Welcome to tahoe's BWCAW 2000 Route.
2000 September Trip
This year's trip was over the first week of September, starting the Saturday before Labor Day. We made the Wahpeton exit and headed to Duluth. Aside from having the brakes fail on the vehicle and almost running over an Intrepid and a Durango, it was a quiet ride! We met up with Lee Hegstrand (a fellow CanoeCountry Listserver member) at the Duluth Pack Store and he joined our party. After replacing the Master Cylinder in the vehicle in Virginia, we traveled on to Ely. Our overnight stay at CanoeCountry Outfitters was exactly what we had been looking for.
We put in on the Little Indian Sioux River, north entry point, and headed to Shell, where we base-camped. We day tripped around Lower Pauness Lake, around Devil's Cascade, following the Little Indian Sioux into Loon. From there we went to Heritage Creek, back into Heritage Lake, and "home" to Shell. Devil's Cascade was interesting, but a difficult, vertical portage. Luckily, we didn't do it loaded with gear. We were told there were pictographs beyond the portage, but we were unable to find them.
Loon Lake has some wonderful, sandy beaches near the campsites going into East Loon Bay, if you don't mind being in a motorboat area. The portages into Shell from Lower Pauness and Heritage Creek from East Loon Bay were very muddy due to low water levels at this time of year. The Little Indian Sioux was a small path through reeds and wild rice for most of the trip.
Shell Lake was green with Algae, presumably due to its shallow depths, as were the Pauness Lakes. Heritage Lake was colored by tannen, but much clearer than the others. The south campsite on Con Island was roomy and comfortable. However, when the wind came up, it was terribly blustery on the point. Two of the dome tents suffered structural integrity while the only "A" frame held up quite nicely.
Once again, we saw an eagle. He let us get within 80 yards of him before he flew off. The wildlife list ended with loons, gulls, a beaver, mice, jays, deer, and the eagle...no moose :( But lots of float plane traffic!
**Map curtesy of Superior National Forest Map Server, available through the links page.
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