Campsites: Amnicon Falls State Park, BWCA Sites 335, 1996, 398 (and a lunch stop at 333)
Lakes: Seagull River, Saganaga, Zephyr, Swamp, Plume, Ottertrack, Ester, Ashdick
Day 1: Friday, June 24th (Madison to Amnicon Falls)
We tried this last year and it went pretty well, so we tried it again: Rather than take a full vacation day, we took off from Madison around 2:00 in order to get to Amnicon Falls State Park, which is in Wisconsin just south of Duluth, MN. Leaving Madison no later than 2 seems to spare us the a large part of the Friday afternoon traffic nonsense – key to driving sanity! Since we already have all our camping supplies and feel pretty fresh, we can forgo the cost of a hotel room and just stay there. Last year we did our BWCA trip in early September, and Amnicon was utterly deserted except for us. In the height of summer, not so much! We tried to go to bed early because we wanted to get on the road before dawn, but our neighbors were night owls. We also forgot that there’s a really active train track that goes right near the campground, which we did remember from last year the first time we heard a train go through. We might try Pattison State Park next year and see if that’s a little better. We had a great dinner at Thirsty Pagan Brewing, and called it a night.
Day 2: Saturday, June 25th (Amnicon Falls to Zephyr Lake)
We got up early and had a quick breakfast at the Superior Perkins before heading up the North Shore. We made good time, and got to the Tofte Ranger’s Station before they opened at 8AM. Luckily, they have an outdoor restroom facility so we just hung out for about 40 minutes without needed to find a place for a pit stop. The weather was turning really iffy, with dark clouds and a pretty consistent wind. The rangers issued our permit, and we heard from them that there was a thunderstorm passing through the Ely area with pretty strong winds and hail, and that it would be heading down toward the Grand Marais area later that day – near our entry point on the Seagull River! We were also warned that a windstorm the previous week had done a good amount of damage, and that some campsites and portages might have downed trees. We made mental notes to look out for “leaners” – trees that are about to come down – before setting up our tent. By the time we got going up the Gunflint Trail from Grand Marais, the sky turned dark. It seemed like it was 9:20 PM, not 9:20 AM! Heavy rain and lightening made for a pretty intense drive, but we made it to the Seagull River put-in at Trail’s End just as the sky was starting to clear up, and we decided that it was safe to put in at around 11:30. We saw a couple coming out who said that Saganaga Lake, the biggest water we’d need to deal with, wasn’t too terrible. We had plastic containers with us that had held sandwiches for the car ride, which we had hoped to dispose of at Trail’s End. We had not realized that it’s a pack-your-own-trash-out campground. We vowed to remember to get rid of any stinky trash before leaving Grand Marais next year. No animal bandits in my car, thanks.
We paddled to American Point and then into the first three bays of Saganaga. Sean caught a medium-sized northern on his new husky jerk lure that he was trolling, which was our only catch that day. The weather was starting to feel iffy again, and there are only four sites in the bays. All of them seemed to be taken, which put us in a little bit of a tough spot. We could portage into Zephyr, which only has one site, or head toward the Monument portage and hope the Ottertrack site on the other side wasn’t taken… if that was the case, then it would mean at least one more portage into Ester or another 1.5 hour paddle to the other end of Ottertrack lake. We asked the guys camping at site 338 (who were out for a paddle) if they had seen anyone around Zephyr, and they said no. We rolled the dice on Zephyr, and lucked out! There’s a little portage there, and we started to hear thunder just as we were getting underway toward our site. Luckily, it’s a pretty quick little paddle.
We set up our tent and got our new CCS tarp up. We had experimented with tarp earlier this year, but weren’t quite happy with the set up at the time. I purchased Cliff Jacobson’s Forgotton Skills video before our trip, which has a really helpful piece about proper tarp set-up, and it was well worth it. After a quick nap, we decided to eat and get the camp a little more homey as the rain had stopped. A nearby birdcall revealed a pileated woodpecker nest in the dead tree right above our tent! There were two babies who were leaning out, very excited to see mom and dad bringing home dinner. We brought two bear barrels of food along on this trip, which are very improved by carrying cases. We have two brands of bear barrel, one from Garcia and the other from Counter Assault. It’s easier than hanging the food, and nothing has messed with them yet. We store them far away from the tent area (usually far down the latrine trail). Of note – the barrels (especially the Counter Assault) are not waterproof and will take on water in a heavy rain, as we discovered on what was luckily our last day two years ago. We solved this by storing ours under a small piece of plastic painter’s tarp.
The Zephyr campsite is up there among my very favorites that I’ve visited in the BWCA. It’s all on its own on this lake, so you have the whole place to yourself. The ground is pretty sandy, and there are plenty of shady trees and some open areas. There’s also a great view of the sunset from this site, and there’s the opportunity for a nice breeze. Unfortunately, whoever was at the site before us did not practice good stewardship. We found all kinds of little pieces of litter, including bullet casings, fishing line, wrappers, rope, and zip ties. It seems that they also cut down a small live pine tree. We packed out as much as we could, but it was really disappointing that we had to do so.
Day 3: Sunday, June 26th (Zephyr Lake – Day trip to Swamp and Plume Lakes)
We got up to the sounds of really excited woodpecker babies. We ate a half-portion of the huge dehydrated breakfast I had put together: dehydrated eggs, rice, and salsa. It was a very windy day, and we ended up using our fuel stove rather than our beloved Emberlit stove. After breakfast, we decided to try our hands at fishing. On Zephyr, Sean caught a smallie. We decided to try our luck over on Plume Lake, which has an unofficial portage from Swamp. In Swamp, Sean caught another northern on his husky jerk, and I caught the world’s tiniest smallmouth on my crawler harness, which every fish species in the BWCA seems to be attracted to. The unofficial portage into Plume lake is pretty well traveled an in good shape – better shape than some of the official portages. We stopped there for a lunch of granola bars and Landjäger sausage (which is like, the ultimate yummy traveling food for the hungry paddler). We actually bring our bear barrels with us on our day trips, as they’re not too much extra to carry, and then we have our food right there for lunch.
Sean’s goal in life is to catch all five major BWCA game fish species in one trip. He hit four last year, and was only eluded by the (fairly rare for the BWCA) largemouth bass. The others are: smallmouth bass, northern pike, walleye, and lake trout. Plume Lake reportedly has largemouth bass in it, so that was our mission. I lost something invisible right away, which we will count as the largemouth bass because there certainly weren’t any others that we saw. Sean caught another northern in Plume as we headed out – the wind was making things pretty difficult. Back on the Swamp side of the portage, we decided it was an opportune moment to pump water. I lazily cast my crawler harness while that was happening, and fully unexpectedly had a big hit on my lure! Of course, the wind was blowing us around, Sean was trying to get to his camera without dropping our water, and I was fully engaged in fighting this big whatever-it-was, so we had a couple of nice drifts into some spiderweb-filled deadfall on the shore. Fun! It ended up being worth it, and was the biggest fish I caught the whole trip – a very nice 22″ walleye. We fished our way back to Zephyr and cleaned our fish on a convenient point across the lake, wrapped it in foil, and cooked it over a campfire. We eventually decided that our next fish would be filleted. More work on the front end, but the cooked result would be better. We had couscous and rehydrated veggies for a side, which worked nicely.
We had seen a big snapping turtle hanging out in the water near our campsite shore, and this evening we were “treated” to the site of two of them mating in the shallow water just offshore while we were eating our dinner. Ah, love! (We made a mental note to give any of our tied off fish plenty of room to run with all those snappers around!)
Day 4: Monday, June 27th (Zephyr Lake)
Today started windy and rainy, so we were glad that we had figured out the aerial tarp situation. We left some twiggy branches under the tarp so they wouldn’t get wet, and thus had plenty of fuel to make coffee and cook some oatmeal on the Emberlit. I added walnuts to the oatmeal, which was deemed “good” by Sean. Nice protein and texture addition that I’ll continue. Coffee was accompanied with Bailey’s Irish Cream, and all was right with the universe.
We went fishing for a little bit. Sean had a classic northern strike right near the shoreline – boiled right when his lure hit the water! We nabbed a smallie and a couple more northern before breaking for lunch, which was a potato stew. I have had a lot of success with dehydrated ground beef, so I tried ground turkey with the same technique but with middling results – it was a little too chewy for our tastes (but perfectly edible). Beef would go better with the potato stew in the future.
After lunch, we went out fishing again and Sean caught a walleye with a wonky parasite on its tail. We tied it with a long length of paracord to give it room to run from the snapping turtles, and left it till dinner. Wonky parasite notwithstanding, it was filleted (lesson learned!), and chunked. We boiled it up and then added the pieces to spicy quinoa and mixed veggies for a yummy meal. After our early dinner, Sean monkeyed with the tarp a bit to make it into an A-frame over the hammock. We got the bug netting onto the hammock, and I settled in with my book for some cozy hang time.
Since we had some light left and the drizzle was starting to clear up, we decided to go out to try fishing one more time. I had a large silver rappela on, which seemed interesting to a few of the walleye around the fish cleaning point. That plus the amazing Zephyr sunset really put a cap on a pretty nice, relaxing day. We decided to pack up the next morning and see if we could get the first site on Ottertrack on the other side of the Monument portage. If not, we’d portage into Ester and camp there.
Day 5: Tuesday, June 28th (Zephyr to Ottertrack)
We weren’t in any huge hurry to pack up on this lovely day, but we eventually made it into the canoe with all of our stuff, and headed toward the Monument portage after finishing our eggs and salsa breakfast meal. We met a guy and his wife coming out the opposite direction. He warned us about some mud on the portage trail, but more importantly told us that the Ottertrack site that we were interested in was empty when he passed it an hour before. The Monument trail ended up being more than fine. I remember doing this portage my first time in the BWCA and thinking it was such a pain, but it really is a well-maintained trail with a nice landing on both ends. There aren’t too many muddy spots, and the ones that exist are simply not a big deal compared to the mid-calf deep (and higher!) mud pits that you might have to contend with. We’ve gotten to the point where we can do a portage with two trips (the multiple trip noobie experience is why I hated Monument my first trip in the BWCA). I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to do a one-trip portage unless we get different packs – the ones we have are meant for backpacking, and you just can’t portage a canoe while you’re wearing one. They sit too high above your head. However, we’re both fine with doing two runs over a portage if we’re hauling all our stuff. Fishing trips, we’ll just do one trip over a portage.
We found our favorite Ottertrack site empty, so we decided to grab it. We stayed here in 2014, which was my first BWCA trip. At the time, I had not appreciated that this site is sort of a key to happiness for a weary traveler. In 2014 and 2015, we traveled from the Seagull River entry point to this site. The first year, it was empty and we camped there, and there was much rejoicing. The second year, it was taken. If it’s taken, you’ve just committed yourself to going over the Ester portage (more on this portage later), going over the steep Gijikiki portage, or traveling another 1.5 hours or so down to the other end of Ottertrack to get to a cluster of sites there. Or go back over the Monument from whence you came, and look for a site in Saganaga. It really means rest, or another few hours of work after what might have been a long day. (In 2015, when it was taken, we muttered curses and paddled toward the other end of Ottertrack, after which I was completely tapped out.) This time we were coming from the much closer Zephyr site, so we decided we could roll the dice and have some energy for other options if it was already taken.
We saw many blueberries at this site, particularly on the ridge just to the southeast behind the site. Sadly for us, they were still green. The next few weeks will be awesome for blueberries at this site, though!
We had cheesy lasagna and Parmesan for lunch, which was pretty good – just a generic store brand meal-in-a-box with dehydrated additions from me. Dinner was taco mac ‘n’ cheese, which may have been the Annie’s brand. Less salt, but also less flavor. We’ll do the cheap stuff next time to really feel luxurious.
We did end up doing our only snorkeling expedition this day. Sean found a lure with a leader on it, and was psyched because he had lost a leader the day before. We also found a cool engraved silver fork with a cabin and woods scene on it, but forgot to take a picture and decided to leave it undisturbed. Just a couple of smallmouth were hanging out, though we did see a lot of little fry running around.
Day 6: Wednesday, June 29th (Fishing trip to Ester and Ashdick)
We left for Ester mid-morning, after a breakfast of oatmeal and walnuts plus coffee. The Ester portage is very close to our Ottertrack site. We waited for a couple to come through from the other side, and got going. We used dealie bobs for the first time to secure the fishing rods and paddles to the canoe, which Sean carried, and I carried our bear barrels and day pack. That worked pretty well, but did add a few pounds to the overall weight of our heavy aluminum canoe. The Ester portage is also not quite the same level of wonderful easiness that the Monument affords. There are a few spots of ankle-deep mud and some unstable rocky areas. We decided to go right to Ashdick to try for some largemouth. Sean caught a decent-sized smallmouth just near the campsite by the Ashdick portage with his deep taildancer. The Ester to Ashdick portage wasn’t super fun either, with the same mud and rocky bits (lots of nice fist-sized ankle-breakers). We ended up being okay with not having done either of these portages with all of our stuff the day before, but agreed that they were doable. Just not super pleasant.
It ended up being a really windy, sunny day. Sean caught a northern with a spoon near the northernmost Ashdick site, which was about the last fish we caught that day. We decided to stop for lunch here, and thought this site was actually pretty nice. It had some shady spots, and a nice rocky front porch area that goes all the way down to the lake for some good shore fishing spots. The fire area is exposed, but the tent pads are pretty sheltered. Someone left their compass behind on the fire grate, so I now have a new compass. We had a yummy lunch of tomato, beef, and couscous (which is one of my favorite meals), and lazed for a little bit… before an unexpected raincloud dumped water on us for a few minutes! It blew over fast, but the wind really started picking up. We decided to head back to Ester. Keeping an eye on the increasingly threatening-looking clouds, we decided to scrap an idea of heading toward Rabbit from Ester and just head back toward our Ottertrack site. The waves were really starting to rock, and those clouds were starting to look a lot like thunderheads.
At the other side of the Ester portage, we looked over Ottertrack and made a game-time decision to book it the 10 minutes back to our site. As we left the portage, we heard thunder. I saw lightening in the distance. We hit the gas – and laid flat out for our site. In retrospect, we probably could have turned around and headed back to the portage, but we ultimately made it back to the site in one piece just as the rain starting to pour. We’re lucky, and we would not risk it again next time. We wait out the storm in our cozy tent.
After the weather passed, Sean set up the aerial tarp again (so nice to have!), and we made mac ‘n’ cheese again for dinner. After dinner, we went back out with the canoe to fish a little bit. No fish, but we did get rained on! The plus side, we got a great view of a really pretty triple rainbow over our favorite campsite.
Day 7: Thursday, June 30th (Ottertrack to Saganaga Lake/Englishman Island)
We had a windy exit from Ottertrack in the morning after we packed up. We stopped to point out the Ester portage to some people who were nosing around that area, and settled in at a steady pace behind another larger group in front of us. We eventually caught up with them at on the Ottertrack side of the Monument Portage, where they had decided to break for lunch. That would have been fine – it was a group with little kids – but they had their stuff spread all over the portage landing and seemed like they were in no hurry to move out of our way. There’s a lot of room at this portage landing, but there was literally no place for us to land and unload, plus their group size would have put us over the limit of individuals allowed at the portage. I probably would be a little more forgiving had they made any effort to hurry, but they seemed happy to hang out for upwards of 30 minutes.
They eventually all got over, and we were on our way. We had thought to stay in one of the Saganaga bays on the way out, and fished our way through those. All of the sites were taken already. The first bay of Saganaga really opens up into bigger water, and the wind was up. We didn’t really have much of a choice other than to head toward American Point, which has four sites on it. We stopped on shore for a quick break, downed some peanut butter and tortillas, and gritted our teeth. It took us about 90 minutes to get up to American Point, with a stiff breeze from the north and some pretty nerve-wracking waves. We faced north pretty much the whole time, moving sideways tight to shore in case we capsized. There’s a small island about halfway toward the end of the point where we took a break in the lee, and beheld the not-very-comforting sight of a buzzard circling around the trees there. By the time we got to the first site on American Point, it was clear that it was taken too. There was a guy on shore who offered for us to come up and rest for a few minutes, and we gladly took him up on it. (Thanks Rick from New Richmond, WI!) He said he wasn’t sure if the other sites were taken, but that we could stay at that site if we needed to. We decided we’d press on and check the other sites and see what the options were.
And the other three American Point sites were… taken! American point is near the outfitters’ drop-off/take back point, so we kind of figure that everyone decided to stay close to that area. But every site from the tip of American point to the last bay of Sag was taken – if we had been going in and hoping for any of these sites, we would have been screwed. We decided we were equidistant between Rick from New Richmond’s site and more island campsite options, so we decided to press on. Englishman Island seemed empty, so we chose the less-exposed southern site of the island and gratefully made landfall.
This is a pretty exposed campsite on a small island with two sites on it. The island is picked clean of any deadfall for a fire, so if you’re staying here and hope for a fire you’ll need to forage elsewhere. There is a decent amount of poison ivy around, so keep an eye out. It’s not high on my list of desirable sites, having not many sheltered areas for tent pads and just not a lot of shelter in general. We set up the tarp and it helped block the wind a little. Fortunately, our stuff stayed pretty dry under the canoe, having been covered with our rain tarps throughout the journey. The clouds started breaking up in the west, although the wind stayed up most of the night. We had unstuffed peppers for dinner and congratulated ourselves on our hard work, even though we didn’t catch any fish after paddle trolling for several hours that day.
Day 8: Friday, July 1st (Exit to Seagull River)
We slept in a little bit after our hard work the day before, and got up around 8:00. Since it was our last day and we had a little extra coffee, we got an extra-strong pot this morning. After the last oatmeal meal was consumed, we broke camp. The aerial tarp, tent, and the plastic tarp over the tent had kept us pretty warm and wind-proofed the night before. We had a slight breeze from the north again, but it was sunny and pleasant. We fished our way through the islands, the only sad part being that Sean lost a taildancer to a deep snag. Almost made it out alive, little dude! After our first year of getting lost in these islands, we had made it through with no problems in 2015, and did great again this year. It was very nice to have the wind behind us, so we didn’t have to work too hard.
We hit our landing around noon, and packed up the car pretty quickly. We decided to eat lunch in the Trail’s End parking lot. Their camping area has a map that indicates a picnic area, but that appears to have been entirely replaced by the landing/loading dock area. Some sort of picnic area would be very welcome at this campground! Sean went up to the store to see what kinds of stuff they had for sale, and I heated up our Zatarain’s Spanish rice and cut up our last two Landjäger to go in them – it goes so well with Spanish rice, kind of like a hard andouille. By the time the rice meal was ready, Sean had come back with a real treat – some cold Coor’s from the store! I’m usually not a fan, but boy did that taste great! We toasted our success, cleaned up our stuff, and headed to Duluth.
We stayed at the Black Bear Casino and Hotel in Carlton, just outside Duluth, to avoid paying holiday weekend room rates in town. We’ve stayed there before, but might not again. I’m usually not overly picky about hotels, but the BB is more run down every year. Neither of us generally loves casinos, either.
Day 9: Saturday, July 2nd (Duluth to Madison, via Minocqua)
Since we weren’t in a hurry to get home right away, we took the scenic route home. We crossed the northern part of the state via Ashland, and went to Blueberry Lake in the NHAL. Blueberry Lake is aptly named, and now that we were a little farther south than our Ottertrack site, we found and picked plenty of ripe blueberries. After a quick stop for lunch at the Minocqua Brewing Company (try their wild rice beer!), we headed back home.
Conclusions
We did a lot of comparing between our late-June timing of this year and our late August/early September timing of our earlier two trips. We really prefer the later time frame. The weather is still generally pretty good (although you can never predict!), the bugs aren’t so bad, and most importantly there aren’t as many people. I had never been there in high traveling season, where many of the sites in the main corridors were taken. We don’t have children, so using that to our advantage and going up after most of the schools have started seems like it’s a good strategy.
We tried two new kinds of repellent this year that seemed to work pretty well – Permethrin (which is applied to clothing prior to the trip, just do it outside and keep the clothes well away from pets until they dry), and Natrapel, which is applied to skin. I found no ticks on myself, and Sean only found one climbing up his leg after a portage. I don’t think we’ll be 100% bite free, but this stuff helped a lot. Last year on our September trip most of the bugs had died off, and I don’t think I applied bug spray once! Heaven.
Toying with the idea of putting in at a new spot next year. Already dreaming of the next trip!
Photos largely taken by Sean, AKA AmateurHour. Full album is here.
Tippy Canoe Tales 