Steve, I've contemplated BWCAW kayak trips many times. The number of portages typically makes this less than inviting. I tried mapping some routes and got the portages down to 3 or 4. Those routes might work. I believe the routes used Saganaga and the Knife Lake chain. Last Sept 3 of us did VNP for a week - last week in Sept. We had some nasty weather - wind, rain, cold temps which is the gamble this time of year. We felt we were one week early for fall colors. We thought the first week of Oct might be a better bet. We would see a power boat or two each day - nothing bothersome at all. The lodge at the falls closes the end of Sept - so if that is on your list you might have to go in Sept. It WAS nice half-way through the week to get a hot meal in a restaurant, use the hot running water, etc. Could take showers there for $2. Lake water is cold - but not so cold that we didn't clean up in it - but it was a quick clean-up!! The park superintendent is a kayaker. She was happy to talk about options and areas within VNP - so you might talk to her directly. I recall that she suggested going to the Canadian side of Rainy - NE corner if I recall. There are chains of islands there that would make for nice paddling. Fishermen tend not to range that far from the boat landings so she thought that would offer more solitude. Canadian side requires overnight permits to camp on crown land. There are no developed campsites on the crown lands. The campsites within the park are nice - bear boxes at most, tent pads, etc etc. One thing that caught us a bit off guard was the development within VNP. People owned private cabins within the park (mainly between visitor center and lodge) and these remain in private hands. So you will paddle along and all of a sudden there is a cabin...with a dock, flagpole, typical summer cabin stuff in the yard. A bit disconcerting if you think you are heading into 'wilderness'! :o) Also, these cabins have electricity/phone - so occasionally you'll be in some quiet back bay and there on the shoreline will be a green utility box up in the woods. Again, not what you expect to see. A beautiful area though. If you do VNP, plan to include some time for hiking - some very nice trails that lead to inland lakes. For some good info you might try: Wade Watson at Voyageurs Adventures (one of our guys used a rental boat from him) - we picked his brain repeatedly! http://www.voyageursadventures.com/ The Inland Sea Kayakers website has a couple of trip reports with a few pics: http://www.isk.canoe-kayak.org/photos.html If you have some specifics about VNP that you have questions on you can contact me back channel - I have some pics I can email you if you are curious about getting a glimpse of the area. Keith *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu May 13 2004 - 07:02:04 PDT
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