Note: Site numbers reference this map.
Sites: Gooseberry Falls Site 18, 336, 330, 339
Sept 1: Madison to Gooseberry Falls
We left Madison’s West Towne Mall at 3:15 pm, and arrived at Duluth Pack in Canal Park, Duluth to pick up our permit at 8:15 pm. This was the first time we tried to pick up our permit the night before, and it worked out well and saved us a couple of hours in the morning. We camped at Gooseberry Falls State Park, but we caught some rain and thunderstorms as we were setting up in the dark that continued through the night and while we packed up the next morning, which delayed our morning start a bit. The park was really quiet, perhaps because it was rainy, and we had a quiet night in site 18. To note for next year – keep the packs in the back seat, not in the trunk, for easy access!
Sept 2: Gooseberry Falls to East Bay of Saganaga
Campsite: 336
Despite the delay in the early morning due to rain, we made it to Grand Marais for breakfast at the Blue Water Cafe. After a quick meal, we headed up the Gunflint Trail and were on the water by 9:45. I had a sore left shoulder that I was nursing. We were making really great progress until a stiff west wind blew up as we were crossing Saganaga to American Point, and we had to paddle hard against high waves and a strong headwind. By the time we made it to the first (eastern-most) bay, my shoulder was screaming for a break, I was wet from the waste down, and we were both hungry for lunch. We stopped at the first site in the bays, which was empty, and after lunch I was sore and ready to just camp there for the rest of the day. Lunch was dirty rice and beef, with a side of ibuprofen. Later in the afternoon we started hearing thunder, so we felt pretty good about deciding to stay where we were. After the thunder went away, we fished the bay and caught some smallmouth on rapelas. Went to bed early, intending on an early start and travel to Ester or Hansen lakes.
Sept 3: East bay of Saganaga to Ester Lake
Campsite: 330
We slept in til 8:30 and lingered over breakfast, so we didn’t get on the road until about noon. We pulled in some more smallies on raps and a couple of northerns on buzzbaits, but lost a buzzbait in the Monument Portage bay of Swamp Lake when a northern bit it off. Note that they seem pretty excited about these – hope to bring a few more spares next year! We met a couple traveling back over the Monument from a fishing trip, and they had great luck – their highlight was bringing in a 40″ northern with a spoon. As usual, Monument portage was easy and in good shape, where Ottertrack to Ester portage was ankle-deep mud in some spots. We stopped at site 330 at around 3:15, which is right next to the Ashdick portage. It’s a rocky site, but we found a good tent pad and managed to pound in a good number of Sean’s secret-weapon titanium stakes. We managed to get set up just before getting hit with another rain storm, happily after we had gotten up the aerial tarp. We enjoyed some unstuffed peppers under the tarp, and opened our bottle of Rambling Red Outdoor Vino, from Naked Winery in Hood River, OR. We bought it when we visited Oregon earlier this summer, and it is really a tasty red wine – best of all, it comes in a plastic bottle so you don’t have to worry about illegal containers! Nothing beats eating a hot meal and drinking red wine while nice and dry under a tarp in a BWCA rainstorm. Because it was rainy and thunderstormy, we decided to pack in early again.
Unfortunately you can see (and sometimes hear) the sites in the island and point located to the south of our site at 330. We would probably not camp here again for this reason, although it proved to be a good base camp for getting to other places.
Sept 4: Ester Lake
Campsite: 330
Even though it rained a lot overnight, we stayed dry in our tent thanks to having our trusty painter’s tarp inside as a liner – we could see that the floor underneath had absorbed some water. The day started out windy and sunny, and only got windier throughout the day. We trolled the lake and caught yet more smallmouth, but it was difficult to control Old Ironsides and fish in all the wind. After lunch, we went back out and unfortunately got caught in a really bad wind and rainstorm that caught us a bit by surprise. We were lucky to not be on even bigger water, because we had a few moments of paddling back to shore where we couldn’t actually control the boat and it spun around.
We changed out of our soaked clothes and set them to dry on the line, and ate a dinner of spicy couscous, mushrooms, and beef. It warmed up enough for Sean to snorkel near our site, and he found an underwater cave across the shallow bay. He also noted steep drop-offs on the north-facing part of the island and shore next to our site.
Sept 5: Ester Lake
Campsite: 330
This was, happily, the last day where the weather was just annoying, windy, and wet. It was a windy and rainy night, and dawn brought a day with a constant NE wind that brought short bursts of rain with it throughout the entire day. We were mostly able to dry our wet stuff in the brief (15-30 minute) periods of wind and sun. Sean caught a nice 18″ smallie by the bay by our campsite, and we were able to fish around and caught many smallmouth. We hoped for better weather the next day, but we were able to clean and fry up a smallmouth and mix the meat with rehydrated salsa, which we spooned onto tortillas for fish tacos.
We headed up toward the long bay where the Ottertrack-Ester portage is to fish a bit, and saw a mink hanging out. He was very curious about us, and followed us a bit along the shore.
Sept 6: Ester Lake, Ashdick Lake
Campsite: 330
The wind finally gave up during the night and we woke to a cloudy but calm morning. We saw our mink friend hanging around our shoreline in the morning. We wanted to go to Rabbit Lake, but while fishing our way over to the portage (more smallmouth!) saw a pair of canoes with a group of 4 guys heading that way too. We have been seeing quite a few people in the BWCA – more than we expected. Instead of heading to a possibly crowded lake, we decided to portage to Ashdick Lake instead. The portage from Ester to Ashdick was much the same as I remembered, with a couple of muddy patches but not too bad. There are two sites on Ashdick, one of which is really overgrown and doesn’t look used much. We headed to the northern one and discovered that it was taken, so we ate lunch on a rocky point nearby. While we were eating, I saw a long trail of bubbles in the water and we were able to see a huge snapping turtle trundling along. We finally caught some not-smallmouth: a couple of northern (including a nicer 28″ one for Sean in the water near the northern site), AND Sean’s white whale was obtained – a nice largemouth bass that struck on a buzzbait. I also caught a small northern and a nice-sized smallmouth. So, a three species day! Somehow, we did not catch any walleye this trip. We tried to use the tips in Craig Zarley’s book, but it was so windy we just had a hard time with jigging. We saw some small perch in the shallow end of Ashdick as well.
Out of curiosity, we checked out the Ashdick end of the Swamp-Ashdick portage, just to see if it was as awful as its reputation. It looks like a big storm hit it earlier this summer, and there are a lot of fresh blow-downs that it looks like the forest service cleared out of the way. However, there are still several long stretches of deep mud, due to the fact that it quite literally goes straight through a boggy swamp.
While we were preparing to leave Ashdick, we heard some people heading through the Ester-Ashdick portage. We fished and waited for them to come through – they were loudly astonished that we were there. I guess they probably camped at the untaked crappy southern site, because we didn’t see them come back again – or they decided to brave the Ashdick-Swamp portage!
We were pumped after a really nice, calm, peaceful day of good fishing on Ashdick, and had a yummy dinner of taco mac ‘n’ cheese. We watched a family of five grebes hop up onto a low rock in our shallow bay for some evening preening and a nap. We planned to go to Zephyr Lake the next day, but were worried about the high number of people we had seen and thought we might not count on being able to camp there.
Sept 7: Ester Lake to Saganaga Lake (Bay 3/Westernmost Bay), with a side-trip to Zephyr Lake
Site: 339
We got up early and were able to get ourselves on the way around 9:00, and easily portaged from Ester back over to Ottertrack and then over the Monument portage to Swamp. We saw a lot of people heading to the Monument portage, and again were surprised by how busy it was. At the Swamp portage, we waited for a group to cross over from the other direction. They said that they had come from Zephyr Lake, so we were briefly excited – but they then said they were just out on a day trip. They didn’t seem to be very comfortable with portaging and when I commented that I love the site on Zephyr Lake they didn’t seem so enthusiastic about it, so maybe they weren’t having a good time. Alas.
Knowing that Zephyr was taken, we decided to head into the Saganaga bays to see if there would be a site open. The site right across from the Swamp portage was taken, but the next one in was open. Since it was still early in the day, we decided to portage into Zephyr and go fishing. First, we ate a really tasty lunch of tomato mac and cheese (Sean says it’s a keeper!). The weather was gorgeous again, with nice fluffy clouds and sun, with a very light breeze. We trolled around the lake and picked up several 13-14″ smallmouth (they seem to like the perch pattern rapela), including a 16″ for Sean and a massive 18″ for me. Sean also picked up a small northern. We have caught walleye on Zephyr before, but not this time. I was sad not to be able to camp there, but happy that we were able to visit. After a dinner of couscous, beef, and tomato, we had a relaxing night back at camp.
Sept 8: Saganaga Lake to Trail’s End
We woke up to a very foggy morning, so we took our time eating breakfast and packing up. By the time the fog cleared, it was a beautiful, sunny, calm day. We saw some otters playing as we worked our way through the bays, and had another northern strike but not land. We caught another 12″ smallie on the way out for good measure. It was definitely a trip dominated by smallmouth bass. We had a really easy paddle across Saganaga from American Point to the islands, and just really enjoyed the nice weather. We made a quick stop for a snack of the rest of our landjäger sausages and some granola bars, and made good time. We left around 12:30 or so from Trail’s end and got to our hotel in Grand Marais. We had an awesome dinner at the Gunflint Tavern and wandered around Grand Marais. Sean bought a piece of art for his office (a painting of a fire), and on the way home we overheard the announcer for the high school football game and decided to go for a bit. We fell asleep watching the Canadian news channel.
Secrets and Learnings: This trip, I cracked the code of the Aeropress. For the best morning coffee, use espresso ground beans, 2.5 TB per cup (or 1 Aeropress scoop). Fill to full with water, press down slightly and pull back up slightly to create a vacuum, and let sit for 10 seconds. Stir, plunge the press, and top off with water for an americano. Boom!
Photos by Sean, full album here.
Tippy Canoe Tales 