Fall at Clearwater

I am back at the lodge and have been for about a week. When I left there was just a hint of fall color and upon my return the leaves were really showing their colors. I saw on the news yesterday that we are at about 80% of peak of a fall color which means the peak should be soon. Regardless, it is beautiful now. It was nice to leave for a little while and nice to return.

During September we have had 21 inches of rain so far. We are making up for a dry winter and spring. Some of the smaller lakes you can tell that the water levels are really up. The larger lakes such as Clearwater are up but will still take some time to return to nomal levels. On Aspen Lake (near us) several of the docks on private cabins are partially below lake level now.

We are working on closing the canoe outfitting and closing the summer cabins for the season. We will be keeping the lodge and Cabin 7 open again this year winter for the winter enthusiasts.

Winter Tracks Festival on the Gunflint Trail is scheduled for February 28 - March 2, 2008. You can see more information on the Festival at www.wintertracks.com.

Blog Break

I am taking a break from the blog for about a week as I travel to Indiana to visit family. It is a nice time to take a little vacation after the summer rush and before fall starts. I'll be back and updating next week.

Lynn

American Bald Eagle

This is a 2nd or 3rd year American Bald Eagle. This great photo was taken by Kris May who spent the week here fishing and helping us split wood for the winter.

Lodge Crawl Space

As many of you know from blogs, being here and newsletters, we have worked to winterize the lodge over the 5 seasons we have been here. We added heat in all the room upstairs, we put a separate heating system in the main area of the lodge with 5 zones. We redirected the original furnace to heat the basement and crawl space of the lodge. We vented the roof and added insulation to the attic and we insulated the walls of the basement. We dug up the waterline to the well and replaced it with a new one that including heat tape to keep it open. Mike made special storm windows for the entire down stairs of the lodge - that was 37 windows and not one of them the exact same size of the other. This year we put plastic down in the crawl space. Two of our summer staff, Ed and Erik, volunteered for this thankless task and spent some time under the lodge crawling around putting the sheeting down and attaching it to the walls of the lodge. This step is necessary to keep the moisture from wicking up from the ground in the winter.

Anyway, this is a long explanation for this picture of Ed in the crawl space. And he was still smiling after the photo shoot was done! Ed has headed back to school now to finish up his senior year. We hope to see him here in future years for canoe trips and visits because he is a true die hard fan of the BWCA.

Lynn

How much rain did we get?

I was asked this question about 20 times this morning but am not positive about the answer. I heard anywhere from 5 inches to 11 inches depending upon who you ask. Personally I think it was closer to 11. This is a photo of Ben bailing the boats this morning. It was a work out as the water was up over the seats and they were inches from being swamped.

Fire Ban Lifted

We had around 5 inches of rain last night and the fire ban has been lifted, the boats bailed and the sun is shining. Temperatures will be in the 60's during the days and 40's in the nights the next few day.

With 5 inches of rain, the water level of the lakes increased dramatically last night.

Lynn

Heavy Rain

Heavy rain forecast for Northeastern Minnesota

Duluth News Tribune Published Thursday, September 06, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/359nx6

It’s a term we haven’t heard around these parts in a long time. The National Weather Service in Duluth is forecasting heavy rain across a wide area of Northeastern Minnesota early Friday. Many areas could see more than an inch, and some areas upwards of two inches, by the time rain moves out later Friday, said Mike Bettwy, forecaster at the Duluth weather service office. Northwestern Wisconsin will see some rain, but not as much.

Some areas of the Arrowhead already were seeing heavy rain Thursday morning. A line of thunderstorms looked to drop more than inch of rain today from Bemidji, across the northern Iron Range and into the Boundary Waters. The Cook area was seeing heavy rain before noon. The rain will be welcome for trees, yards, plants, rivers and lakes that have suffered through 16 months of drought. Heading into the upcoming rainstorm, Duluth is some 13 inches below normal since June, 2006. The rain also will reduce fire danger for several days, and fire restrictions may be further relaxed by next week. Another round of rain will hit early Sunday, and the region will see much cooler temperatures – with highs only in the 50’s early next week.
Weather at Gunflint Lake:
http://bwca.cc/weather/gunflint/gunflintweather.htm
Boundary Waters Weather:
http://bwca.cc/weather/wximages/bwca.htm
Northern Minnesota Weather Resources:
http://bwca.cc/weather/weatherresources.htm
Gunflint Lightning Detector:
http://bwca.cc/weather/gunflint/gstorm.jpg