My original plan was to start with 4-5 days of kayaking followed by a few nights on the Cruiser Lake trail. As usual, my plans changed. I was driving up to Duluth to spend the night before heading to Voyageurs when I saw the nearly full moon rising above the trees, glowing orange and red. Right then I decided to do the Cruiser Lake trail first to give myself the chance to see and photograph moonrise from Anderson Bay. This also seemed like the safer plan, as I was coming to realize I wasn't at all prepared for a 4-5 night kayak trip, but I felt I could easily pull things together for a backpack trip and deal with the kayak prep later in the week.
Voyageurs is very much a water based park - there are 4 large lakes that make up most of the park boundary. In order to get almost anywhere in the park, you need a boat. In order to get to the Cruiser Lake trail, I called a resort and arranged for a water taxi to drop me off at one trailhead and pick me up several days later at a different trailhead.
My plan was to get a ride to the Beast Lake trailhead on Mica Bay, hike to the intersection with the Cruiser trail and head up to Anderson Bay, and then take 2 more days to backpack down to the Lost Bay trailhead. Anderson Bay features a great overlook of Rainy Lake, and I wanted to be there for sunset and sunrise (and moonrise as long as I didn't chicken out and get scared of the dark). This map will help put things in perspective.
Unfortunately, this all fell apart almost instantly. My water taxi ride had never heard of the Mica Bay drop-off point, didn't know where it was and had no idea if there was a dock there. The ranger who issued my permit wasn't sure on the dock situation either, so I was left with 2 options: 1) drop-off and pick-up at Lost Bay, which meant almost twice as much mileage in order to see what I wanted to see, or 2) take my chances and hope there was dock at Mica Bay and if not, take my chances on wading to shore with my gear and hope I didn't slip in the water and injure myself. I went with option 1B - drop-off and pick-up at Lost Bay, with 2 nights at Cruiser Lake and a possible dayhike to Anderson Bay. Not really what I was hoping for, but I was pretty sure Anderson Bay wasn't going anywhere and the moon would continue to rise at regular intervals, so I figured it was a pretty safe bet I would get the chance to see it some day.
The hike to Cruiser took a little longer than I hoped and wasn't incredibly scenic. Other than a few ridges, it's mostly in the trees with limited views. I did have one exciting moment, courtesy of a grouse that flew up in front of me in a rather dense/dark section of trail. I do believe that's about the loudest I've yelled (it was NOT a scream) in quite some time. Not sure what my heartrate was, but it was up there. I made it to Cruiser just before sunset and took a few photos before throwing up my tent and unpacking in the dark. The campsite at Cruiser is pretty cool - it's on a little island separated from the mainland by a marshy area with a short boardwalk providing access.
I took way too long to get moving in the morning, and consequently never made it to Anderson Bay. Perhaps that's just as well - it would've been a 10 mile roundtrip, and I'm not sure I was really up for that. I hiked to somewhere around the Brown Lake trail and turned around after searching in vain for that trail. There's supposedly a sign for it, but I went back and forth 3 times in that vicinity and never saw a sign or trail. The Cruiser Lake trail itself is lightly travelled and fairly overgrown in spots, so I suppose the trail to Brown Lake is pretty faint. The shot below is a section of trail just north of Cruiser Lake.
Back at Cruiser, I pulled out the canoe and went for a paddle. Winds were light so I had little difficulty going solo. Canoeing is one of my favorite things and it was a perfect way to spend a couple hours. Yay for canoeing! I'm pretty much a slow paddler/drifter, but I like it that way. I made it around probably about 1/2 of the lake, and stopped at the picnic site (old campsite) and picked up some wood for my campfire.
Sunset was nothing spectacular. After sitting around the campfire awhile, I went to bed and head some wolves howling off and on for about 45 minutes. That was cool!The next day dawned cloudy with a few raindrops. I packed up and started the hike back to Lost Bay. It didn't take to to decide I really didn't care to unpack and set up camp at Agnes Lake for one night just so I could repack and hike out the following morning. I called my water taxi (yes, I had spotty cell phone signal out there) and they were free to pick my up that afternoon. That energized me a bit, as I was a bit mopey about the trip (other than canoeing) up to this point and was ready to be done with it.
A little while later I needed a food break, so I headed off-trail a ways and sat on the shore of a beaver pond to eat.
Way across the pond I spotted some movement - a black shape kind of bouncing around on a rock. Thinking it was probably an otter, I grabbed my camera and took some shots. After blowing up the photos, I can confirm it was an otter - the first time I've seen one of them in the wild. I wish it had been closer so I had better photos, but a slightly blurry otter photo is better than nothing.
From there, it was an uneventful hike to the trailhead. My ride showed up about 5 minutes after I did and I was soon back on the mainland.Side note: A couple days later a volunteer at the visitor center confirmed there was indeed a Beast Lake trail with a dock at the trailhead, and mentioned the section from there to Anderson Bay is the most scenic part of the trail. That's all I need to convince me to go back, but next time I'll be better prepared and make sure I have a shuttle that knows where to drop me off.
You can see more photos from the Cruiser Lake trail here.
If you want to see photos from the March trip, there are 4 albums here.
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