Phocal Adventures

Finally got around to picking up some of the knee pads for my Fjall Raven pants. Kneeling to photograph birds will be much more comfortable now.

I need some time before I can share the complete story of my trip. It was an experience that taught me a lot about what I did right and what I didn’t. I also realized that I made some unusual preparations, which ultimately saved me from a terrible situation. You might be wondering why I'm back home a day early. A brief recap will clarify that.

On Day 1, my phone stopped working, and by Day 2, I may have left a piece of my right pinky finger in the Boundary Waters. I then planned to paddle out on Day 3, but the wind picked up, and the lake was white-capping and flooding the bow of my canoe. I made my way close to the shoreline and found the first open campsite to call it a night.

Today, on Day 4, I woke up to a beautiful day with calm waters that looked like glass. I captured a fantastic photo of Henry enjoying the stunning sunrise.

I have hours of video documenting the entire trip. In a few weeks, I hope to release my first documentary about what to do when s**t don’t go right.

Disclaimer: I am fine.

Well, going to get a later start than I wanted. I’m starving since I didn’t have dinner last night, nothing was open when I got into town. No fast food in town, so at a dinner to get a good breakfast to fuel me for the long day.

Well, those rain storms are encroaching on my trip. Looks like I will probably see some rain on my last day. That’s ok, I’ll be in my last lake with no portages left when it hits and I don’t mind fishing in the rain.

The unit I’m in is right by the main road. Didn’t feel comfortable leaving the boat on the car even though it was locked to it. So brought it inside.

I got to Ely about 2035 and all the restaurants closed at 2100. Didn’t want to be that guy coming in just before closing. So hit up the local Circle K for some donuts and a strawberry milk. Dinner of champions.

Cute little cabin. The bed in the room with the boat isn’t very comfortable. The other bed is really comfortable.

In a few hours I’ll be heading north…

I couldn’t have asked for better weather. I’m good with Saturday being cooler since it’s a long day on the water tomorrow. Hoping that rain on Thursday doesn’t arrive early.

Initially I wasn’t going to bring shorts for swimming because the water is going to be cold, the ice just came off this week. But since the weather is going to be so hot, I threw a pair into the bag.

I managed to get all my stuff treated with permethrin and packed up. The orange bag weighs 48 lbs, and the black one weighs 26 lbs, so it's not bad at all.

Tomorrow, I will pick up my portage yoke—it finally arrived. I will also do my final shopping for some food items and fishing gear that I need. After that, I will organize and pack the fishing gear.

I don't plan on doing any fishing on the way in. I have a long paddle on day one, so I can't mess around. Therefore, I will put the fishing gear into the orange bag. If it is hard to get to, it will stop me from getting it out. Afraid that if I start fishing, I will lose track of time and not reach my destination. If all goes as planned, I will have an hour or two to fish that first evening.

Going to try something new...

I have always used Garmin's Map Share for my trips so people can follow me. They have a new thing called Live Track, which is much simpler for people but doesn't have all the features of Map Share. It will not share my routes (my planned trip); it will show a map of where I have been. I will try this and see what it looks like when I get back. Here is the link to my Live Track: https://live.garmin.com/Phocal

The attached photo is my planned trip. The red line is my route in, from west to east. The blue line is my intended route to visit the pictographs. The green line is an exploration route I want to do. Not sure which route I will do on day 2, will make that decision when I wake up.

Sometimes, finding the portages can be a chore. So, I have marked all of them with a waypoint so I can easily navigate to them. I will see how well it works and how well I positioned the waypoint.

Will pin this post for people to easily find while I am in the BWCA