Boundary Waters Adventures, part 6 “Finale”

Circa 2006

First and Last Trip In

By Anymouse

It’s hell to get old or as I’ve heard it said, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”  I have multiple replacement parts and figured I probably wouldn’t be going into the boundary waters again.  But my father who was alive when fossil fuel was still walking finally passed away himself in early 2006.  So now I had to make one more trip and take his ashes “up there” for his last trip in. 

When talking about the task at hand, my twins (now entering college) said that they wanted to go with to spread “Papa’s” ashes.  They had never been to the boundary waters and had never shown any interest in a trip of this kind before.  Their idea of roughing it would have been the “Holiday Inn without the pool.”  So it was that they were now going to go on their first “trip in.”  Thus, the first and last trip in. 

I don’t know what other rookies have pictured in their minds about going on a trip that requires portaging and paddling into the boundary waters, but I was told after, that it was “a bunch easier than what they expected.”  My son had expected that it would be a bunch harder than any of the training he had experienced for varsity sports and my daughter had also expected it to be more severe than her workouts during her high school tenure.  (Both were athletes who worked hard at their chosen sports.)  Apparently my talk of what it was like was much more slanted on the work side than on the pleasure side of the trips I had taken.  The experience beats what you think it will be like, in that the rewards far exceed any of the pain that might have been endured.  Besides, “that long nasty portage can help you find out what you’re made of.”  Just don’t use phrases like that to describe the experience or you scare away the first time trippers.  We paired up one of the kids with an old partner from some of the previous trips I had taken in.  So we were all set and just had to figure out what the agenda would be.

How do you cram or show forty-five years worth of various experiences from different trips into the last one that you’ll be able to take in?  An experienced partner (Ken) was able to clarify and cull the agenda down to manageable goals.  One trip does not a lifetime of “trips in” make, but it can point at some of the highlights; especially if you spend most of the time in the present rather than bemoaning what “it used to be like.”  Live in the moment.  (I usually don’t.)  Every other day was planned for recovery from the hard days, stay near base camp following each day trip that was taken.  The use of a good outfitter with ultra lite equipment also made the trip more pain free and more doable.  Everything was to be structured to be the easiest way possible while still seeing as much of the chosen area as possible.  This wasn’t going to be a forced march.

We stopped on the way up to Ely, MN to dump half the ashes in Yellow Lake in northwest WI (another of the “old man’s” favorite places).  Construction prevented us from getting to the lake and we settled on the Yellow River going into the lake.  Also gave my daughter her first opportunity to go “pee in the woods”.  “Damn it! I peed on my shoes.”  Outdoor skills have to be learned.  In order to get an early start and still be fresh on the first morning going in, we spent the night before in a motel in Ely.  We also swapped out two of our packs for two of the outfitter’s (theirs carried easier than the old Duluth pack and the WW II army issue with the heavy metal frame).  We were told that it would take about four to four and a half hours to get to our destination.  It took six, but I also heard the phrase “When does it get hard?”  (Oh to be eighteen again.)  We got lucky and got the exact campsite that my partner from previous trips and I wanted to get.  We got camp set, had supper and went to bed early as a storm blew in.  Glad that it let us get everything set before the weather turned.  As it happened, that was the only bad weather of the entire trip. 

The first full day in we decided to take the “old man” (mine that is) to the island where he and I had spent a fair amount of time camped on previous trips.  It’s not an approved campsite now, so he won’t be sharing it with anyone and will get to listen to the wolves, loons and other critters for eternity.  Plus the kids now know where they have to take my ashes when my time comes.  Then, off to Boulder Rapids to show them some things that don’t change with time.  The water levels might go up and down, but comparison of the pictures from previous trips show it’s still the same as was forty five years ago.

The second day in we decided to take a trip to Oyster Lake and maybe get a Lake Trout for dinner.  This is where my age, replacement parts and how out of shape I really was started to show.  Beautiful lake and wish we would have had more time to explore (they had the energy and all I had was the desire).  The trout didn’t cooperate and the best we could do was a couple of good strikes on my son’s rod that refused to stay on or come up from the depths we had to fish (August).  By the time we finished the last portage out I was one tired puppy and was soaking wet with sweat.  I sat down on a rock to recover and wipe my glasses dry to be able to see again.  Finished what was left of the water we had brought along and started the paddle back across Agnes to our base camp.  Yep! You guessed it.  When I got out of the canoe at camp I realized that the glasses were still on top of the rock at the portage to Oyster.  Ironic that we found another pair of glasses at the end of the trail on Oyster’s shore on the way in that morning.  “Pity the guy that lost them.”  Now I was that guy.  Again, it’s good to be young and full of vinegar.  They went back for the glasses while I prepared supper and they even had a swim at the beach by the portage.  It’s good when your kids don’t make the mistakes, because their father would have had to yell at them; instead he ate humble pie by making the mistakes and being helped along when he wasn’t able to carry his end of the bargain.  We took the next day off so their “old man” could recover by doing a little fishing on Agnes and planning what we might do on the following day.  It was decided that we would go to Ramshead and Lamb the following day.

Really glad that all that was loaded in the canoes was a daypack, because it was as I had remembered it to be when looking for the portage into Ramshead.  Getting through the wild rice and other water plants in the low water to the portage was an experience for the kids.  (“The African Queen” and Bogart come to mind.)  I asked them how they would have enjoyed trying it with full gear in loaded down canoes.  They didn’t think much of the idea and while contemplating the idea my son stumbled on and scared off a moose as he entered the portage trail into Ramshead.  “Gee they make a lot of noise when they go charging off into the woods.”  The idea behind the day trip was to bushwhack in on the eastern side of Lamb and see if we could find where an old ranger’s cabin use to be before the last forest fire had gone through the area.  Thankfully the portages into Ramshead and Lamb are fairly level and easy.  Bushwhacking on the east side of Lamb however gave the kids a few scares as their “old man” took a few spills on the steep terrain we were covering.  My surgeon had suggested that I had “no business going up there anymore and if I dislocated either of my new hips, they could just shoot me and leave me there.”  They must have used good parts, because I came through with flying colors.  (At least in my mind.)

Didn’t find the exact spot of the cabin, but think we got close.  Again, we didn’t have enough time for a good search of the area.  We’ll leave that search for another try on another day trip from the Nina Moose side without staying in the woods.  (A couple hours in and a couple hours out with the rest of the time spent looking for the site.)  It is just off the old portage trail that used to run between Nina Moose and Lamb.  Both the old one and the new one are not a lot of fun to do.  (The old one is basically non-existent now with the passage of time from its last use.  Hint!  There was however a spring for drinking water near its entrance on the Nina Moose side.) 

On the way out that day we ran into a party coming into Ramshead that made the comment that they had just run the “portage from hell.”  I suggested that if they thought that the one they just covered into Ramshead was bad, “They were in for a real treat when they did the one from Lamb into Nina Moose.”  (But that’s another story for another time.)  Had we not gone in earlier that morning and left a trail through the wild rice I question whether they would have found their way into the portage without a high degree of difficulty, if at all.  Knowledge is power and can save a bunch of effort if you remember where things are located or know that the portage map runs true.

After getting back to camp and thinking about the trip out in two days I told the kids and Ken that I wasn’t interested in doing any day trips the next two days.  I really wanted to have something left in the tank for the push out on the final day.  I suggested that if the three of them wanted to go exploring they had my blessing without the company.  (Truth be told, I knew that our little bushwhacking party was going to extort a price from me the next two days.)  After looking at the possibilities, Ken decided that discretion was the better part of valor and we all stayed close to home the next two days.  Some exploring of other campsites and areas around the lake by the three of them netted what was left of an antler shed from a moose for my son.  In all the trips up there I had never found one, so he one upped me on that one.  Sometimes it’s better to have no agenda or set schedule of things to see and do.  The kids were able to go off paddling by themselves and find out what the “stern man’s job” was all about.  

The last night in it was very clear and Ken and I decided to roust the kids out of their sleeping bags to look at the stars.  Living close to urban areas they had never seen anything like this before.  Earlier on one of the other evenings we had also been given a slight glimpse of the Northern Lights.  These types of sights are beyond description with words and for my money have to be experienced.  Even with the early rising the following morning it was worth staying up until it was dark enough to enjoy the view.

A little after six the next morning we had broke camp and were on the way out.  I experienced the same feelings I always did when leaving the woods.  The trips were always too short and especially this one because it was probably my last.  The beavers had spent the week we were on Agnes in constructing a “good bye present” in the form of a number of new dams on the Moose River for our trip out.  The kids now know what “busy as a beaver” means.  Their comments about the trip while there and on the ride home surprised me some.  They had really enjoyed it and my son said he would go back again.  I told him that we should have done this earlier as I wouldn’t be able to physically handle any further trips in.  I would be unable to do the work as required.  He suggested that all I would have to do would be able to walk in as he could do all the carrying.  Unfortunately I don’t think my pride would allow that.  Time will tell.  The scary part is the fact that on more than one occasion we ran into some ladies who I believe were in their seventies.  One pair was doing a loop that covered more territory than I would have tried when I was half their age.  Proof that for some, age is just a state of mind.

The trip home in the van was supplemented with my daughter constructing a list of all the critters we had seen and/or heard.  Heard but not seen, the wolf pups had been testing their new voices and learning to communicate with the pack.  It had also caused her to want an escort to the facility at the back of the campsite.  I understood why she wanted to sleep in the middle of the tent and not on the outside edge, but what she didn’t realize was that she had nothing to fear from mister wolf.  Had I pointed out all the piles of bear scat I believe that she might have had further to think about.  We had seen many critters large and small along with sign from the many unseen.  Some only heard from as they spoke with each other, it’s a shame I didn’t have my new hearing aids on this trip. (Ain’t much that still works the way it should with me.)

Future trips?  Perhaps a day trip in to get the GPS coordinates of where the “Ranger’s Cabin” off Nina Moose use to be, but beyond that I would be kidding myself and be a burden to whoever might be foolish enough to go in with me.  “The mind is willing, but the flesh ain’t.”  We did record a number of wave points with the GPS on this trip.  So if either of the kids or both decide that further trips in are appropriate, they’re all set.  Or perhaps a whole different area of the boundary waters is where they need to go to start their own list of special places.  At least they now have the first trip in for reference.  For that matter, any wilderness area can work as long as you do your homework.  When I started there wasn’t any GPS and I survived, but I had better teachers.

“Excerpts from SIX (6) FROM SIXTY (60)”

Copy right TXu 2-234-819 January 2021