German Expressionism hits the North Woods

Seen on a well-used National Forest outhouse at a ski trailhead in Ely:

 
This well-weathered man reminded me of the woodblock prints of the German Expressionist, like this one from Max Kaus.

When we arrived in Ely for our winter break, the woods were full of snow, but it was a crusty, angular, and shall we say depressing snow. Like the angular cuts in those woodblocks. Actually, there was a lot of German expressionism during our week up in the Ely woods.

Like my older son, in his first year of German, teaching his younger brother how to insult someone in that great language ("No, no, no, it's 'dein-e' Mutter, not 'dein' Mutter!")

Or when the old German scholar himself whoops it up sledding down the steps of the snowy cabin. Ach du lieber! Was für einen Rutsch!

When my 75% deutschstämmig wife expresses herself, is that German Expressionism? 

What if she takes the express route right down a moody Boundary Waters lake? I think I've seen this scene in a Ernst Kirchner print.

Der viele, viele Schnee...

Approaching Eagle Mountain

This is heresy. The hike to Eagle Mountain is not all that great.

The hike up Eagle Mountain, Minnesota's high point, is terrific.

To climb Mt. Everest, you must first schlep for a week to basecamp, then start climbing. To climb Denali, most parties nowadays get flown in to Kahiltna Glacier and avoid days of criss-crossing glacial streams by foot.

To reach Eagle Mountain, you must persevere through two, TWO miles of hard hiking through flat and rocky terrain. You cross three boardwalks, and in those few instances the woods open up just a bit and you can see around. Otherwise, it's a long and monotonous hike over a lot of rocks.

Then you get to Whale Lake, and you get a burst of energy. There's blue skies and blue water and across the lake an imposing "mountain," not actually Eagle Mountain but its little sister.



The trail loops around Whale Lake for a third of a mile until you find this fork in the trail:



The long approach is over. The climb begins. It's 400 vertical feet to the summit, spread out over 0.7 miles of trail. Views start to open up off to the south. Finally you get the big view, out over the BWCA:



Now it's all worth it. The two miles of rocky trail on the approach. The grunt up the mountain. The water in your bottle never tasted sweeter, nor the PB&J more delicious.

Enjoy the hike. The whole thing, if you can, not just the last climb. It's all good.

Blowdown? What blowdown?

It was ten years ago this summer that a wave of destruction passed over the BWCA and rolled across the North Shore and Lake Superior. I remember how the sky turned green in Little Marais and my weather-wise wife exclaimed, "Something's coming!"

Ten years later, it takes an experienced eye to see the impact. I hiked around Blackstone Lake east of Ely this weekend. I remember the trail well before the blowdown, as it was the main corridor for Outward Bound groups headed in for rockclimbing at Ennis Lake. And I hiked it five years ago, when you could still see trees all flattened in one direction.

Our son, on that trail this weekend, had been a one-year-old toddler exploring my parents' cabin the day of the blowdown. Both he and the trees have grown up. Where once we saw fields of dead and down trees, the new growth of aspens and hazel and balsam fir has closed off the sight lines and hidden the downed trees. Trees grow faster than boys, if you can believe it. It's a green tunnel now, and only the experienced eye really sees the blowdown anymore.



This trail, like most of the dayhiking trails affected by the storm, was on the edge of the blowdown. Destruction in 1999 was not complete here. It was far worse in the heart of the Wilderness, and the long-distance trails like the Kek are still recovering.

Many pine trees, nimbler than the old aspen, withstood the wind here. The pines remain high above the new growth. And in some places, like the north shore of Blackstone Lake, a forest of tall red and white pines remains:



If our kids can't see the impact of the windstorm now, how long will it be until it's just a memory for all of us? The trees will keep on growing even as my boys top out at 6 feet tall. I'll be one of the old-timers soon enough, talking about the Storm of '99 to folks not even born then. They'll politely nod and smile. Blowdown? What blowdown?

Boys just wanna have fun

Who-da thunk it? Roasting apples on a BWCA fire grate. A few minutes each side over the fire, and then apple pie yumminess.

My son Hans and his friend Albert found all sorts of ways to get their jollies in the wilderness during their inaugural BWCA trip last week.

What, no library? Tell your own stories.

No online games? Learn new poker games in the tent.

No dessert on night one? Roast some of the heavy apples before the big portage the next day.



And if there's no waterslide, find your own water park, a cliff around the corner on Ahsub Lake.

As a long-time YMCA Camp Widjiwagan wilderness guide, I felt liberated on our BWCA trip. I didn't have to worry about entertaining, about moral lessons or prayers before meals. The kids could paddle around the corner and out of sight to look for cliff jumping spots. Which they found.

At Widjiwagan, fun was a path to spiritual development. Now, fun is just fun. Perfect.

At portage's end

It was a dark and stormy night...

No, wait.

It was a dark and muggy day. Three first-time wilderness trippers and one tired old guide were on their third day already, six portages past puddly bogs from Disappointment Lake to Ensign Lake. It had been wet, but more to the point it had not been dry. Just because it doesn't rain doesn't mean you stay dry. The sky hd been a deck of clouds for days. Humidity and canoe bottom bilgewater gets into everything. "Dry" clothes. Camera lenses. The "powdered" milk. No sun to dry them out.

The tired old guide had slept in his swimsuit the night before, ironically the only thing that was dry. The passion for cliff jumping among 13-year-old boys took the the Tired Old Guide---and his once-dry underwear---by surprise. Did those boys actually take a canoe out on their own to scout jumping locations from our campsite on Ahsub Lake? Still, the Tired Old Guide was NOT going to borrow dry undies from his son.



The day was in August, the bugs were supposed to be gone. And there the bugs were, along every portage trail, ready to swarm. Yet the three first-timers made it through. It took them headnets. And an ample dousing in Off at the start of each carry.

Seeing the smile on his son's face at portage's end, despite the heavy food barrel on his back, the Tired Old Guide realized that while the camera was fogged over, his underwear were, finally, dry. Life in the wilderness could go on.

Roughing it on the Border Route Trail

Is the Superior Hiking Trail too cushy for you? Too many bridges over streams? Too many handrails on those steps? Just can't stand seeing other PEOPLE every 20 minutes?

Man up. Get out on the Border Route Trail. It's rough out there!

I've been looking for trails to include in the forthcoming Hiking the North Shore. For me to include a trail in a book, the trail needs to be fairly easy to find and not too difficult to follow. The BRT can be hard to find and hard to follow.

If you're accustomed to the Superior Hiking Trail, you'll find the BRT less maintained and less accessible. You'll also find it equally dramatic in its scenery and far more wild and uncrowded.

The BRT is 65 miles long and connects the Superior Hiking Trail with the Kekekabic Trail, cutting across the BWCA Wilderness. It's accessed off the Arrowhead Trail and the Gunflint Trail.

The BRT is known for its dramatic scenery. The border lakes area in the tip of the Arrowhead has a geologic story unique to Minnesota, the result of which are long narrow lakes edged by steep cliffs. The picture above is from the BRT looking east across South Fowl Lake past the Pigeon Cliffs area.

But, ooh, it's rough out there.

Just for example, the main indicator of the trail is blue flagging, like this:



The trail doesn't get enough foot traffic to grind in a treadway (the bare dirt place where your boots hit), nor do the trail builders create a treadway as they do on the Superior Hiking Trail.

The BRT was built by volunteers and the Superior National Forest back in the 1970s. It predates the SHT by a decade. Yet it still feels fresh and wild and under construction, like the first draft of a trail.

Did I find a trail to include in the book? I think so. The access off the Arrowhead Road up by Macfarland Lake is easy to find, and the trail east of there is fairly easy to follow. And the views are gorgeous.



Is it rough? It's rough AND tough. But if you're accustomed to the Superior Hiking Trail, with its wide and frequent clearing and consistent signage, be careful. Get a map at the Lake Superior Trading Post and bring a compass.

Yeah, baby.

Women who run with the wolves

It was March 1992. I could hear the wildness in her voice. My lovely wild wife, on the phone. She had been out on the ski trails outside Ely and was calling me at work. Deer hair on the ski trail. Spine tingles. Wolf scat. Fresh steaming deer carcass in the middle of the trail. Invisible eyes in the forest trained on her.

The women in my life run with the wolves. Sally runs with the wolves. And now, so does our poodle Chloe.



Now here we are in April 2009. How lovely it is to ski across a frozen lake in early spring! The snow is flatter and smoother than any groomed ski trail, and the great spaces call to you to explore. For a human or a dog, it is temptation revealed...and easily fulfilled.

We left the boys in the cabin and took our skis to Fenske Lake, a lovely lake off the Echo Trail that has only a few summer cabins on it. We spun around the shore, tucking into bays, marveling at the lateness of the winter and the hold it had on the land. Chloe was in doggie heaven, spinning circles around us, dashing this way and that, unfettered.

Nearing the narrows, we saw a bald eagle sweep down out of a white pine and disappear across the lake.

As the time approached mid-day, the ice began to groan and pop with expansion, the first hints of breakup only three weeks away. The deep sounds gave me just enough anxiety to spice the day and make it wild.

We had made it two-thirds of the way around the lake, past the portage into Little Sletten Lake and nearing the same narrows where the eagle had been. Chloe stopped her spinning and circling on the ice. For the first time that day, she dashed up off the lake and into the woods. She reemerged on the ice just as Sally and I rounded a point to see an instantly familiar shape on the ice 50 yards ahead. Brown and red, a leg sprawled this way or that, and, importantly, a few bare ribs up in the air. The freshest wolf kill I'd seen in years.



At first, Chloe ran right to it. Then she stopped, five yards out, just like she does with a stranger on the beach. Did the deer carcass still smell alive? Or did Chloe smell the invisible wolves in the forest, just as Sally had sensed it? Chloe is so fuzzy and matted, her fur might have been standing up straight along her spine and we'd never know it. But she was definitely spooked. Submissive, as if trying to keep her butt in another time zone, she slunk another foot or two closer to the carcass.

I came closer. Signs of its freshness were everywhere. The stomach and intestines lay on the ice a few feet away, intact. The rib cage had been broken, but the deer's eyes were still dark and clear.

Our instinct? Get away. Partially because we felt the wildness and the power of death and knew it should be given its space. But also because we worried that Chloe would get brave and try to feed. Even though she is a citified poodle, she is genetically still a wolf with a spiritual taste for raw flesh.

These woods of northeastern Minnesota are wild because they have wolves. Visitors, human or canine, can taste that wild. Like any bracing tonic, it might make your hair stand on end. So much the wilder!

The Last Temptation of Winter

Stand on a Boundary Waters lake in early spring and experience temptation. The surface of the wilderness lake is flat and smooth with well-hardened snow. You could go anywhere, especially on skate skis that would fly across the wilderness. Before the day warms up, the snow pack in the woods is crusty hard. You could walk anywhere. Cliffs rise around the shore, with just enough snow on them for easy access. You could climb anywhere.

With all this temptation, what is a guy to do? Ski, walk or climb...or all of the above?



The Slade and Rauschenfels clan chose "all of the above" on a visit to Slim Lake yesterday.

Slim Lake is in the BWCA, in the Crab Lake portion of the Wilderness. It's right off of the North Arm Road, off the Echo Trail north of Ely. In summer you can drive a quarter mile up a narrow road to a trailhead, but in the winter you park on the North Arm Road, right by a public access for the North Arm of Burntside Lake.

The creek connecting Slim Lake with Burntside Lake was mostly open and rollicking with spring melt-off. It was the most spring-like part of the whole day, since the woods were still full of snow and the bright blue sky spoke far more of winter's cold than summer's heat. That taste of spring and aliveness felt terrific. The portage crosses the creek twice, and both times we lingered at the open flowing water.



Slim Lake is ringed by cliffs, a classic bulldozer job by the glaciers. Hans and I scampered up over crusty snowpack, bare cliff, lichen and white pine to the top of a knob.

And what goes up, must come down:



We were on foot, not on skis. But oh man was the skiing tempting. Wide open lake, flat just softening snow...it was calling out for skis, especially skate skis.

The last temptation of winter would be given another day.

Coming soon: Women who skate with the wolves

More pines, more poodles

A week in the woods on the edge of the Boundary Waters, poodles and part poodles everywhere. Chloe the standard poodle was the trail boss, at first. I took her for a short walk in on the Bass Lake Trail toward Dry Falls. This photo makes me laugh, because it's the same pose and attitude as Jim Brandenburg's pictures of wolves Only wolves don't have collars or puffy white curls.


www.jimbrandenburg.com/gallery/shows/wolves.

Princess Chloe would be eaten alive by wolves.

Later in the week we were joined by Chloe's "cousin", Zoe (yes, the names rhyme). The Zoe-ster is a golden doodle, with all the friendly loving golden retriever genes that poodles lack. Here's the whole clan on Fenske Lake, off the Echo Trail north of Ely:



Zoe is the dog on the right. See that friendly look, the one that says "When you're done with that, can we play?" Chloe's look, on the left, says "Is that a dog treat in your hand? For me?"

Winter work on the Kek

I love the gentle persistence Martin Kubik brings to his volunteer work on northeastern Minnesota trails. This entry on SmugMug details his experience this weekend working on the Kekekabic Trail, clearing it in nearly zero degree temps all the way to Bingshick Lake.

Wow...The Kek by The Man

Martin Kubik founder of the Kekekabic Trail Club, hikes the 41 mile wilderness trail in three days.

Check it out. He's got great photos and a great story.

My favorite ski trails...once

Back when I was a hippy...

When I lived out of the back of my car and made just enough money for new wool socks...

When I owned just one pair of skis, some Rossignol Randonees with metal edges I could use for downhill, cross country and everywhere in between...

Way back then, the North Arm Ski Trails north of Ely were my favorite ski trails. I loved the wild forests and hairy turns and the pride and work of packing my own trails. Tall pines marked the trail.


We hiked those trails this weekend, one last bit of fall colors in the woods as the tamarack and a few aspen were hanging in there with their season's best.

The trails in summer are nice for hiking, except a few low wet areas that had been filled in with logs. Perfect for winter, treacherous in summer. Hard to believe the open, lichen-covered rocks could make a good ski trail, but with decent snow cover the trails are great. Bring your shortest ski poles with the biggest baskets, however; the skier-tracked tracks are deep in the snow.

Now I'm hopeless addicted to wider groomed ski trails. I can't get the speed I'd like on these North Arm trails, and if I did, I'd probably crash into the big pines or over the Troll's Bridge.

But wow, are they sweet on a quiet winter wilderness day!

Where the lost hikers were found

Last week, two hikers from Duluth were lost on the Kekekabic Trail. The "Kek" is a wilderness giant that connects the Ely area with the Gunflint Trail through the heart of the BWCA. It's a rough and rugged trail, hard to find anytime but especially difficult after the blowdown and fires that have rearranged the whole region.

The two hikers that had been missing this weekend were found yesterday just north of Bingshik Lake. This spring I hiked in to Bingshik Lake (picture below) on the Kekekabic Trail. It was just a day hike, but I was still struck by how rugged and unforgiving the terrain is. The trailbed itself was basically fine, but the "woods" were a jumble of blown-down and burned-down tree trunks (picture above).


I am not at all surprised that they got off the trail. I was there before the grass grew in; with full grass cover, it could have made the trail impossible to find or follow.

This first (or last) section of the Kek receives, I imagine, better maintenance than the rest of the trail. What a challenge those two hikers had! I am so glad they were found and are okay. The Kek is deserving of all the press it gets for being over-the-top challenging.

'Tweens in the Wilderness

Slim Lake, off of the North Arm Road off of the Echo Trail north of Ely, has been a great introduction to the BWCA Wilderness for our family and our friends. Our first tentative half-hour canoe outings were here. The portage in is short and easy, and the lake is beautiful. After a short canoe paddle, or even during it, there are high rock outcrops to climb, like Hans and his friend Albert in the picture above.

However, it's been hard to impress the boys with the importance of the Wilderness or the boundary they cross when we enter it. How do you impress a jaded kid with what isn't there? No motors, no houses, no tangible signs of humans. It's all about what is not there. Even the definition in the 1964 Wilderness Act is a negative: untrammeled.

What marks the Wilderness? Sometime in the last ten years the classic wooden sign at the wilderness boundary has disappeared, so you don't get that dramatic moment of stepping into the BWCAW. Instead, we filled out the day permit at the parking lot and talked just a bit about the rules and regs. Later, on a shore excursion to climb a nice hunk of granite, in a a fine moment of boy energy well-spent, we dismantled an illegal firepit and chucked the smoke-stained boulders into the lake with ginormous splooshes. The firepit had two of those plastic BWCA-legal beer bottles, which was ironic given the illegality of the campsite.

But I still don't think they got it. Twelve-year-olds maybe can't grasp the bigger concept...I didn't when I was canoeing the BWCA and Quetico at that age. And that's fine.

Wilderness is a great place to climb the rocks and make goofy faces and be with your buddy. And that's as true for a 12-year-old as a 44-year-old.

Watch out...he's gonna jump!!

When my boys were little, I couldn't stay close enough to them to ensure that if they fell climbing on a rock, I'd be there to catch them. I'd take a bullet for them, so to speak.

One of the biggest thrills of young man-hood is cliff jumping. As our older son Hans roars past boyhood through his tween years and almost a teenager now, he's discovering his own thrills...and I'm learning to let go.

We discovered a great jumping spot on Tofte Lake, just off the Fernberg Road east of Ely. Tofte Lake is amazingly clear, and it has this one campsite right across from the boat landing with a terrific introductory jumping rock. The clear water makes it easy to scope out the landing zone for rocks, sticks, and other things that should give a father anxiety.



And then he's in the water, and everything is alright.


Fatherhood...life's lessons learned in leaps and bounds.

ARGH! Camping in the bugs

I always forget, and then I always remember, how bad it can be to camp in June or July in northern Minnesota. The bugs can be truly devastating, especially if there are kids along for the trip.

In a fit of camping frenzy, I packed up my two boys, Hans and Noah, along with my nephew Cormac, for what was to be a two-night camping trip on the edge of, and into, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. But this is last week. July 1. Being a total camping smarty pants, I planned to arrive early/mid-week, to ensure getting a good campsite.

We headed up the Sawbill Trail to Sawbill Lake and the very nice campground there. The Sawbill campground is a Superior National Forest campground with 50-plus sites. It was an easy pick to list as a top 23 North Shore campground in our book Camping the North Shore. It's beautiful and piney, with ten really primo sites on a bluff about Sawbill Lake itself and most of the rest in beautiful white and red pines. Sawbill Outfitters is right next door, with camping equipment, a small store, even canoes to rent.

Much to my surprise, Sawbill now takes reservations on about half the sites, through www.recreation.gov. So all of the lakeshore sites, with their potential bug-blowing breezes, were either occupied (no surprise) or reserved (big surprise). We drove the loop and picked the nicest remaining available campsite, number 45, with tall pines and the coolest climbing rock in the campground.

It only took a few minutes after arrival for the insects to find us. And to focus on us.

The boys were troopers, standing for the bug repellent spray, helping get the tent up, but as soon as the tent was up they were in it. Wondering what that sound of rain on the tent roof is? Black flies inside the tent or between the tent body and rain fly.

The day was saved briefly by a trip to the lakeshore to get into the westerly breeze and swim. But eventually it was back to the campsite for a buggy dinner, a first try of a mosquito rigging for 2-3 kids, then a second retreat to the tent.

Black flies during the heat and humidity of the day, mosquitoes by the dusk of evening. Oh, and a great rumbling thunderstorm in the night.

After a visit the next day from Cormac's parents (my sister Helen and her husband Joe), I staged a strategic retreat. Instead of Night #2 in the awful bug-ness, we headed down to the North Shore itself, where we would find fewer bugs.

THDUNK! That's my palm hitting my forehead. Geez, why didn't I think of how bad the bugs can be in July?