I woke up with a start this morning as an miniature avalanche slid down the outside of our tent. Excited to see how much snow had fallen, I quickly filled the woodstove with finger sized pieces of wood and a few strips of birch bark. Once the fire had taken hold and the first wave of heat reached my face, I climbed out of my sleeping bag, dawned my camp booties (our equivalent of house slippers) and poked my head out the door. Amy was still secure in her sleeping bag, willing to let the tent warm up before emerging.
My excited babbling about a snow-covered wonderland urged her to get up. While our breakfast water was heating, we ran out to explore the snowy landscape. A snowball fight quickly ensued, with Amy easily coming out the winner. (She had a series of snowballs made before I even knew what was coming.) A strong northwest wind has blown all day, churning up Knife Lake so we decided to wait until tomorrow to move on. We hope to travel for at least another week before having to stop and worry about settling in someplace for freeze-up. The long term forecast is for very mild temperatures, so it is really hard to know when the ice will start to form, which could make travel difficult and dangerous for quite some time.
My excited babbling about a snow-covered wonderland urged her to get up. While our breakfast water was heating, we ran out to explore the snowy landscape. A snowball fight quickly ensued, with Amy easily coming out the winner. (She had a series of snowballs made before I even knew what was coming.) A strong northwest wind has blown all day, churning up Knife Lake so we decided to wait until tomorrow to move on. We hope to travel for at least another week before having to stop and worry about settling in someplace for freeze-up. The long term forecast is for very mild temperatures, so it is really hard to know when the ice will start to form, which could make travel difficult and dangerous for quite some time.
With a little elbow grease, our new Katana Boy sliced through the 13 inch diameter log laying in our campsite in just under 3 minutes. Amy cut a few logs, while I split them into smaller pieces. Two logs easily provided enough wood for all of our cooking and heating needs until we leave tomorrow morning. This has been a wonderful campsite, but we are ready to move on. The Boundary Waters is so vast and we have so many more lakes to visit and places to explore. #wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #snow #bwca #boundarywaters
