Boundary Waters paddling TR

“Oh yeah 15 miles that day.

Man, my spelling is rough!”

“Well thank god you had to take a dump or wemight nowt have heard about day three!


Thanks.


Saw quite a few bald eagles in Maine as well.


I came sneaking around a corner in my kayak .. . within a paddles length of shore, just floating over the rocks, no sound at all .. .and startled an immature one out of a tree about 15 over my head . .. ..startled the beejeezus out of me too . ..but I did not turn the kayak into a grumper.”

“Wildlife is amazing. After a portage I started out in a lake. I looked back at a beautiful shore and there in a tree was a large bird feasting. It was enjoying a large carcass, which hung down 3 to 4 feet. It was a bloody mess and unidentifiable. I thought it was very cruel. Birds are supposed to eat birdseed.”

“day 4

Woke up to glass smooth water. Todays goal is Thomas Lake some 13 portages away. We got underway and for the first time I rode duffer.

It sucks. I personally would much rather paddle than ride cargo. When paddling you can more easily shift your balance as opposed to being forced to react to others shifts plus even with a pad it's just not that comfy. No thanks.

We had a series of portages to reach Kekabic Lake and they mostly wound through a chain of very small lakes. The portaging was easy by now but it almost seemed like it was more of a hassle to unload and reload the canoes only to paddle for a couple of minutes only to do it again.

On a couple of the lakes we emerged from the portage trail and began reloading the canoes and swarms of mosquitos would just mob us. At points it was brutal and reminded Capt. Obvious and I of Colby Pass on the Sequoia side. Bug freaking central. Luckily the bugs don't move as fast at the ones we get in Florida so swatting them wasn't a big deal but they move in such volume as to be a real pain.

A couple of lakes further we were nearing the end of a portage and the trail lead onto a narrow boardwalk out into the lake with a small partially submerged platform in the water for reloading.

Well crap all the guys with packs are standing in the way of the guys carrign boats. SO I decide to step off the boardwalk onto a grassy hummock. The hummock was super spongey and flexed alarmingly under my boots. Ho boy, moose muck.

Moose muck is decaying vegatative matter that settles on the bottom of many of the lake up there. It's very much like quicksand. It looks solid untill you touch it and you sink into in up to your knees or even deeper and is a pain to move through.

Patrick tried to follow my lead in getting out of the way and just when I opened my mouth...

Me- Carefull where...
~~SCHLLOOOORRPPP!!~~
Patrick- CRAP!
Me- ...you step.
Danny- Oh yeah. Lots of moose muck here.
Patrick- Thanks for the heads up.

Patrick was in the muck up over his knees to mid thigh.

The canoes got in the water and it was time for me to abandon my perch. So I selected my path and...

~~SCHLLOOOORRPPP!!~~
Right up to mid chest while carrying a big butt food pack.

A couple of the guys jumped to help pull me out and Patrick dove for the camera.

Danny- LOL! Good call on going for the camera Patrick.

Interestingly enough the muck wasn't muddy like I expected. Imagine shredding your fall leaf pile into duff. Now mix that with just enough water and a bit of earth to make a gluey mixture where the leaves are just before floating away and thats it. It would make awesome fertilizer.

We got situated and continued.”

“Reminds me of some vernal pool encounters back in Michigan! "Hey look! The pond dried up! Lets take a shortcut!" Shlump! In goes Georg, up to his waist in his brand new "hang ten" white jeans (it was the seventies!) Heh heh heh!”

“day 4 cont.

I spent the rest of the day and part of the next pulling moose muck bits out of my pockets.

Nearing lunch time we cam upon an awesome campsite. Apparently it is known as the hilton. The campsite is situated on top of a stone cliff overlooking the water. There are steplike stone leading from up from the water but there really isn't a good spot to tie off the canoes. the campsite also sported several good jumping ledges over a very deep section of the lake. We dove down and checked out the area to be sure and spent a fair amount of time jumping.

This was a great spot and we considered cutting our day short to stay here. Eventually another crew from Sommers came by and asked if we were staying. We talked about it and decided to move on plus it would be a real pain to drag all the gear up and back down the rock face.

We began to get underway and I decided to test my theory reagrding the "Interperater hug." It seems the other crew was guided by a big burly guy. So I shouted out "Interperater hug!" and the other guys joined in.

Danny looked at us with a "you bastards!" look.
Us- Awe, come on Danny! It's a tradition!
Danny- You guys are going to make me hug THAT?
Us- LOL!

Danny tried to slide by but the other crew started in too so he gathered himself up and lept over the side of the canoe....

...and caught his foot on the gunnel on the way out.

Sploosh! Over goes the canoe with Sean, Mike and all the gear in their canoe.

It was rather difficult to help out with unswamping the canoe because we were all laughing so hard.

We got them righted and headed onwards. Ribbing Danny the whole way. We wound our way through the next two lakes and as we rounded a point into Thomas LAke, out goal for the day, Danny, Sean and Mike got stuck on a submerged rock shelf. Sean leaned over to help free the canoe and.....

....Sploosh! Swamped again. At this point the rest of us were no help at all and Danny was beet red.

We made camp on Thomas lake laid out the wet gear and commenced fishing. We were determined to eat fish for dinner. Mike hooked a nice Walleye but it slipped the hook right as he was pulling it over the gunnel into the canoe. He must have worked that area for another couple of hours trying to get the fish again. It didn't happen by dinnertime though and we were hungry so we cooked and went back to fishing. Around dusk Sean borrowed Mike's rod and went back to that spot, dropped line and wham, hit and reeled in the same fish. Mike was in a state when Sean came back with "his" fish caught in the same spot on the same rod using the same lure. God was that funny. Sean the fish thief. Kelly brought in a nice northern pike and Sean caught anothe smallmouth bass aroung dusk.

It was late and we had all eaten so we relased the fish and sat around the fire a bit untill the bugs drove us into the tents for the night.”

“day 5

At this point we only had about 18 miles back to the base and we could easily cover that in a day. On our last day the base won't let anyone come in early (before 3pm) and the closer you get to moose lake the more crowded it gets and we were liking the lack of people. We were having a great time but we had a serious jones to really catch some fish so we decied to just make today a very short day and fish like mad. Tomorrow we will do 12 miles and be out around the right time.

We were still joking about the swamping but at this point almost everyone had fallen out of a boat or lost their balance at a portage at least once. Well, except for Patrick who took that as a great point of pride.

We set out goal as Jordan Lake and had a another small chain of little lakes to cover. In some of them the bugs were pretty bad. Capt. Obvious made an impromtu song about mosquitos and unrequited love sung poorly in an over top bad French accent (a nod to the French Canadian Voyagers whom at this point we had developed a great interest in) that about killed us with how bad and funny it was. I'm glad no one else was there to be bother by it. Man, it was bad.

We hit Jordan lake some 6 miles away by mid morning and had an early lunch. Camp was set up and we spent the rest of the day fishing or lazing around camp.

Unfortunately this was the worst fishing spot for us yet. Nothing, nada, zilch.

Oh well, it was still fun. We fooled around and eventually went to bed when the bugs came out.

That night I set my alarm at midnight so I could stargave a bit. Of course they were stunning and the bug weren't too bad so I sat and watched for awhile. This was the first time I saw full dark or stars the whole trip. I had hoped to see the northern lights but they didn't show for me that night.

I spend a fair amount of time refelecting on my years with this troop and the amount of progress we have made with the boys over the years and the things I count as failures and what I could have done differently. It's amazig to me to think that when I got here this troop cancelled trips because of rain forecasts and couldn't function on a trip without a trailer full of gear and a corner store nearby and now they confidently disappear into the woods for a week at a time with just what is in their pack, are happy even in the poorest of weather and when it's time to return to town they get bummed when they see a road. After a bit I turned in.

Tomorrow was shower day.”

“Thank God for shower day.”

“Great report.

Did you or have you considered a boundary waters' canoe trip w/o a guide?”

“Yes but the whole point of doing it this way was so the Scouts get to experience it through the official scout program. You have to understand that to a scout the high adventure bases (Philmont, northern tier and seabase) are the superbowl of scouting. It's where most of the guys aspire to go.

Next time we will most likely make it a DIY trip like all our other trips.”

“Thanks, That's reason enough. And interesting.

Getting the picture:
High Adventure

Northern Tier High Adventure Base”

“I went to Documents for Downloading, but I could not get the PERSONAL EQUIPMENT LIST. Most of the other stuff came up on my screen, but some reported errors.

Maybe I should remove Acrobat and reinstall it?”

“Yes, that would be wise.”

“While reading the post the word Leadership keeps coming to mind. You backed up that thought when you summarized how far the troup has come. How much of your personal success and growth to you credit to the leadership skills you learned in the Scouts? My guess is that you're going to say 80%+.”

“Well, I attribute most of my successes to what I learned from my parents and scouting experiences and my failures to ignoring those lessons. Seeing as my dad was my scoutmaster (and the only good one I had at that) and mom was just as involved as dad, I'd have to say 100%”

“I'm fairly bored with the civic club I'm in, my son is 4, and well, I need to start thinking about future involvement in groups. I'm Pres elect, so I'll be involved in the civic club for 2 more years. That might be a good time to change how I spend my community involvement time. My son would be 6 1/2 or so then. The current troup does a bunch of camping on my bosses land, but not much backpacking.

I always regret leaving scouts when I did. None of my close friends were in Scouts and I let the peer pressure affect my decision. Now I realize none of my hobbies and interest are considered mainstream or normal. It mattered then, not now. But alas....”

“My son is 6 1/2, and we're going on his first Cub Scout campout Friday night. He's a Tiger Cub.”

“I've seen a few cubscout trips where it's parents' as well as the kids' first camping trip. Yeeyikes and stand back!”

“My son had his first Cub Scout hike the other day. It was at a nature preserve on the edge of town. There was a big group, Cub Scouts, some Boy Scouts, and some family members. The trail was relatively flat; the biggest elevation change was maybe 15 feet, and the trail might be a little more than a mile long.

About a third of the way around, some of the adults were complaining of being wore out already.

In addition, parts of the trail were extremely muddy. People were getting their fancy tennis shoes all messed up, lol...My son and I were two of the few who were wearing boots.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, it oughta be a lot of fun, lol...”

“I keep wanting to take my son on an overnighter to Cheaha, but I'm going to wait until the heat dies down. He loves to camp. Weekend after next we'll be camping at Cades Cove with all the other rednecks.”

“I have nothing against groups, but I elected to just up and go with my children, fishing, camping, tobogganing, backpacking, etc. Whenever there was an opportunity, we would go. Group outings can be great. But the more people involved, the more problems and waiting(sometimes).”

“day 6

We were planning on sleeping in as we only had 12 or so miles to do today with only 4 portages and having to walk a barely whitewater section (we could have floated it easily but NT expressly forbids us to run even swift water ~rolls eyes~) and could easily cover it by noon.

I couldn't sleep so for the first time in a very long time (4 years in fact) I was out of the tent before Kelly. I got a nice photo of sunrise over the lake a mist rising over the water. Kelly came out of the tent after me then Danny was up and we made coffee and talked. We let the guys laze around a bit and finally declared that it was time to move. The guys made no effort to move and made a big show of not wanting to budge. We goofed for a bit and then it was time for the Thermarest Viper to make an appearance.

Kelly unzipped the door of their tent and began fanning the mosquitos into it. As the guys scrambled to close the flap. I, possesed by the supernatural powers of the Thermarest Viper, made a running leap into the tent on top the four guys within and began rolling back and forth over the occupants while opening the valves of all thermarests present that strayed in the grasp of the Viper. It was an epic struggle but the Thermarest Viper prevailed.

Once we were all up we decided to go ahead and completely clean all of our crew gear issued to us so we wouldn't have to mess with it at the base.

We reloaded the canoes and headed for the base. It was another wind free morning and the paddling and portaging was easy. Before too long we hit Ensign Lake and began to see more and more people in campsite along the way but we were the only ones out on the water. At the last portage of the trip Capt. Obvious decided to run the whole thing carrying a canoe. Ummm...alright. Don't fall, K?

We passed one of our other crews who were spending the morning fishing before heading back.

Us- Any luck with fishing
Them- (while casting a line) Oh yeah! Great luck. (line hits water) We must have caught 60 (fish strikes line and he reels it in) err 61 fish.
Us- (slackjawed) We hate you.

Eventually we picked a place for lunch at upper Moose lake 2 miles from base and hung out. Later we saw another crew heading in and the guys decided that thy wanted to be first in today. There were a few islands in the lake and we shadowed the other crew down the lake. We also spend a fair amount of time fooling around. Both groups would loose sight of each other and we would paddle like hell to be the first ones to reach the other end of the island and then turn around and make like we were paddling the other way when they came back into view. Yeah, I know. Low amusement threshold.
Eventually we realized it was our other crew so we rafted together and talked for a bit. Thjey hada great time and were able to catch fish too. Bummer, no fish for us. Patrick was going on an on about how he never fell in the water so I decided to do something about it when the time came. I began slipping things that can't get or were not secured we to the other canoes when he wasn't looking. They guys all knew I was up to something so they stayed mum. Eventually we broke off and headed for the dock.

The other crew knowing something was up just tailed us. Capt. Obvious and Patrick were in my canoe and the Capt was pulling hard to be the first one in so I went with it. About 25 feet from the dock in fairly deep water I looked back at the rest of the guys and they were watching me intently. Patrick started cheering that he never dunked once. So I waved my paddle in the air reached over patrick who was riding duffer right in front of me and handed him my paddle.

Me- Hold this please.
Patrick- Sure want me to paddle us in.
Me- "No, I want you to swim in." I said as I stood up, bent over, grabbed the left side gunnel and pulled hard in a backward somersault kinda motion and completely flipped the canoe over.

The rest of the guys cheered, and Patrick came up out of the water with a suprised look and laughing hard.

Me- Gotcha.
Patrick- Ya think?

We scrubbed down the boats and began turning in crew gear. The camp directed us to our off water cabins and we got cleaned up. We enjoyed the rest of the time by getting ourselves cleaned up, hanging out, calling home catching up with our other two crews and poking around the camp trading post store.

I was interesting how three very similar groups could go to the same place at the same time and have three completely different awesome experiences.

That night I couldn't sleep. It was way to stuffy in the cabins and the other crews were chattering away most of the night. Ah let 'em. They are still excited about thier trips. At one AM I heard one of the other crews guides come up gather the guys and head off down the trail.

Well, might as well see what this is all about. I followed them up to the base's high point and off in the horizon there they were, the northern lights shining above a massive thunder storm. That was pretty cool seeing the lights and the lightening flashing. Well, I could catch a fish for the life of me but I got everything else I wanted out of the trip.

The next morning we are breakfast with Danny and said or goodbyes. We had a great time and so did he.

The drive back to Minneapolis and the Flight back home were uneventful. Well, except for the impromtu football game in the Memphis concourse waiting area witht the flight crew of our next flight. And everyone was delivered to their waiting families back in Jacksonville.


So that it.
My last trip as the Scoutmaster of Troop 623. The end of an era. It's been a fun ride. Very hard at times and very rewarding at all times but now the huge amount of time and energy spent on other peoples sons needs to be directed towards my own daughter and wife. I'll still be active, just not nearly as much as I was. I intend to fade into the woodwork for a spell and re-emerge as an Assistant Scoutmaster who handles just the high adventure program. Beyond that, I'll be Girl Scouts for me in a few years.

Well, unless something changes and it is both.”

“Group outings can be great. But the more people involved, the more problems and waiting(sometimes)."

That is an indisputable fact.

Any kid who has a parent who likes to just get, go and do is a lucky kid.”

“Congrats on a job well done.”

“Awesome trip and phenomenal TR. Your guys will have those memories forever.”

“HPM - now that Scouts is going to take less time you need to make the big trek to Sipsey in March!”

“We will have to see about that.”

“Thanks for a great report. Obviously, you revived many memories for me.

It seems to me that it is time for you to consider positions in the District Offfice of the Boy Scouts. Move up, not out! Your experience and expertise is needed.

Incidently, I had each of my sons tip over our canoe alone, so that they would have the experience. Once they've done it, they are not too likely to panic should it happen to them in the future.”

“We do train them in swamping and unswamping. By the time we go on a real canoe trip it's old hat.

I dunno, District and Council level Scouting just isn't the same. It's more about selling and numbers than it is about actualy working with the kids. I like to see the guys grow and mature.”

“HPM,

I felt the same way about District and Council positions. It took me a couple of years to find the right job, I'm on the district training team in charge of teaching the outdoor program to new leaders. It's a lot of fun.”

“Now there's a thought.”

“What an enjoyable read!
Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us, Mike! :-)”

“You say that now...but just wait until the Thermarest Viper strikes!”

“Will the Viper be making an appearance at Ocala? As much fun as it was at BR, it'll have to be even more fun on a bunch of hung over adults!!!!”

“No one can say when the TR Viper will strike.”

“
Unhappy campers

You were lucky to have good weather.
On July 4, 1999, storms caused serious damage to nearly 400,000 acres (over 600 square miles) of forests in and around Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).”

“That was a big topic of discussion up there. Most of the affected areas have been cleaned up by now (as far as I am aware)

We went past a spot on Knife Lake (I think) that was on the edge of the blowdown. It was amazing. The hillside looeked as if a giant knife had sliced down into the tree cover and laid over the trees on one side so they were all going the same direction and left the trees on the other side standing untouched. Like spreading butter.”

“Picture yourself in boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalde skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”

“Nigal, that song is banned because it spells LSD. Such things aren't allowed on TT.”

“simer190 was up there when that storm hit, ask him about it sometime when he gets back from his camp job in a few weeks.”