It was bad enough what happened on the first trip of 2022, but this I hope never happens again... I'll have to change the names to protect the innocent, sort of... This trip was in the planning for most of a year, and I'll add I didn't see this coming. Myself, Dave A., Andre' (my son), and DK another family member. It was DK's first trip into the BWCA by canoe anyways, but over the years he has been on a few other camping trips on the Gun Flint Trail with me. So it starts off with my son running behind, he's driving from Florida and a day late, luckly the rangers granted us permission to join the group without stopping for the vidoes and testing at the station, thank you again rangers!!! So Andre' & I get to Fall Lake around 11:30pm and planning on joining DA & DK on the otherside of the lake the next early morning saving us from setting up and packing up again in less than 6 hours. Before calling it a night DK is texting & texting me and I finally just said we'll see you guys in the morning, and shut my cell off for the night. 5am we jump out of the van and put the canoe in the lake, call DK to find out which site they are at to find out DK has not stept all night... WTF?
We get there and Dave A is not talking but DK is loosing his mind, because he said he couldn't even crawl into his tent, sat up in his chair the whole night freaking out over the darkness and the total silence... He couldn't handle it. At this point my brain was going to explode, thinking your a grown adult, come on man... How about I sleep in your tent with you? No F$%^#@! way he says, I'm never going in that *&^%$! thing again. So what to do??? I've got a guy freaking out and we've not gone truely into the woods yet. So my next idea was to suggest I drive him home and DA and my son do the trip without us, but my son didn't like that idea at all... DK suggests I call my partner back home, which I said joking you call her, no blanking way would I do that, she sub'ed once before last minute and it didn't go that well. So long story short... She ended up calling us back 30 mintues after we first texted with her saying "what do I need to bring with me..". OMG, I was shocked to tears.
Four hours later KR showed up, and DK and I paddled back to the landing, so he could drive our truck back to the cities... So much for part one of this journey. We had to portage twice the next day, and by the second KR didn't want to go any further so we stayed at the only available site... Yes that great one on top of the hill at Pipestone Falls. I thnk we were there for two days when we talked her into finishing the trip as planned which was paddling almost to the Upper Falls of Basswood. We did just that and I'm still paying for it, she won't even look at my canoe since. So I'm thinking about buying a solo canoe, at 65 I'm hoping to get out in the woods at least 10 more years give or take health issues (knock on wood) But I love it too much to give up this early, it would be so nice to just run up north on a moments notice and grab a permit and enjoy myself without the hassle of things like this ever happening again...
