I recently finished a trip with five members.Three had never been on a trip like this before. We decided to go with an outfitter out of Ely. We went with Cliff Wold.I have gone on non outfitted trips before and found that having everything ready to go easy to take .I had not been on a trip in nine years and was worried about forgetting something important. The last time I was on a trip was to the north eastern corner of Queitco so I was not sure how good the wilderness experience would be.We put in at spot 30 on the map one 1/2 hour out of Ely on the Kawishiwi river. There was a bit of congestion but once we pushed off the other group went the other way so we were alone. It felt good to be paddling a loaded Grumman again. We paddled a good portion of the day and camped near Gabbro lake. we did a fair amount of portaging everyone was tired. We stayed two days.We had rain on and off overnight. Fishing was poor. WE pushed on to clear lake and stayed a couple more days; fairly strong thunderstorms came through in the early evening the secound day and became violent that night. Lots of rain. We woke up to overcast and drizzle. We pushed on to the N. Kawishiwi and camped at a spot just inside the motor use area. It was hard to go from self propelled roughing it to seeing fisherman in a row boat not roughing it. It continued to be rainy and was getting colder so we were glad to get of the water. It was nice to have the outfitter pick us up and take us to hot showers and sauna.To sum up the trip. The fishing was very poor we ate fish only once and it was basicly a snack. The weather could have been a bit more sunny;but it only got cold on the last day. The bugs were almost non existant.The area we went was fairly crowded but the first timers did not mind and everyone was nice.I would consider an outfitted trip again in this area. I would go further north next time and outfit myself if going into Canada. How do people feel about outfiters?

Posted by D. Abresch on September 03, 2000 at 12:36