We used to do a first week of Oct. Trip every year. BWCA and Quetico and then WCPP. We were going late to avoid the bugs and people. Then it dawned on me that those are not things to worry about in WCPP. We still kept doing them using a Coleman lantern for preparing breakfast and supper. The lantern was also used to bring someone back from the first stages hypothermia when it had rained so many days that a fire was hardly an option. At the end of a Leano to Mexican Hat loop where it started with 45 degrees and mist and ended with 37 degrees and heavy wind driven rain in the warmest part of the day I had an epiphany. Sitting 200 miles to the south was my log cabin with a woodstove and a roof. That is where I started spending early Oct. !!

A few years later I must have weakened and consented to another fall trip to WCPP. Irvine was still a bushwhack lake and I had found a nice spot with a southern exposure during a July trip. The group was flying in so we could be well supplied with the extra gear needed late in the season. At our planning meeting I laid out the exact sizes we needed in our tarps and the quanity. We again started the trip with decent 45 degree temps but slowly things kept going downhill. The southern exposure should have saved us but the wind all week came from that direction and kept getting colder and wetter. Tarps kept being added until we added the last one and were huddled in our make shift wall tent. We had two coleman lanterns and plenty of fuel so things were cozy. After the last wall was added to our shelter some finally realized why I had been so specific about tarp number and sizes at the pre-trip meeting.

The last full day one of the fishermen was out in the windy, wet and 40 degree weather. We would keep peeking out a tent flap to check on him as he was in a very small kayak. Then the report came that he was not out there. I packed a sleeping bag and had the others prepare hot water for our hopeful rerturn. I was relieved when I came around a bend and saw his kayak pulled up on shore. I called his name and faster than an echo he called back. When he found he could not get the little kayak back to camp he had retreated to the trees to await his rescue. The real kicker was a few years later when one of our trip mates and this man's wife ended up sharing a bus seat on a shuttle to Ohare Airport. Our daring kayaker let be known later that what happens in WCPP stays in WCPP. As for me, that cabin woodsdtove is working just fine.