Kabatogama

Kabetogama Lake: It's like being in a Minnesota Postcard

In Minnesota, the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, Kabetogama is an enchanted combination of sky blue waters and majestic forests. Situated along the U.S.- Canadian border, Kabetogama Lake has miles of pristine undeveloped shoreline, 25,000 acres of clean, cool water and is one of four major lakes that make up Voyageurs National Park. Established in 1975, Minnesota's only National Park commemorates a key stretch of waterway canoed by 18th century French-Canadian Voyageurs who transported goods and furs along the international border lakes. Kabetogama Lake is a forested lake country setting born of an ancient glacier flow, edged by the great Canadian Shield.

The plan is a late winter route that includes 3 nights of self-supported camping and riding about 75 miles. We expect nice weather because by this time, winter has lost to Vulcanus Rex and day one is warm, sunny and we ride the first 30 miles in shirts. We load the bikes, worry about forgetting something important, look over everyone configuration to glee tips and new ideas of how to rig a ride.

One rider with a shed load more experience than I, rigs heavy over the rear tire. I balance more front and rear as each rider has their own style, however, nobody thinks their system is best, just better for them.

My rig (above). It's advantage is easy to repack a single large dry bag. It's also 'see-through' so you can find stuff. You do need to consider how you load! Do not pack your hat first. I'm loaded a bit heavy for the temps but I'm conservative when environmental exposure is high as is the case here.

This is the last weekend the ice roads are open and they are smooth and fast. We have a blast and cover more ground then planned.

Those that have read a few of these posts know the "Hi, Look at me!" joke/wave. It's as stupid as it looks, but then, during long adventures we have many hours of tedium, and well, you get a case of the giggles, make up something and it sticks.

Trails this late in the year are soft but if you drop your tire pressure to 3 to 5 psi you can enjoy the ride. The counter is cold! Miserable, bone cracking cold, where the snow is hard as concrete but the riding sucks as your hands and face take a hard numbing. You stare into the distance looking for shelter or anything hopeful, hiding in your jacket, collar up as high as it will go, hat as low as it will go and you know it's going to be this way for a few miles so you turn off the brain, lower your head and spin the legs until it ends. Wonder why I'm explaining this, well, the weather is going to change.

But for now, it's nice, day one fun. We have shelters to stop at for lunch and even the park ranger stopped by to talk about our trip. He's a little impressed and would like others to come to his park and fat bike.

Kabatogama has many islands and most have campsites. You need to get permits but I believe they are free. Its been some time since this trip but I recall most of it like it was a few years ago. 

I'm still trying to get this selfie thing just right. It's really not about you, I want to be able to remember what I looked like in 20 years.

DeathRider experiments with impromptu shelter. I have a tarp and reasonably terrible tarp shelter skills with it but it's better then DR.

First night camp is not too far from the Voyager National Park so we set up camp and ride over to get free hot cocoa and look around. It's nice to get inside, we dawdle and look at all the exhibits.

My tarp shelter. I was new to this method but it's low and tight to block wind and simple. Others had to go deep into the island and make do with the wind. Lets see where DeathRider ended up?

Yep! That's DeathRider, aka Josh. He's in a bear box. Let's break down why, his bivy bag is too small to allow his sub-zero sleeping bag to loft fully. If your sleeping bag is compressed you're going to loose a lot of heat and freeze but without shelter from the wind you're going to get a lot of snow in the face and it's like sleeping in a carwash of cold so he solved the bigger issue and got in the box.

Morning of is windy, it was windy all night and it's cold now. Deathrider is cooking in the lee of the bear box as I am below.

Using the bear box in winter is silly, they are hibernating, right? However, snow is hard rain and rain is water, and being wet in winter is very bad. Anything that gets wet now, stays wet so be tidy and keep everything dry and out of the snow as much as possible.

Day two the clouds cover over, the temps drop the wind comes up but it's still, OK. We have the most miles to cover on day 2. I forget but it's like 30+ mile to make the exit day short.

Lunch break island and a water fill directly from the lake.

Second night camp, temps are falling fast. We are forced off the front of the island and into the middle to hide from the wind and to gain a better source of firewood.

My shelter or lack there of. I had a tarp over me but it failed late into the night and only functioned to funnel snow into my face. As you can see, we picked up an inch of snow.

Others on the trip fared a bit worse and had an uncomfortable night but we all took our lumps as the weather of day one was gone.

Don't let the sun fool you, the sky is clear but the temps are bottoming out and we don't have clothes for the severe temps we are about ride into.

Brrr, temps are dropping fast, near -1F. Winds are high. We have to get off the lake. Nobody has clothes for this. It's serious danger and we all know it. If you break down and have to walk, it could be grim. Windchill is below -10F and we mostly have gear for 20F, nobody can help us and cell phones, if not frozen, are out if range. We all ride our ride and try the best we can to stay in sight. I have a little extra gear, recall the larger dry bag, so I'm the only one with a face mask, all be it thin, I'm not getting frostbit, as the others did.

We get back to the cars, pray they start, and hang out to warm up before loading the bikes and driving back to the cities. 

How a weekend can start near 40F and end at -1F is what you call experience. Recall your grandfather telling you, Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.....We had a fantastic 2 day ride and a shed load of experience for about 2 hours on the 3rd day and on that chillingly sober note, good-bye.