2023-08-27, 07:12 AM
(2023-08-26, 08:13 PM)netllama Wrote: Thanks for sharing! How busy/crowded is that park in the summer? Is it difficult to get a permit/camping?BWCA is similar to Death Valley in that you can choose your level of adventure and solitude. I'm limited, so I stay on easy lakes, but there are folks who make arduous long treks, even into Canada, and have glorious times on their own. One couple we ran into had been out almost two weeks, but came back because they were "running out of batter for the fish they caught." Sure, rub it in (we caught only one).
The Forest Service keeps a limit on how many people are in BWCA by requiring a paid permit, which you can get either by going on recreation.gov or asking an outfitter to obtain one for you. The permits become available near the end of January, and it's not hard to get one but there is competition for popular entry points; you might have to switch to a different day or lake.
As for crowds, we saw no one near our campsite, a few canoes on the lakes, but we did run into a "crowd" at the portage from Lake One to Lake Two. Portages are bottlenecks, so they sometimes stack up and everyone has to be patient and courteous to get through. Part of life.
Campsites are not reserved; whoever gets to them first wins (I'm remembering the first time I went, with a large group; we raced some Boy Scouts for the spot we wanted but lost and had to find another one. No problem; the scouts generally only stay one night, so we moved over early the next morning and stayed the rest of the week.)
There's more information at https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/superior...ecid=84168, the official site, and I use paddlepanner.com to check out what other folks say about lakes and sites.