As noted below, we reciently returned from a trip down Baptism to Cache and beyond. The thing about Baptism is that your options are few and your point of no return comes fairly early in the trip. What I mean is that you start out on the creek, which is ok, but not really indicative of the "Quetico Thing". Its a relativly narrow, slow moving stretch of water without great sceanery. The portages on the creek are basically easy with the exception of a steep rock ledge or two. After that you have Baptism Lake which is small and then Trousers. Trousers is a cool little lake with lots of bays to explore and a fine island camp site. I've never had good luck fishing there however. All that should take a day, maybe two if you move very slowly. After that you have the bog trotters. Are you looking to build "summer paper route" or "Marine boot camp" character? Because these portages are absolutely, undeniably evil-to the point of dangerous. And, you can't do just one. Cache is nice, as it has some sand beaches. However, both times I've been on it, I expected to be completely alone, and low and behold, there was someone else on it. I guess I wouldn't want to do the same gawd aweful trail twice, just to spend time on Cache. That means heading out into McKenzie, which puts you pretty far south for 5 travel days.

Posted by Armen on August 28, 2001 at 11:29
From IP address 64.108.61.123