By CHRIS PASCONE
Who goes hiking in the Boundary Waters? Why go backpacking in a place with over 1,100 lakes explorable by canoe? After all, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) is a water paradise, first and foremost.
But that’s just it: Exploring the unknown means seeking alternative, outside-the-box ways to experience places that we might already know, but from a different perspective. It could be going to a familiar place in a different season than we’ve ever seen it before. Or accessing these places using different methods than usual. Finally, it’s about having the mindset that we, ourselves, can be transformed by new explorations.
It was with these goals in mind that my daughter, Vanessa, and I planned to backpack one of the least-known areas of the Boundary Waters: the Powwow Trail. Originating at BWCAW Entry Point 86 (Lake Isabella) in far northern Minnesota, the Powwow Trail is “Alaska four hours north of the Twin Cities,” to quote a friend.
Vanessa and I ratcheted up the “unknown” aspect another step too: We planned the hike for early March, a time when the Powwow is typically covered in deep snow. Taking my 13-year-old to this remote area where we’d be guaranteed not to see a soul for three days meant a lot of “unknowns.” And that was exactly what we were looking for: experiencing the wilderness in a new, challenging way.
The Powwow Trail makes a 31-mile lollipop loop through rugged backcountry terrain. In fact, this area was burned to the ground just 14 years ago, in the 92,000-acre Pagami Creek fire. The trail was closed for years, and only thanks to the efforts of the all-volunteer Boundary Waters Advisory Group was the trail rehabilitated, with the final strokes to the trail restoration project being completed in 2023.
Vanessa likes to walk fast. But she also would have to wear a heaping backpack carrying our provisions and her winter sleeping bag and warm clothes. I would carry our two-person tent, camp stove, pots and pans, and my own sleeping bag and extra layers. We’d both have to carry a lot of water. Eating and drinking well would be essential for dealing with cold temps and long days on foot.
As our trip date approached, conditions came together perfectly: temperatures were well below freezing for our trip, following a practically snowless winter and an early March thaw. This meant the tread of the Powwow was transformed just before our trip from mud into hard ground, with no puddles, slush or standing water. There was still snow on some shadier sections of the trail, but it crusted over hard. With all the conditions lining up just right, we set off to seize our opportunity on March 8, 2024.
We saw two lynx on our drive down Forest Road 377 to the entry point, our first reward for exploring the unknown. We set up camp the first night a mile in from the trailhead, along the gurgling Isabella River.
We had frost on the tent in the morning, following a brutally cold night, but the day dawned clear and sunny. It was time to hike. We had three days to do 30 more miles.
About half an hour in, we finally started warming up enough to take off our down jackets. We got to the end of the lollipop stick (the first “wye”), and decided to hike the Powwow counter-clockwise. We were on a roll now, making it to the second wye in the trail an hour later.
We started up one of the hardest sections of the trail, heading northwest. We were expecting to see far more tree falls in this section (we had climbed over only a few downed trees to this point), but the trail was totally passable. We were building up an appetite but made our goal of reaching the Pose Lake campsite before stopping for lunch.
The site was incredibly windblown, located high over the lake, and the wind had a polar feel to it. We retreated behind a rocky knob to make lunch and relax a bit.
Soon we were back on trail, admiring the new forest growth. Vanessa was amazed by the density and intense color of the green jack pines, which were all about 20 feet tall, 13 years after the forest fire.
We had planned to reach North Wilder Lake to make camp for the night, but here we took the word “exploration” literally: we got off trail and hiked across frozen South Wilder Lake to a canoe campsite instead. This is what exploring means: taking advantage of conditions, changing plans as needed, responding to your environment. We gathered plenty of water from the lake and had a fabulous night’s sleep.
The next day we saw a pair of trumpeter swans, then found our way back onto the Powwow. We followed it north, but not all the way to North Wilder. Instead, we left the trail again so as to make a shortcut across three other frozen lakes: Harbor, Brewis and Horseshoe. All three are connected by maintained canoe portages.
We were treated to bluebird skies again and hiked for about two and a half hours before stopping for lunch at the far west end of Horseshoe Lake, where we reconnected with the Powwow. This was exploring at its best — we benefited from the same ribbons of water that canoeists use come summertime, but in their frozen state.
We hiked at a great pace from Horseshoe Lake to Rock of Ages Lake, and then to Mirror Lake. The hiking felt fluid and fun, despite our heavy packs. We saw a beautiful sunset over Mirror Lake and again walked the ice.
We then made the final push to Superstition Lake in the dark, by headlamp. We ended up doing another 10-mile day, with about 7 hours of hiking. It was good to make camp and eat a big pot of wild rice soup for dinner. We had gotten ourselves into position to finish off the Powwow circumnavigation on our last day.
I made a fire on our third morning, along with our usual breakfast of oatmeal, coffee and tea. We packed up quicker than the first two mornings and left camp at 9:45, after taking pictures on the ice.
Soon we were making fast progress, as the southern section of the Powwow loop is the easiest part of the whole trail. The temperature shot up from 15 degrees when we woke up, to 55 degrees by 1:30 p.m. We finished our trip just as the window of hard ground and frozen lake surfaces was closing.
We saw 15 lakes in all on our trip. The abundant sunshine, the achievement of hiking 31 miles over land and ice, and our sense of teamwork throughout our three-day trek brought Vanessa and me a lot of satisfaction together. We had explored an unknown-to-us section of the BWCAW, in conditions we had never backpacked in before. Our reward was a dream expedition over the frozen footpaths of the Powwow.