[Coasty]

Conversations from previous trips – Christopher “You should come with me on a winter trip in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota to see what really cold temperatures are like”. Jason “Sounds like fun, sub zero temperatures, just what I have been looking for”; Christopher “it would be good training for Denali…”. Jason “ok, I am in, how about the first weekend in February” and so it went… so here is the trip report from my grand experience in the BWCA Wilderness. Flew in to Minneapolis on Thursday night and stopped by Christopher’s to pick up some last gear from his house then on to Roy’s to meet up with the rest of the gang – Roy, Chris, and Mike. We sorted gear and food then began loading the rental van when Roy asks “Christopher, did you bring the extra snowshoes?” Crap – it is midnight time to drive back to Minneapolis from St. Paul to get the snowshoes and some Lipton Noodles we needed for one of our meals. Back at Roy’s by 1, crash on various couches and futons to rest before the trip to the BWCA. Uneventful drive the next day to Hungry Jack Lake, our starting point for the trip. Day one was only a 3.5 mile hike to a campsite on Rose Lake. We had to cross two portages, and two lakes. It was a new experience for me to walk on a frozen lake. It is just bizarre to be schlepping across a lake. They are large windblown white masses. Crazy. Even crazier is that we camped on the lake for the first two nights. There were only a couple of inches of windblown snow on the lake so stomping a platform for the MSR Dragontail tent was a pretty easy task. Staking the tent to ice was a different challenge. We used ice screws and made “V” thread anchors and ran the guy lines though there to anchor the tent. Very Cool! I was the only person intending to use a tent everyone else planned on sleeping under the stars, but they did have a BD Megalight as a backup shelter in case we had a heavy snow storm. We ate dinner and every felt good so we went for a night hike to Rose Falls. It was awesome to be hiking at night on the lake, sort of surreal. Once back in camp, I was encouraged to sleep under the stars since it was supposed to be our coldest night, and I relented and did so. It was only about 10 – 11 F not bad at all, and I was completely comfortable in my Big Agnes Hahn’s Peak -20 F bag and VBL. Using a VBL may not suit everyone but after this trip I am sold on using one. I slept well, but woke up with a wicked headache. It had started to snow lightly and I found it annoying so I stumbled to my tent with my bag crawled in and slept another couple of hours. When I woke up the second time, I still felt horrible, but got up anyway. My sinuses behind my eyes were pounding and I felt nauseas. I managed to start sipping water and kept it down, after an hour or so the rest of the group mentioned going on a day hike. I had started to feel a little better, enough so that I took an Ibuprofen and drank some tea. I managed to get the lid off of my Osprey pack and into waist pack mode and put on my snowshoes to head off with the others. Soon I was feeling better and enjoyed our snowshoe along the Border Route trail which runs over the headlands in between the lakes along the border with Canada. There were some nice overlooks and lots of good snowshoeing terrain. 6 hours later we returned to our camp on Rose Lake and had dinner and hot drinks. This would be the coldest night but I decided to sleep in the Dragontail as did Christopher. We are considering using this tent for an attempt on Denali and wanted to see how it worked with both of us in it. It had snowed all day and was snowing pretty hard that night we decided to see how stable the tent would be if we anchored out all the guy out points. We drilled more “V” anchors into the ice and ended up with tent guyed out with 12 points. It made the tent very stable and made for a nice taut pitch. More than enough to withstand the couple of inches of snow that we received overnight. Day three was our marathon day. We loaded up the packs and sleds and did an almost seven mile loop to get to our final campsite within a mile of the van. We hiked the length of Rose Lake to Long Portage, then to Duncan Lake. The length of each lake was probably close to 2-3 miles but they were really draining. When hiking in the Cascades, there are trees, elevation, rocks – all sorts of things to distract me. On the lakes it was just white as far as you could see and as I hiked it seemed nothing really changed perspective. I found that hiking next to one of my partners made the miles go by much quicker. Our last night was at a campsite on Moss Lake. We ended up camping in the designated spot on land since the lake as a bit slushy. A great night of food and camaraderie and finally some stars. It was the only night where we could see any stars. Map reading skills were very important as well. Portages are not marked, so it was important to pick out features such as points of land and islands to make sure we found the portages. We only walked past one portage the entire trip. Reading the lake was also important. They are frozen but not everywhere. Some places there are streams flowing into the lake and they may cause the top layer to get slushy and cause you to punch through the ice. I guess I am baptized into the BWCA culture since I broke through on our marathon day. I was following Christopher on Rose Lake and saw his steps getting slushy and I mentioned it and changed direction towards the shore and took a couple of steps and punched through. It was a scary experience and caused me to stumble, getting a glove drenched and my left pant leg wet from my shin to my knee. I had only punched through a couple of inches of slushy ice to hard ice below but it was certainly scary. Christopher the voice of reason reminded me to back up onto good ice and we found a way around that area. From that point on I paid more attention to the ice and slushy sections and successfully navigated without any further issues. The temperatures were pretty warm the entire trip. Our coldest night was only 7-8 F and we reached highs into the 20’s each day. I didn’t need my expedition puffy jacket except when we all put our jackets on the first night. We all had red expedition jackets so we all put them on and became the red jacket gang. I was pretty happy with my clothing system for the trip especially with the milder temperatures. The marathon day was very windy but my soft shell pants and jacket did a good job shedding wind and I used a Buff and a Psolar balaclava for warmth. I had to add Alti Mitt Shells over my liner gloves for warmth but this ended up being too hot so I shed the liner gloves and just wore the shells. The only gear issue I had was breaking a Black Diamond Elliptical Spire trekking pole. I slipped coming down a snow covered staircase and caught the pole in a hole and bent it side ways. It was only bent, then I tried to bend it back to its original shape and it snapped. Oh well, they are coming out with some new elliptical shaped poles with a shock. Those might be fun to test. All in all a great trip. We would have liked it to be colder by about 20 degrees, but the warmer temperatures made it easier to deal with stoves, food and other things requiring dexterity. I will post pics...when I figure out Picasa

[Kat]

What an interesting TR and perspective on a different part of the country. Glad your "dunking" wasn't more serious!

[ActionBetty]

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . Looks like alot of fun, it's good you got to test out your gear ..nice tent

[peltoms]

What did you end up using for footwear, since it was surprisingly mild some of the choices would have been overkill. Any wolf howls at night?

[Coasty]

[Grizzy]

Cool TR of an interesting area It looked like you were using snow shoes? Those lake photos made it look like that would have been a great place for ski's.... Very pretty area that I've only seen in summer

[Layback]

What? No ice fishing?

[Bryan K]

Jason I'm glad you had a good time in Minnesota. I am shocked that you got such warm weather!!!! very unbelievable, I was expecting to hear about sub-zero nights and single digit days with winds. Reading the names of the lakes you visited makes me miss living in Minnesota, but then again I really like the mountains. Glad you didn't go all the way into the water, lesson #1, when you see slushy tracks don't go closer to the shore Can't wait to see the rest of your pics.

[GeoTom]

Thanks for the report. Brings back memories of my two week winter training in Minnesota while I was in the Army. We did have temperatures of -20 F at night on the three nights we slept in tents. Luckily, we were in barracks most of the time.

[Newt]

Thanks for the TR and photos Coasty. Kinda gave me an in on what it could be like. My partner is from MN and has told me she'll get me up there in the winter sometime. A trip is kind of in the making for late summer/early fall/late fall this year when the bugs are down. Whenever that will be.

[Matt]

Boundary Waters in winter sounds cold any way you put it. My dad's last job for the Forest Service was converting the BWCA to a wilderness area. He had some interesting negotiations with resort operators about finding non-motorized alternatives for some of the portages. During some winters, when I visited my parents for Christmas in Duluth, the high temperature never got above -20 the whole time. And that's by the lake, where it's warmer. (BTW, in Minnesota, "the lake" automatically means Lake Superior, just as "the mountain" means Mt. Rainier here.) My dad's first job in the Forest Service also was in the Boundary Waters. He told me one time when he was out in the backcountry traveling on one of the lakes, his partner fell in and was completely soaked. Luckily their supply plane came by a day early and picked him up. Why they were way out in the middle of nowhere in winter I don't know. Government job.

[Coasty]

[Lochsa]

Fantastic TR on a fantastic area! I lived in MN for a few years and visited the BWCA in the winter twice. The coldest trip was 10 - 20 below on Angleworm lake in Feb 06. You're right - sleeping on the ice is kind of creepy at first, especially when you hear it gurgling under your head.....what I really enjoyed was the howling I heard every evening at sundown like clockwork. Sweet music.

[yew]

Coasty: How deep was the snow?

[wildernessed]

Never made it up there into Minnesota - Wisconsin for any trips, but did a solo backpack across the Porcupine Mtn. Wilderness in the UP of MI. Always wanted to canoe in the Boundary waters.