BWCA

7.26.06 - Last weekend, Kristin and I took Julie and Roman up to the Boundary waters. I selected a pretty ambitious trip, but all involved were up to the challenge. We started out at Sawbill Outfitters, and took four portages (80, 80, 110, and 180 rods respectively) to Cherokee Creek. Once there, we were to follow the creek to Cherokee Lake, where we would be staying. About halfway up the creek, we saw a huge moose in the water. What a cool experience! It's easy to underestimate how big they are until you're right next to one. The moose slowly made his way over to the woods, where he stood and watched us paddle away.


Once we selected a site, we set to work right away setting up camp. We had a great view with a long, sloping rock face overlooking the entire lake. It was at about this point that we realized the lake was crazy with black flies! They were absolutely insane, and there was no escaping them. We ended up hanging out in our tents for a couple hours until it got dark and the flies went away. We started to make dinner, and then came the mice. "Look," said Kristin, "a little mouse. Oh my God, there's mice everywhere!" It was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Kinda freaky. Apparently, Julie had set their tent up over a mouse hole, so she had mice scratching and jumping into the side of their tent all night!



The next morning we decided to move to a different site, so we headed back to Sawbill Lake. We hung out for a while at a really cool island campsite, then decided that none of us felt like setting up all our crap again, so we began the journey home. Just as we started heading back, huge storm clouds came rolling in. We ended up getting hailed on for about the last 30 minutes of our paddle. It was a pretty wicked storm, with lightning and high winds. We just stayed close to the shoreline and paddled to beat hell!

It kind of sucked at the time, but in retrospect I think it was a great trip...lots of adventure and some good stories to share.