On June 13, 2019, our group of six paddlers entered the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness by Entry Point 62 at Clearwater Lake. Our group included two under the age of 12, which informed our decision to camp on Clearwater Lake rather than portage all of our gear with the young ones. Certainly portaging would not have been impossible, just less pleasant.
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We set up camp on the farthest campsite on the lake, near the portage to West Pike Lake. The campsite served us very well. It's tucked away into it's own cove that hosted plenty of smallmouth and a few small lake trout. From this location we made day trips to West Pike, crossing the Border Route Trail, and to Mountain Lake, where we followed the BRT to the west to see the overlook of the US/Canada border.
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Our longest day trip took us up and over a very difficult portage to Caribou Lake, on to Little Caribou, where we found good Northern Pike and some walleye, farther to Pine Lake, and lunch at Johnson Falls.
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This was my daughter's first trip to the BW, and really her first big outdoor adventure. It was a great way to spend Father's Day weekend! We hung our hammocks essentially parallel to one another, and opened our tarps in porch mode toward one another. This gave us both a sense of being close and safe. Lowest temperatures we felt were about 37degF, which gave me my best night's sleep.
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Shout out to Northern Waters Smokehaus in Duluth. It has become a tradition in our group to pick up sandwiches there on the way up and eat them for lunch on our first full day in.

Clearwater Outfitters did a fine job putting us up for the night before, and supplying our canoes and life jackets.