Short SOLO Canoe Camping Trip -The year of rain in BWCA

Thank you for joining me on another short solo camping trip in the wilderness. We are on another canoe camping trip. I am solo again and I am ready to do some camping. This area is exceptionally beautiful. The bugs are out full swing so I'm gonna get on the water. I am right next to an open campsite and I'm so happy that this campsite is open and available. Oh I haven't been up there yet but I'm pretty sure it's the campsite. It looks like the campsite and there's nobody here. Yep this is definitely a campsite. Wow this is pretty. Right under the white pine, up on a hill. I got here. I just landed and all of a sudden it's windy. It was perfectly calm when I was paddling thankfully. That was really nice but I'm gonna leave my stuff right there. Brought the canoe up there. We're gonna check out this campsite. I didn't paddle very far to get here but that's perfect because honestly I literally planned this trip yesterday and packed all myself this morning and headed up here. I'm honestly kind of sleepy but this campsite is honestly beautiful. Holy cow look at those trees. I'm gonna make this home setup camp. If it still feels this warm in a little bit I might go for a swim but I'm just kind of ready to relax a little bit. This is a really pretty campsite. The location where I'm at right now is known for the bear. There's a bear in this area so that's another thing I have to be kind of a little more, not that I'm not always, but extra cautious about is bear activity. It's also supposed to thunderstorm and be kind of crazy weather so if that's the case I might honestly just hang out here because we're just here to have a good time and do some camping. The mosquitoes are really bad so I'm gonna change out of my biker shorts. I usually don't wear biker shorts camping but I was feeling it and now I'm regretting it. For this trip I brought a down blanket. This is just a down quilt to help keep me warm at night if it's a little bit chilly. Last time when I was camping I was a little chilly at night. It's supposed to be almost 10 degrees warmer this time but I still brought this down blanket to help insulate if I need extra warmth because it's lightweight and easy enough to bring. I wanted to actually bring this last time I went camping but I couldn't find it. So I was actually set on swimming when I got to camp and I thought that would be a nice way to wake up but it has cooled off quite a bit since I got here. It's now windy and a little bit chilly and the sun is hiding in the clouds so I'm gonna probably just read and hang out in my hammock. I never knew this campsite was so pretty. I've never been to this campsite before and I'll definitely come back. My fuel tank is pretty low and I decided to not bring a backup fuel tank because all of the food that I have for this trip is pretty much freeze-dried food. So what you can do if you happen to run out of fuel with freeze-dried food is you can actually cold soak it and just soak it extra long in cold water and eat it cold. I have never had to do that but just so you know if you're camping and you run out of fuel and you have some of these freeze-dried meals, like anything that's packaged like this, most of the time you can eat it just fine if you just cold soak it. So if I have to do that I will show you what that's like. Hopefully I don't have to, that's not the plan, but I might run out of fuel. I do have this coffee here though. I have not had any of these before so I'm going to give this a try. It's kind of late in the day for some caffeine but I'm going to be awake for a lot longer and I want to enjoy it and I'm really sleepy so I'm just going to make some coffee. The little dish cup thing that I'm boiling my water in is basically a mug but I'm still going to move that water into my coffee mug just because I prefer to drink out of my coffee mug instead. But you could just make coffee and drink the coffee out of the same little mug that's on the stove if you were a true ultralight, the least amount of gear possible kind of person. I personally think it's worth bringing my little mug. I actually got this mug in Grand Marais at the Voyager Brewery, Voyager Brewing Company. Wow, this is a really big tree that must have just come down because the needles are still green. Right next to the latrine that is a big tree, holy cow. There have been a lot of storms and a lot of honestly crazy wet weather this spring. Minnesota is flooded. I actually planned on going somewhere else during this trip but the entry point is inaccessible due to flooding and washouts so I came here instead but you can still see remnants from storms like this massive pine tree that fell not very far from the latrine. There's supposed to potentially be some tough weather tomorrow. Again, it's like it just doesn't stop raining here but at least you know we're not on fire because I think the threat of fire is in my opinion worse than. I just want to share with you all, this is not sponsored, this was not sent to me. I bought this coffee, a pack of five of these coffees yesterday at Shields and it truly is instant coffee that actually tastes good. I would highly recommend trying this brand. I haven't tried their other coffees but this is a dirty chai latte and hands down easily the best instant coffee, camp coffee I've ever had even. It is, it's really good so I guess I would recommend getting some of these. It's kind of expensive. It was like two dollars a serving but if you're a coffee person and you're a camping person I think it's worth checking this out. Look at that mushroom, that is cool. You can see that a while ago this was a large another towering pine that fell down and you can see that when it fell it kind of broke apart. So this is like the top of it and then it broke here and then it broke there and this broke off of up there. I decided to change into my hiking boots because my feet were just a little bit chilly especially since my chacos are wet. I actually like hiking boots as camp shoes and then sandals as my portage and traveling shoes which some people do the exact opposite as that but that's just my style. I like warm cozy feet at camp and then sandals that get wet in portage and stand in the water. So that's just how I do this but you definitely don't want to do that if you have ankle problems because you want support while you're standing in water and potentially slipping on rocks if that's you. But for me, sandals for portaging and canoeing is usually what I prefer or water shoes. I have water shoes I really like too but there's nothing like having cozy feet at camp. Time to go fishing. I just catch snags but I can see that I caught a log and I drug it pretty close to shore so here I go. Getting the log. This is what I got. Maybe I just need to reel faster. Is that what it is? I know I would have much better luck fishing if I got out away from shore but in order to do that I have to be in the canoe and it's really hard to solo canoe while fishing because you end up like spinning especially if there's any kind of wind like there is right now. When I go on these solo camping trips I don't record that much really. Like I want to share the story with you and the journey with you especially for people who can no longer do trips and this is their way to kind of access the boundary waters or access the wilderness. But most of the time to be honest I'm just kind of relaxing. I was laying in the hammock here for a while and obviously not recording but it was kind of a funny moment because I was just reading my book not really paying attention and I look up and notice a massive spider on the hammock about to crawl onto my leg. I don't know what it is about me but I attract the most massive spiders and I'm not really afraid of spiders but when spiders are like the size of your palm they're kind of intimidating even if you're not terrified of spiders. And now I have no idea where the spider went because I like flailed and jumped out of the hammock and it would have been really funny if there was anybody here to witness it. But sometimes those things are kind of I don't know. Those are the moments that I kind of wish that there were people here with me because it's fun to experience the funny and dramatic moments with other people but I also really like the relaxed. I do kind of what I want when I want vibe when I'm solo camping. If you've been solo camping before you maybe know what I'm saying. If I'm hungry if I want to have a coffee I just do it. If I want to go fishing okay. If I want to be done fishing okay. If I want to lay around okay. And you can do that with other people too but I don't know it's just just different. I may not be able to have a fire tonight because of the wind but I'm gonna prepare some firewood in hopes that I can have a fire tonight just in case. Turns out the wood I was just cutting with all the holes in the center is full of ants and I didn't realize they were crawling up onto my hands and I just got a bunch of little ant bites I was like oh oh I thought like maybe mosquitoes were biting me it kind of felt like that and I looked down and there's like a herd of ants on me. We're gonna make some pad thai. I have not had this one in a long time I can't even remember what it tastes like. Perfect night for a fire. This has honestly been just the perfect evening for camping. Aside from the mosquitoes again I wouldn't change anything. Some interesting things going on right now. I can hear somebody probably half a mile to a mile away from me uh chasing a bear away from their campsite um so hopefully the bear doesn't come to this campsite tonight. That would be ideal. I did hang my food. I washed my dishes. All of the scenty things are away from my camp so hopefully no bear in camp. The other exciting thing is the loons. The loons have been singing and it's absolutely beautiful. This campfire I think is kind of helping keep the mosquitoes away and I just really think this is a lovely evening. It has been raining for three hours straight. I've been in and out of sleep. It's honestly really relaxing in the tent but I do want to get up and get the day going. I would really like some coffee right now so I'm gonna get dressed in my rain gear. This is the summer of rain in Minnesota. I mean I guess summer basically just started technically because the summer solstice didn't happen that long ago. But at least the bear didn't show up in my campsite last night. Hearing the bear being chased away at a campsite nearby was not that fun last night because I thought for sure I was gonna be the next stop for the bear but no. Oh there's a loon. Usually the best part about rain is that the mosquitoes hide and they go away but these mosquitoes are hearty as heck and I am getting bit and they're attacking my face. They want to go in my hood I think to escape the rain. They're still out here hanging out after me. That's wild and it does not appear as though it will be letting up anytime soon. Every direction is hazy and gray. This whole time I've been fishing I only had one single bite. Everything else was snag snag snag snag snag which is normal for this area. It's super rocky and I don't have like snag free hooks so there's only so many snags your line can handle before you lose a hook and I lost lost my hook. My fancy hook that Cory just bought me that looked like a flamingo but that's how it goes. So I'm gonna call it for fishing. Maybe I'll go make breakfast but I'm pretty sure I'm almost out of fuel too. Hopefully we have enough fuel to heat up this water for dinner. If your lighter gets wet it probably will not light so that's why I thought it was important to have backups. I'm gonna go get my backup. Ran out of fuel this is nowhere near warm enough. I know I said that if I ran out of fuel I was going to cold soak my food but that was before my rain pants soaked through. My whole rain jacket upper half was wet too underneath the jacket because rain had been coming in through my hood. Ended up being about 55 degrees this day so I did decide that I was gonna pack up and go get lunch somewhere else. So I left a little bit earlier than I was planning on but sometimes you just gotta make that call. If you're cold and wet you just gotta do what's right for you in the moment. Bye-bye campsite.