get them wet, I want them to be dry the next morning.
  • Easy on, easy off: it can be way too much of a hassle to sit in the tent with your feet stuck outside trying to pull shoes on when you’re getting out. Footwear that slips on and off would be nice.

I thought about mocassins but wasn’t ready to take that leap. Nothing else quite fit the bill. Then I looked at Crocs at REI again and couldn’t see how they wouldn’t be perfect. So, putting up with the ridicule of my friends for buying into such trendiness (they are the Birkenstocks of our generation!), I’ve added them to the gearlist.

All that said, and I don’t know if anyone who has read it all will believe me, let me say this: I am not a gearhead. I’m no ultralighter, no tech-junkie. I like things that last, work well and help me enjoy getting out in the woods. Plain and simple. I’ve actually been pleased because during all our shopping and the such, Rosie and I have been pragmatic and based our decisions on experience. That’s it. I like the idea of using this gear in the wilderness, but that’s not what I’m excited about.

What I’m excited about is Friday, Sept. 22 when we head off into the woods, when all the lists and spreadsheets and detail-oriented planning falls away like the egg around a baby turtle. Which brings me to the truly good stuff: where we’re going, what we’ll do, what we’ll see.

We’re entering the BWCA through the Moose Lake entry point, near Ely. It’s the most popular entry point in the entire BWCAW, and, though probably with good reason, not somewhere we’d probably dip our paddles during the peak of the season. It’s a gorgeous area, parts of the route we’re doing coincide with what’s called the “Scenic Lakes Route” (which is really saying something to distinguish these lakes from all the other scenic ones in the area). But, no matter how beautiful, combine it with the mid-summer hordes and I’d be pretty unhappy. In late September, we should find quite a bit of solitude.

Hopefully, we’ll also find some fish. Our goal this year is to have one fish dinner (after fishing in the BWCA for the first time last May and getting nothing but northern pike, enjoyable northern pike but not the walleye we were hoping for) and possibly to catch a Lake trout or two (a couple of the lakes we’re on are known for their Lake trout fishing. If there was ever a fish that embodied the soul of canoe country, it’s Salvelinus namaycush.

As can be noted from the route described below, we’re also hoping to put on a few miles. Last year we went in two days worth of paddling and set up base camp for four days, then paddled back out. It was wonderful and perfect for what we needed, but we’re planning to travel all but one or two days on this trip.

Without further ado, the route. We’re getting a motorized lift along the length of Moose, Newfound and Sucker Lakes to a drop-off at Birch Lake. We’ve never gotten a lift before and I don’t know how I feel about it, but I’m just sort of swallowing my pride and embracing the idea. We don’t get to spend as much time in the Boundary Waters as we’d like and the idea of spending a whole day paddling a motorized lake when we could use a motor to get us into the paddle-only area in just an hour or two seems silly. It’s about maximizing our limited time.

Birch Lake is right on the Canadian border and we’ll stay on the border for the next couple days, heading for famous Knife Lake for the first night (if all goes as planned). We’ll visit the island where one of the BWCA’s last and most famous residents lived: Dorothy Molter (”The Root Beer Lady”). There’s a reportedly very nice campsite on a nearby island where we’ll stay the first night (again, if all goes as planned).

We’ll head north and east along Knife after that, stopping at Thunder Point, which affords a short hike to a tall cliff with a reportedly great view of the area. That’s one thing we’ve never gotten a lot of in canoe country: good views from any heights. It is generally a pretty low and flat country. I’m looking forward to that view. There’s also supposed to be a nice site nearby.

From there, we’ll go east into the South Arm of Knife Lake and then down through the very scenic Kekekabic Ponds to Kekekabic Lake. Kek Lake, a tiny, campsite-less lake is supposed to be worth a visit, surrounded by high, steep hills and which is 95 feet deep and only 122 acres.

We might do a layover on Kekekabic, which also features an American Indian pictograph on its south shore that is reportedly hard to find. I intend to look pretty hard, though, as we’ve never seen any pictographs in the BWCA.

From Kekekabic, we head through several medium-sized lakes including Spoon, Pickle and Vera to Ensign Lake. We’ll take one to two days to do that, I think. That stretch will include the most difficult portage we’ll probably encounter, that from Vera to Ensign. It’s 180 rods, which isn’t a terrible length, and we’ll be taking it in the downhill direction, but I’ve heard it’s a toughie no matter what.

We might get another tow from where we join Moose Lake again after going from Ensign to Splash, or we might not. Though we’ll come back to civilization on Thursday, Sept. 28, we won’t be homeward bound quite yet. We’re headed to Voyageurs National Park to participate in a trail clearing project organized by Voyageurs National Park Association, a great organization I’m involved with.

Apologies if this post seems self-indulgent, but it’s what’s on my mind and just writing about is a welcome relief from a lot of stress right now. As the pile of gear grows, is organized, is packed, I’ll try to post some more. It’s no joke that planning for a trip like this is half the journey. I enjoy it in a significant way, thought its different from the enjoyment of the actual trip.