Around 3 AM on Thursday morning a wall of wind and rain pummeled our tent. I ran out to check the canoe and found it flipped upright with a large cedar laying over it, the trunk suspended a couple feet off the ground by its branches. (We placed the canoe back under the tree to show you how I found it.) I hauled the canoe back into the forest and ran to tell Amy to get out of the tent. Amy, Tank and I huddled in drenching rain near the edge of the lake, watching the trees rock and sway around us, ready to dart out of the way if their trunks or branches crashed down.
All the while lightening flashed continuously overhead, illuminating the churning, frothing lake. Slowly the wind and rain moderated and the lightening passed. We crawled back in our tent, toweled off and went back to sleep. Our 302nd night in the Wilderness turned out to be our scariest night so far. We hope we don’t experience any more storms like that. This morning we picked up gear that the estimated 70 mile per hour winds had strewn about our campsite as another beautiful day began.
We are thankful to have survived the storm unscathed and were so sad learn that the storm claimed the lives of several people and injured several more.
#savetheBWCA #WildernessYear #BWCW #BoundaryWaters
