Re: [Paddlewise] BWCAW Storms and You

I was staying in a cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior when this storm
came through.  My location was about 25 miles due north of Devils Island, 40
miles north of where Chuck Holst was camping.  I just snuggled deeper into
my bed.  

We had been up to Tofte to watch the fireworks and saw the lightning as we
were heading back down the shore.  I went out to look at the storm as the
rain started around 11 PM.  If there were severe winds on the shore they
were not enough to wake me or my dogs.  It did apparently rain all night.
The current in the lake near where I was flows from NE to SW, around noon I
noticed a second wave of large driftwood coming down the shore, shortly
there after a band of muddy red water appeared about 300 yards off shore.
In conditions like these the rivers are spectacular, unfortunately I had
work to complete before heading home for the weekend so I did not get up to
the Temperance to see what I expect was a full gorge.

We left for Minneapolis around 7 PM.  The roads were in good condition by
then, I could see where the ditches had been full of water.  At one of the
river crossings between Two Harbors and Duluth the tunnel under the road had
been blocked with debris and driftwood debris up to full size trees were on
the sides of the road.  According to the papers, the highway was closed
until 5:30 PM.  We did not have any trouble on the roads.

Dana Dickson

> -----Original Message-----
> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 13:32:20 -0500
> From: Patrick Maun <pmaun_at_bitstream.net>
> Subject: [Paddlewise] BWCAW Storms and You
> 
> Hey all,
> 
> many of you may have heard about the storms in the Boundary Waters 
> this past weekend. If you haven't, well, they were pretty rough. 
> Straight-line winds of 140MPH and trees flying everywhere. Here is a 
> question I'd like to pose to the list:
> 
> What would you do in a very bad storm situation?
> 
>     Snuggle deeper in to your sleeping bag and hope the seams hold?
> 
>     Tie yourself to a big tree (or perhaps Canadian Ballast Rocks)?
> 
>     Hide under an overturned canoe?
> 
>     Crawl into a kayak cockpit?
> 
>     Tie a towrope to a tree and then to a canoe/kayak and set yourself
>     adrift on the water (avoiding falling but not airborne trees)?
> 
>     Run screaming though the woods?
> 
> - -Patrick
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