pine_knot wrote on Mar 30^th, 2021 at 10:49pm:


I kinda like the adventure of getting ready to shove off in the dark.  Plus it's quiet and the sun is hopefully rising with mist on the lake.  To me that's a great way to get me in tripping mood.  PK, just brew some strong ass coffee for yourself. Be adventurous you old fart um... old geezer uh.. slacker!  

Go when you can. Last year was nuts. I haven't seen that EP or the others like that in the past 8 or 9 years. The only exception was Crane lake. This has to be better.

Well, shoot!!  So I'm entering EP16 on July 7, and you numbskulls er....veteran paddlers are telling me to either sleep in my car at the EP or make sure I get my butt outta bed in the dark, arrive at the EP in the dark, use my headlamp to get my crap to the river in the dark.....to beat the hordes.

That does NOT sound like a relaxing way to start a lengthy solo....maybe I should wait till noon to arrive at the EP and then make my way north and find a crappy one or two-star site nobody in their right mind would stay at....that might actually work for me....       

TomT wrote on Mar 29^th, 2021 at 12:07pm:

Good advice. I had the same experience at EP16 Moose River North. At 730AM, the outfitter vans started arriving, disgorging hordes of tour-bus trippers. The parking lot and the portage put-in was clogged for some time afterwards.

I did a good bit of digging around today, and talked things over with my crew. We've decided to stay with the Mudro permit and push up into the northern end of Crooked. Thanks to all for their input, we really appreciate it.

Tom, when you hover your cursor over a date, it shows what's available. When I reserved back at the beginning, I had a virtual-issuing cooperator, but changed it to Duluth Pack Store for in-person pickup because they didn't really seem to know how they were doing the virtual and it seemed like it would be a last-minute thing where you'd need to have a connection to do it.

boonie wrote on Mar 29^th, 2021 at 12:51pm:


That is strange. I’m gonna it out when I’m home later. I was seeing 10, 8, and 10. I assumed those were numbers issued.

Last summer Magic Paddler and I spent some time up on Crooked and Iron from July 27-Aug. 7.  If you look at the number of campsites along Crooked and Iron, there are surprisingly few compared to a lot of the BW lakes and they are fairly well spread out.  That plus the distance from the entry points told me there should be fewer people in that area - fewer camps = fewer campers.  That turned out to be case and we did see less people than you'd think. Iron was perhaps a bit busier.  Of course the area around Basswood falls was a zoo.  We got a tow to Lincoln Is. off a Moose Lake permit going in and camped night one in the middle of the falls chain in a very nice/secluded bay.  Most people will either stop short, camp at either end or go all the way through. 

TomT - you might want to recheck your permit pickup plans.  I just reserved a Moose Lake permit again and was told I needed to pick it up at an issuing station as they are not doing the 'on line' pick ups this year.  I think with the goat screw mess from uneducated camper influx last year, they want to be able to MAKE people watch the LNT/camping rules videos this season.  I'm picking mine up at the outfitter's. I believe you can pick it up the day before from one of the Ranger stations - or select an outfitter in the vicinity of your EP.

I'm doing a Knife, Ottertrack, Ogish, Gabi, Alice, Lake One loop with Magic Paddler in late July.  He and I are also planning a NW loop for around Sept. 6-18, possibly via Little India Sioux to LLC and back around clockwise.

pd

goblu, I've never gone in Aug. or gone in the area near Snowbank, but I've Thomas-Fraser area and beyond generally less busy. Basically the farther you are from an EP the less busy. Wednesday is good, an early start essential, and putting a solid first day behind is helpful.

We'll likely have a party of 6, which makes finding campsites a bit tougher. I've also considered pushing past Crooked into Iron. Is that area still quite busy?