Voyageurs

The start line

I didn't know it at the time ,but 11 years ago when I threw my leg over the top tube and rolled out on my first Arrowhead 135,(I did 8, finished 6) I was getting ready for a loop around Voyageurs National Park. The Arrowhead comes very close to the park without actually entering it, but the maps included in our race packet showed the entire snowmobile trail loop we recently completed during the last few days of February.

Heading into the first portage from Kabetogema to Black Bay

We took a break here...it was nice 

 After finishing the race a few times I began looking at the map and imagining a ride out on the remote open lakes. The area can be so brutal in winter it became something I just pushed off, not wanting subject myself to the torture. Skipping a few years of that race has numbed my memory and I, along with my #1 adventure partner, ArcFlash, (AF, Arrowhead finisher 2013) began planning a return trip to explore more of the area. Without a definite route, the plan didn't materialize for over a year, until I started looking at some maps and made a call to the park. The ranger I spoke with was super cool and said the trails don't specifically prohibit bikes and he encouraged us to come up and enjoy the park. Within the period of my lunch break the plan was finalized, that night I purchased a permit for two nights of camping at a whopping ten dollars and began rounding up fellow riders.

Exploring...day one, while it was still  nice out

add your own caption

note the sideways flames

Morning of day two...bear locker I slept in 

ArcFlash still having fun in the blowing snow....EP fixing shoelace 

 What started as a possibility of eight riders, dwindled to three for the final tally. It would be ArcFlash, EP from Duluth, and myself riding where no fat-biker has ridden before (I'm pretty sure about that). The route was nothing huge or extremely hard, but it would be very remote, have the potential for extreme cold and may also be a difficult slog in deep snow. Distance was more of an estimate based on the snowmobile maps, but I thought 25-30 miles each day, the first two days and 12-15 the last would be doable no matter what. Two island campsites were chosen to correspond, one on Channel Island site R100 and Fish Camp Island R13. We set off at the Ash River Visitor Center in a clockwise direction. The planned route would have us cross Lake Kabetogema in a northwesterly direction, travel overland north to  Black Bay, head further northwest to Rainy Lake,crossing it in a southeasterly direction to Kettle Falls, more overland crossings south to Namakan Lake, and finally west to our start point. As a bonus we made use of the two ice roads totaling about 15 miles, the first one starting at our launch point and taking us all the way to the Kabetogema visitor center, approximately 11 miles.

Land/safety portages broke up the long stretches of open ice and kept tings interesting 

A proper lunch break with a camp fire on Kawawia Island

Day one was a dream, it was around 40 degrees, full sun and a very light breeze. None of us wore hats or gloves and rode with our jackets unzipped. The second ice road started at the Rainy Lake visitor,our site on Channel Island was only a couple miles away and a few hundred yards from the road.  We made very good time and arrived at camp so early we had time to explore, we utilized the road to head back to the visitor center,look around and drink some free hot chocolate. Heading back to camp,things changed......the wind shifted and the temps dropped. Our campsite faced directly into the wind with nothing for shelter. We built a fire, cooked and endured wind as long as we could. By 7pm we all retreated to our sleeping bags. Against my better judgement I brought a bivy sac..I hate bivy sacs. Instead, I slept half way into a bear locker that had it's opening flush with the ground. It gave me an awesome shelter from the wind as well as dampening the noise of it howling across the lake. When morning came the wind was still blowing, this put a little bit of a damper on the fun factor but there wasn't much we could do except get fed, packed, and rolling.

View from Fish Camp Island....second night camp spot

Camp second morning.    It snowed both nights 

As per Imperial Venture Corps bylaw #1   I had to carry my ultra light multi purpose eating tool 

Day two, crossing Rainy Lake was awesome, and was what I was looking forward to most on the trip. It's an impressive body of water with the look and feel of the boundary waters on a larger scale...as it should since the BWCA is just to the east and shares a boundary.  The ride started cold and cloudy with a bit of falling snow. The ice road ended soon and gave way to hard packed snowmobile trail, it's way marked by colored wooden stakes placed about every tenth mile. By mid-day the sun began to peak from the clouds, signaling us to pit stop on a nearby island and cook some lunch. We arrived at camp a little later this time, around 4pm. As luck would have it the wind shifted again, this time with a lot more bite, seemingly coming across 30 miles of open ice directly into our west facing campsite.  We oped to shelter on the east side of the island and stay out of the wind as much as possible. It was pretty comfortable, each one of us digging, and packing a body shaped hole in the snow to set up or sleeping gear. We stayed up a couple hours later that night, turning in around 9pm. I wore everything I had that night,preparing for a much colder evening than I had anticipated or planned for. I decided to forgo the bivy, because I hate them and they always make your bag wet. My bag was already holding moisture from the night before and made a nice crunching noise as I unpacked it from it's stuff sack.  I used the bivy as a tarp for my boots and other random stuff I had laying around....which turned out to be a wise choice since it snowed that night.  I slept well for the first few hours and woke about every hour after that until morning, typical for me.

AF...getting water.  all water for the trip was taken from the lake in areas where slush was present,which was everywhere and took little effort to find. Also, water was left untreated and drunken directly with no ill effects. I would not advise this but will most definitely do it again  

Last day...headed out into the nasty head wind.

EP and yours truly at Kettle Falls

Used my surly Moon Lander with 100 mm clown shoes and  Dillinger 5s ...worked awesome and as a package would be able to handle whatever conditions we may have encountered................. Canada is in the back ground   

Respite from the wind on another portage 

Still screened from the wind that was much stronger than the previous day, we leisurely cooked and ate breakfast, packing up and moving out around 11am. Upon riding out into the wind from our sheltered nest, it was apparent the forecast we were counting on was no where near that of which we were experiencing. On route, what started as crosswind would become a full blown, in your face, 28-30 below wind chill, head wind, the worst of which came in several bays on Namakan Lake. It wasn't all bad, the sun was shinning brightly and when we had the protection of the woods during the overland portages it was an enjoyable ride. We took a short detour to visit Kettle Falls, a remote outpost of sorts, complete with a hotel, and restaurant,as well as the dam known as Kettle falls,  too bad it's only open in the summer. From the falls we pushed on to our exit at Ash River visitor center battling the nasty head wind and warming up a bit where we could. We rode into the parking lot around 2:30 pm ,covering 80 miles of  lake ice and overland portages. Although not a massive undertaking, I had a fantastic time riding with two great companions on a new fat-bike route into the unknown...................next year it'll be bigger.

This was one of the hardest bays to cross...either Mica or Johnson Bay

It's good to know which way you're going out here 

The finish line

D Rider...................out                  

Lower Sand Creek

   

This looks really good right now since it's the middle of winter

 There really isn't an upper or lower Sand Creek....just Sand Creek. I'm calling it lower here because it's down stream of the main stretch that most people do, near and within, the small town of Jordan Mn.

One of about 17 log jams

Holes to the right of the kayak are those of a turtle's nest

  I had the pleasure of  running this class I and II watercourse a couple years ago with ArcFlash, it was a lot of fun but since then I wanted to follow it all the way out to where it joined the Minnesota River. Timing had to be just right, both rivers need to be up and based on their water shed this doesn't always happen at the same time in the summer months.  I'm going to go out on a limb here but,.....nobody really runs the lower section. I say this because it's really rough going and is choked off with fallen trees numbering in the high teens. This makes it sound like it would be no fun, on the contrary, it was exactly what I was looking for.

Turtle egg shells littered all sandy areas I encountered

This bridge marks the spot in which I would no longer have to negotiate log jams....next time I'll start here

 When I did this day trip last summer I did not see a soul for about four hours, or even a foot print for that matter. The creek was pristine in the way that there were no traces of anything other than animal, plant and natural entropy. The log jams and snags came in the first forested miles. Theses were negotiated by exiting the kayak and either pulling it over the top, being care full not to fall through the gaps, or going overland in the tall grass, brush and undergrowth. Once out in a more prairie like setting, actually a very large swamp, I was able to stay in the boat and just paddle. Again, not even a foot print, just birds and turtles.

Entering the Louisville swamp and the sandstone outcroppings that mark the area

Birds

The delta I got stuck in 

 As the creek entered a large body of shallow water known as the Louisville Swamp it formed a delta which was very difficult to pass through. The water was more of a suspended mud that my boat would not float in, it was stuck even though I could clearly see current about one inch deep running over the top of all of it. Walking was out of the question in mud that consumed about half of my paddle when I checked for depth, that would be creepy as hell anyway. I ended up uncoupling my paddle and using both pieces in unison to lift and push myself along in 6-10 inch increments. An exhausting battle against the mud ensued for about a 150 feet until I got to deeper water. I was now in the clear to paddle across the lake and on to the Minnesota.

Almost to the Minnesota

My ride back 

 A nasty head wind made forward movement a chore, but when I reached the bigger river I had a lot more shelter and enjoyed the last couple miles to my take-out. I exited in Chaska and rode my pre-placed bike back to Jordan, fatigued and completely satisfied.    

D Rider .....................out

Our Happy New Year

I'm not much of a New Year's celebration kind of person except for the fact that I get extra days off from work. The 2016 new year celebration was a four day retreat to the north shore. Along for the ride were Clover and Ragweed and their four kids, Scoot,Wiggles,Butterscotch, and Prof. X. They are related to us in a round about way and enjoy many of the same outdoor actives as our family....it was a perfect fit for fun and adventure. Since Clover and Ragweed were on a smaller time allotment, we got down to playing right away. Everyone voted for nordic skiing with the only problem being the snow near the shore of Lake Superior was sparse, affording only a short, groomed, cross country ski loop at Tettegouche State Park.....little did we know there was a much better spot further inland.  This worked well considering the spread in age and ability of our group of eleven. After everyone skied the loop multiple times, forward and back, or spending time on the only down hill section , we moved further up the hill for a hike. Our destination was the Drain Pipe on the Superior Hiking Trail. While setting up for skiing earlier, a guy in the parking lot suggested it might be something worth checking out. We set off as the daylight began to wane and returned just soon enough that our lack of artificial light didn't cause us any problems. Dinner followed soon after the hike, once finished, I began recruiting kids and adults for a camp fire down by the lake (Superior) at Black Beach.....about half stayed home. It was a near perfect night, almost no wind, lots of stars, and a slight glimpse of the northern lights.  We stayed long enough for everyone to tell their funny stories and catch up from the last time we saw each other as the final pieces of  wood were placed on the fire. By New Years Eve standards it was still early, we returned home around 9:30pm, ate some treats and watched movies. I never saw midnight, but I know from being awakened that most of the kids did. After breakfast the next morning we headed out on yet another hike to a river further north. The waterway was a little sketchy due to the fall-like temps as of late but that just made the hike more interesting as well as a challenge. We all had fun, and no one got wet. On our way back we stopped at Temperance River State Park and played around on the beach.....we all had fun,and EVERYONE got wet! Unfortunately after dinner on New Years day Clover/Ragweed bunch had to head home.  Our family still had two days in which to wear ourselves out before returning to school and work. Saturday morning I found the good ski trails while out driving around to get my morning fix of caffeine. After breakfast the five of us skied a long loop on the Northwoods trail system, and all the practice I have suffered through on Pike Island with my younger two has paid off. It was magnificent.....the sun was out, the trees were covered in fluffy snow and no one was crying. After skiing, I broke off on my own to check out the newly "labeled" fat-bike trails at Split-Rock Lighthouse State Park. Due to lack of snow they weren't grooming yet but the trails were still open....to everyone. The going was very tough in the 3-4 inches of soft snow that comprised of foot prints, ski tracks and a couple other fat bikers. the reward came on the return trip of my loop route when I followed close to the lake and got some fantastic views. By the time I got home I was pretty cooked and wanted nothing more than a relaxing night on the couch and time spent watching movies on my eyelids. My youngest, Big D, wasn't having it...before we left for the long weekend he and I spent a couple hours packing gear so we could go winter camping over the long weekend. No amount of bribery, candy or otherwise, could get him to back down from having me take him camping. As much as I wanted to stay in, I could not let him down and admired his strong will and resolve to go camping in the cold, wind, and snow. We packed gear for four but G Man decided to sit this one out....I envied him. Big D and I convinced SuperY to join us, this didn't take much persuading as these two are pretty tight...I call them The Buddies since they do everything together. Setting out from home, we hiked for a solid hour on snowmobile trails, crossing a lake, and choosing a spot as much out of the wind as possible. We had plenty of time to set-up, build a fire, cook hot-dogs, drink coke, and eat pop-tarts....way too much time. No matter where we stood the wind was blowing the smoke on us at all times. We didn't have much luck at staying warm either, the wind was just too much. The end of our night came when Big D put his entire foot through the ice near the shoreline and filled the boot to the top as well as soaking his leg just short of the knee. I stayed near the fire, boot in hand, doing my best to dry it while the Buddies got into their sleeping bags. It wasn't even 9 o'clock when I was already dozing off in my own bag. Let me tell ya...the buddies are weird, they were up for at least an hour and a half acting out cartoons and fail videos from youtube. I eventually had to take their headlamps and tell them to go to sleep. The next morning was tough, it was around 12deg F and the boot was frozen solid. We had planned on eating only a pop-tart, breaking camp and getting home in time for mommy to have our breakfast ready. I ended up cutting the tongue out of the boot with my hatchet just so he could get it on. His foot was cold only for the first 15 minutes and the remainder of the walk home was enjoyable.