Boundary Waters Clearwater loop

​If we were still in our frisky 50s, this would probably have been a 4-5 day trip. As it is we move, then need to lick our wounds for a day before the next move happens.

The loop goes, 

enter Clearwater, Caribou, little Caribou, Pine 1 night at top, 2 at bottom, McFarland, little John, John, East Pine 2 nights, West Pine 2 nights on island v nice, Clearwater the length of about 7 miles. 

For the commas, substitute 1-2 hours of carrying canoes and forty pound packs across rocky slippy portage trails. 

I did get a new-to-me Souris Quetico 16, 42lb, for this years' portaging. The old Seda Scout 16 is a great boat but 55lb, did not feel equal to ol' 55 on the the long portages of this trip. The Souris River boats don't use gelcoat as the finish on kevlar, instead a layer of fiberglass then epoxy. The problem is the epoxy weathers off leaving a raw fiber finish. The hull itself seemed in good shape so I bought it and tried to refinish with a new coat of epoxy, West Systems 105 with 207 hardener using the pumps. The first coat went on well, the second started to set up after 15 minutes, dragging and streaking on the hull, made a nasty mess. I was upset for a while then looked at the old boat with all its scars, figured ten minutes after this one went on the water there'd be new scratches and I'd stop noticing my sloppy job. Gave it a third thin coat for luck and went on with it. 

A night in the Clearwater lodge, then load up and head out. 

First camp on Pine, one of the earlier ones with a little bay out to a island which is a peninsula at this water level. The tent sites were lousy so we moved, a pity as the island looked fishy to me. In the night I fell off the side of the 9" ledge I was sleeping on, shocked awake and cramped badly. From a song Lucky Girl, the line 

I complain about getting older, but I'm lucky to be alive

appertains. Usually there'd be a link here to the song, do you know how many Lucky Girl songs there are ? can't find the one. 

Big winds following, waves and boats corkscrewing in the waves and wind. 

We didn't like any of the sites and we ended up in last Pine camp, right on BWCA border, next to McFarland with cabins on shore. Meantime a cold front came through with more big winds and we didn't move, hoping for better days. On the off day we fished a bit to no result and hiked a possible portage into E Pike. That was 0.8 miles oneway with about 500ft elevation change and nasty steep bits. Big nope. That night the winds also brought a little fall of rain. 

Fortunately the new Kelty Noah's Tarp held up. The old one leaked last year, after three days' and a couple inches of rain. I thought it would be fine for another decade or so, my wife preferred to get me a new tarp. 

My new used boat is named Le Tigre, when the light hits right one can see why. 

Early paddling was good, then E Pine was windy again, headwinds this time. The camp we wanted was taken, washinglines and tents, but no boats ? the Boundary Trail goes close by here so we theorized it might be hikers. This was a pattern on the Pike lakes where campsites filled fast. We talked to several people who portaged both in and out of a Pine lake because all campsites were full. One couple portaged over to one of the side little lakes with a single campsite, luckily unoccupied. We fell back to a camp near the portage, didn't look that good but was. Freshish bear scat in camp, some berries. In the morning there was more scat hm. We flipped a flat rock to decide on campsites. In the event both were good, back in the woods for shelter. Better get back in them woods.. 

Pretty calm day for the next, time to take pictures and go fish for dinner, gleaning some nice dry wood from the old beaver lodges to cook on.

Lost the Rapala that was working to a big pike, dagnabbit. The pike kept for dinner had light yellow flesh not appealing and didn't taste good. That was odd, previous years the pike have been perfectly good eating. The bellies contained fat cigar-shaped minnows about 3-4" long no wonder that Rapala was working. 

Next morning the going was bad, bad already on E Pike with one very nasty passage around a point into the teeth of the winds. My wife was turning around trying to tell me something. I yelled, "dear I love you and always will, at the moment we need to paddle not talk". Actually that was in my head only, what I said was PADDLE ! (dammit). Long portage again, then winds on W Pike were appalling. 

I've never seen class V whitewater on flatwater before.. two to three foot waves, spume torn from the whitecaps by the wind. That's a force 7 on the Beaufort scale, 'moderate gale'. It looked immoderate from my knees in the canoe. No pictures of that, I was busy at the time. We hunkered down in a sheltered bay and tied up the boats, then went back to portage and contemplated camping there miserably. 

Well the weather report didn’t call for rain

But when we rounded that bend it hit us like a train

The thunder clapped and the sky went black

We were hollering Ooooooooo

By 6pm the waves were down to mere whitecaps and we attempted it. There were a couple of screams on the ferry across the big waves with canoes pitching hard, I confess. My wife oddly was cheerful and chatty, found out later she'd been hitting the bourbon at the portage, a drop in the hot chocolate then a shot before leaving. Now I know the recipe for a contented bow paddler. The good camp was occupied but they said the island was open as winds had pinned everyone down.  Island camp nice, Julie fed us soup and small dehydrated meal at 8pm, all exhausted. By way of recompense a perfectly calm evening with clear skies and light. 

Enjoyed coffee in the sun on the beach in the morning. The hard wood we found didn't want to split, then it was recalcitrant to burn, so breakfast took a while. Worth it tho. 

Finally got to the fishing, which was good. 

Squads of boats came through today as all the stormbound campers got moving again. We loafed in our excellent island camp and watched them with tolerant sympathy. 

Took a couple of glamour shots of my fishing gear, a Shakespeare Wonderrod fiberglass rod from the 50s with matching Shakespeare 2062 reel. This vintage gear is in no way a compromise - the fiberglass is robust and survives the bashing around in a canoe well, the reel is a beautiful piece of American engineering with about twenty parts all of them made of steel or brass. Modern reels have hundreds of parts and are designed to be disposable, the 2062 will be fishing as long as there's anyone willing to turn the handle. 

I took a fall over that log at some point, came down hard on my back where the lifejacket took most of the blow. I lay there thinking it could have gone much worse, then noticed my dislocated finger. In these situations the body goes into mild shock and you get about 10min of numbness before the pain hits. Looked at the wrong finger, thought about two days travel to the emergency room, and used those minutes to relocate it. Then went on fishing, the best analgesic I know. 

Nice quiet paddle early 8am off W Pike to portage, met several trips there. Chatted with some of the guided trip, one guide watched me moving with a pack over the portage and said you must be a trail runner. His guided folks told me he's an endurance maniac, 2 Everests and Guinness record for fastest round of highest mountain in each USA state. It was a long paddle through Clearwater but the weather (euphemism for the four-letter W word) stayed mild so it was enjoyable. 

At the takeout there was an older couple based at the lodge and day tripping out. He picked up their canoe then fell over in the water, his wife tried to help and fell over, I went out and picked them all up, first the people then the boat. As the youngster of 66 I felt I needed to, I'll be needing help soon enough. 

august and so forth

A disjoint account of a fractured month, it got awful busy for a bit. 

August slipped away into a moment in time

August sipped away like a bottle of wine

- Taylor Swift, August from the Folklore album

mine was none so poetic, nor did it slip away, more a series of body blows. 

Off to work as usual the first week, tripping over the cat as I commuted the twenty feet from kitchen to study, entrenching behind three monitors and two work laptops. The cat doesn't like me working, so gets up to things. 

First weekend, RMCC Rendezvous on the upper Colorado river, been doing this for nearly thirty years. Last year the old Ford had worn out a ground strap somewhere so the drive was enlivened by a gradually discharging battery with red lights flickering in the gathering dark. The last few miles of this is a steep dirt road in the very dark. This year there were thunderstorms above behind and below, the steep dirt was now steep mud, still very dark and abandoned in there. My new Ford has traction control, a slippery mode etc etc, all of which I completely forgot to engage in the slithery steeps, not being used to having options other than the loud pedal for acceleration and the soft pedal for stopping. 

Each day the thunderstorms rolled through early and late including hail on the river at one point. Usually this rendezvous operates at 90-100 deg F, my giant cooler was packed with two bags of ice and dozens of sparkling waters, none of which was needed. Bourbon was more to the point. The ice had not melted by Sunday evening back in Denver. Paddling was good though. Here's Jeff giving the trip and safety briefing so we don't die, at least not today of whitewater. 

It's the.. eye of the needle, the thrill of the fight ! 

sorry, can't get through this Eye of the Needle rapid without that song starting up in my head. Not me in pic, I'm behind the camera. 

Next day a short run, pack up camp, and homeward. I took a couple of hours to hike up into Gore canyon to check on the trout. Too tired to fish really, the canyon is always good though, very Western. Saw three nice brown trouts 16-18" turn and flash at the lure, no take. This picture involves a fat strong 13" which I can't prove as the barbless hook released the fish quickly before I could get his closeup. 

Back to work. 

Short week, left on Thursday afternoon for Milwaukee and USAT National Championships. My primary race goal for this season had been to redo the Boulder Peak Triathlon where I'd walked in 2023, get up the Old Stage hill without walking, and legs still good enough to ride the rest of the bike course hard (for old man values). A whole new box of gears for the race bike and lots of mountain riding did get me there. As an astonishment I also won the age group 65-9. The win was mostly due to the fast guys not showing up, still I'll take it. This got me an invitation to the Nationals, knew I was in no shape or form competitive there due to a missing run and weak bike, still thought it would be fun in a perverse way to do it one more time. 

Thirty years since my first Boulder Peak, here chewing hopefully on some nutrition before the start, wearing a 1995 race shirt in 2025. 

Taking my pot belly for its daily outing, a lap around Boulder Reservoir for today, with the extremely dorky bucket hat that my dermatologist likes. Someone said as I walked/ran back in, 'you look good in that hat !'. I suspect my dermatologist bribed them.

Met the legendary Ellen Hart at the start and had the honor of zipping up her wetsuit. I got out of the water 3 minutes ahead thanks to the additional floatation from that belly. Ellen climbed quietly and quickly past me up the big hill with a cheery greeting, saw her later on the bike thanks to throwing out my chest (belly actually) and getting gravity on my side for the descent of the hills. Then got outrun by fifteen minutes, won the 65-9 age group men but did not win 65-9 overall as that was Ellen's title. Ha. They are having way too much fun in this picture. I can remember running like that but it's only a memory from some August in the long past. 

We're both on the same racing team, Slowtwitch Goodlife. The Goodlife sponsor produces prime grass-fed beef without antibiotics on a Nebraska farm. Part of the team freebies was a shipment of that beef, makes you stronk like triathlete. 

Anyway, Milwaukee. The usual horrible travel drag, charged $100 overweight fee for a bike box one pound overweight. Arrived at vrbo after delayed flight and long wait for bike in empty airport halls, where I talked with a paratriathlete on one entirely artificial leg who walks faster than I can. Arrived at apartment with great relief after nearly being hit by a drunk driver then a drunk e-scooter pilot who crashed hard into the parked car ahead of me. The code opened the door, saw the bed was unmade and dirty, then someone sat up in bed and said 'hey!'. Retreated in confusion with the 51lb bike case to the hot airless stairwell, called the management company, which luckily had staffed the phones at 11:30pm. They found another apartment for me in the same block. There was a moment of regret for not booking the hotel instead. The race hotel was $450 a night, in triathlete terms that's reasonable, I'm not a real triathlete. 

In the morning at the best coffeeshop in America, Colectivo Lakefront, in an old pumphouse down by the lake. 

Rebuilt the bike out of the bike box slowly and painfully, getting the angle of the aerobars wrong though it seemed right at the time and on the short ride down to check-in. 

Early to check-in, a lot of expensive bikes already on the racks, my humble 2005 Cervelo with imitation disc wheel in foreground. Confident that I had the one of the oldest cheapest bikes in the whole paddock, didn’t see another rim-brake bike in the 65-9 rack. Bikes that cost as much as a good used car were more the rule here. 

Finish line on the other side of the bay, walk down past the Art museum to get to the transition area and bike checkin. The museum does a nice cafe lunch, quiet and low stress. 

57 of us lined up on the dock waiting for the start, into the water and the usual thrashing. I went out fast as there was a bridge to go under at 2-300 yards out and I wanted to beat the crowds there, a bit too fast really. The lead swimmer swam right away despite my best efforts to draft behind him. A lovely thing at Nationals - everyone can swim, don't have to spend half the race navigating the flotsam of previous waves. We had clean water the whole way, maybe 3 or 4 swimmers from the previous wave. Eventually 13th out of the water, not my best swim - I'll take it given the two months of not swimming due to that dermatologist scraping away much of an ear. Needed that handrail to get up the ramp, too. 

Onto the bike, flew out to the first turnaround feeling like a good day, then turned back into the headwind that had been giving me that false impression. On the bike there is never a tailwind, only good days and headwinds. 

It quickly became apparent that I'd screwed up the aerobar in my rebuild. The angle was just a bit steep which gave me shoulder cramping and spasms that kept me out of the aero position more than was reasonable. The gusty strong winds also kept me out of the bars, trying to keep control and not blow over the edge of the Hoan bridge. There were a couple of crashes due to the wind. The last five miles or so had that tailwind again, good for speed, terrible in 90 degrees F and high humidity.

Starting the run I thought the top of my head was going to blow off like a cartoon volcano in the heat. Run course beautifully flat out along the lake front, past a beach or two, cruelly back to the finish area at 8km then out and back along the side of the harbor basin. 

People say, this or that is "better than sex !". I never understood the idea until I started to walk on this run. Such a complete absence of pain, it was almost like pleasure.

My friend Carl texted me to say, head up and smiling, makes a good finish line photo every time. Well didn't quite manage that. A nap after beergarden lunch. That's a beer bratwurst with genuine Wisconsin cheese curds as a garnish, enough calories to appease. 

Finished content with the effort, when I saw results I was less happy: down to 28th after bike, 34th after run. I thought I could be top 30 even with the known bad run. Last times at Nationals I was trying to qualify for Worlds and had been a bit obsessive about checking the competition, previous results etc. This time just sailed blithely into it, didn’t realize quite how much I’d slowed relative to the competition in both bike and run. It probably didn't help that my bike training had been focused on climbing rather than head-down aero position steady efforts. 

Walked out to see awards and found one of those 100-year storms that we seem to be getting every year now, rolling in from the lake. Immense black clouds full of lightning loomed and tornado sirens moaned. Spent a couple hours in the Comet Cafe (good pies) waiting for the rain to stop which didn’t happen. The walk back was a thorough washout, haven’t been that clean in years.

11" of rain that night so the next day's Sprint distance race was cancelled. Sat at my gorgeous cafe on the course, watching with sympathy as crowds of frustrated triathletes rode and ran up and down the waterfront. 

Frank Lloyd Wright built a Greek Orthodox church here in Milwaukee. I took myself to church. Outside is a little sad, inside is stunning but worn down. 

The interior is very thoughtfully designed. There are two crying rooms, with full windows, so families can take their fussy babies etc out of the main space but still see the service. The upper level has a circular walk going all around at the topmost level, where active toddlers can do their laps without much disturbing the worship below. Traditionally Eastern Orthodox churches have domes rather than spires, for reasons theological. These get extensive and imbricated like most theology. Gary Neal Hansen has a good summation, 

Spires are on our churches to point our attention upward, toward heaven, reaching for a distant God in Heaven. 

The church as dome sends a different message about the same faith: The dome is heaven, and we are invited in. In the Incarnation heaven was poured out upon and united with earth. 

Another strenuous interlude with the 51lb bike box, and back to work.

On call for work the next weekend, that leads to a 12 day work week. No adventures but not restful as such. 

Next up, off to Newport RI to see a son graduating from Navy officer training. 

Lots of shouting and marching around, just like my Army experience half a world and half a century away. This is a class of professionals becoming officers. The largest contingent was dentists, followed by nuclear engineers, medical a distant third, a sprinkling of chaplains. Later going to lunch in the expensive downtown of Newport, put on my extremely dorky hat for the walk, son looked at me and said "you're really looking like a Dad today". 

Stayed a couple of days with old friends from S. Africa. They were dogsitting a wild puppy named River, a rescue pup who looked vaguely greyhound/whippetish, clever and active. Ran one morning about 8 miles, then a nice bike ride around the RI bike paths to lunch and back. I'd hoped to get in a swim to complete a sort of slow-motion triathlon, but the River monster needed a long walk to take the edge off. 

Back to work. The cat didn't appreciate all this leaving and had opinions. 

The next is a bit of cheat as it mostly happened in September, the trouble all started in August though. A week of wilderness canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Weather happened again, strong cold winds and rain, inordinate grotesque amounts of rain. 

Undaunted we take ship for the edge of the navigable waters. 

Paddled in, encamped, watched a black stormwall of cloud advance to cover us for the next three days. First time in my life for:

- wearing raingear 3 days straight 

- keeping a fire going 3 days straight 

- staying in one camp for 3 days straight

- wearing the same wet clothes 3 days straight, why put on dry clothes, now you have two sets of wet clothes and no way to dry either. 

For Helen, after the first day of paddling portaging and racing for a good campsite without benefit of lunch - the dreaded bonk - a total inability to continue, marked by nausea, extreme physical weakness, poor coordination, and a profoundly awful feeling. Luckily this happened only after we were encamped and dug a trench or so to redirect the river running through our tent. 

In the morning, some gallons of water in the boat. I was down here the previous evening trying to get it turned over when the wall hit, completely soaked through in a minute, gave up and fled for the shelter of the tarp. Maybe not 11" of rain but a fair attempt. Back in the days when we backpacked and canoed regularly with friends, this was known as Kretzmann weather, on the ragged edge of survivability. Good to know I haven't lost my rainbringing powers. 

 Gratuitous pretty picture from the day we left this camp, courtesy of Jeff. 

In the intervals between storms we had to paddle out to fetch more firewood. Camp is on the far shore, this is the sunny side of the lake. It may have been Canadian, luckily the gunboats didn't show up to demand tariffs on our lumber. 

Here there be bears. Regulations require a food bag hang 12' off the ground, 6' out from the tree, 4' down from the hanging point. This is surprisingly difficult to achieve. We had to hike a half mile out from camp to find a tree, a mini adventure twice a day, over the blowdown trees, through the swamp, up over the rocks. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of a good hang in the daylight, though. Jeff and I have had some epic hours of hanging in the dark entirely surrounded by mosquitos. 

We eked out a couple of fish meals despite the cold front. 

On the last morning the BWCA showed us its fair face. We might even go back. 

So, August.

doing the same things that I've always done

But I'm older now, I get tired some

- The Steeldrivers, Heaven Sent