Saturday, December 9, 2017

Voyageurs National Park: Ski to Gold Portage

Today I set off under cloudy skies,
to travel across the frozen surface of Black Bay on skis
to Gold Portage. There is a stream at Gold Portage that connects Kabetogama Lake with Rainy Lake. It flows over a set of rapids, so I figured there would likely be some open water out that way. Still, I wanted to get out of the house and do some exploring.

The ice seemed pretty solid as I headed southeast. Pretty quickly I came to a fairly large pressure ridge that I had to negotiate.
After that I set a course toward Skunk Island off in the distance. I passed an area with lots of wolf tracks in the snow.
Soon enough I saw a snow covered sign marking the "Gold Portage Area".
I decided to ski upstream a bit. As I had suspected, there was open water in the middle of the channel there.
I stayed off to the side of the stream among the cattails. There even seemed to be paths among the cattails.
Eventually the strip of solid ice off to the side of the main channel began to narrow. It was time to turn around. I didn't want to risk breaking through the ice.

I made my way back to the entrance of Gold Portage. At one point my ski pole broke through the ice. Luckily the rest of my body did not. I would be skiing into the wind for the return trip. Still, it was interesting to follow my tracks back to where I had started,
passing a few islands here
and there. I made a quick stop at the campsite on Reuter Creek,
and shortly thereafter I was back to the parking lot and my car. While I wasn't able to make it back to the rapids, it was a worthwhile trip!

No comments: