Boundary Waters

Day 1:
Meg and I ventured out bright and early to head over to Ely, MN to start our journey. We rented our canoe from the Boundary Water Guide Service. In hindsight we should have gotten the Kevlar canoe instead of the metal canoe. Portaging with a canoe that weighs over 70lbs will be a memory we can't forget. We loaded up on bug spray and sun screen and set off!

Taking a little break mid day.

The first view into BWCA; Wood Lake

One major thing we didn't notice about the maps is that the portages were listed as a distance in "rods" which is about 16.5 feet. So the first portage into Wood Lake was 196 rods but really it was about 3200 feet. This was a rude awakening into what we were getting into for the next 3 days, but we were ready to do it.

Enjoying a lunch break

After a few trips we finally made it to the water. Such beautiful and pristine water. Meg was the wonderful navigator and once we were orientated it was a nice relaxing row across the water. 2 more portages and we were able to get to our camp site on Good Lake. We were so physically exhausted that we passed out pretty quickly after setting up the tent. We did wake up for a bit and were able to see the beautiful stars that were visible.

We really didn't want to get up

View from our first campsite

Day 2:
The physical exhaustion was real. We slept until about 9am and once we were all packed up we headed to the next portage, which was a bit tricky to find. We did a change of course because we couldn't find our original portage so now we had a detour into Moist Bay. Our goal was to get to an island in Wind Bay but an un-foreseen detour had us camping out in Moist Lake. We found a nice a spacious campsite and were able to lay out and just relax.

This was Hoist Bay where we had a pit stop for lunch

I will say it would've been fun to do some fishing or other activities. However then we would've had to carry along that equipment and it just wasn't in the cards. This was definitely a break from the constant need to entertain ourselves with smartphones, computers, or the outside world. What we were making for food were freeze dried backpacking meals. They turned out to be surprisingly tasty and super filling. All you have to do is boil water and put the water int he pouch and let that sit for a bit and then enjoy. They hardly took up any room and only got lighter as we ate them.

Really couldn't get enough of BWCA

Day 3: 
We were ready to head out bright and early. We were nervous that we wouldn't make it to our pick up place on time. When we woke up we were surrounded by a giant white sheet of god. It was eerie and serene. We waited until about 7am until we could at least see across to the other side of the lake so we could get some bearings.

It was a good view up for a nap

Meghan was at the helm and led us through the 2 portages we had left that day. The last portage was especially difficult with slick rocks and steep inclines but we made it to Moose Lake. It was a beautiful sight to know that we had made it out of the Boundary Waters in one piece. I know I personally felt great about my sunburn, bruises, scrapes, and dirt covered body because it was my first time out there and we had made it.

Our final campsite had multiple places like these

When you're in the total isolation of the Boundary Waters you learn to appreciate a lot of little things. Like Holiday breakfast sandwiches, hot showers, radio. We learned a lot about our equipment, ourselves, and the land. You get to enjoy what it's like to be just you, the water, and the woods just to be reminded how awesome of a place Minnesota is.