Man-A-Thon XII s

The Man-A-Thon for the summer of 2012 was a trip to the Boundary Waters. Nine men took off for Brule lake on Sunday evening after church. Our theme for this man-a-thon was “True Men Accept Responsibility.”
Because the limit is nine people for each permit, and no more than 4 canoes to each group, we filled it to capacity. The tricky part was figuring out how to get all the canoes, gear, and guys up there in one piece! I googled “four canoes on a van” but had no relevant hits. I suppose we were heading into uncharted waters. Here is option A.
Steve S., our guide, did all the hard work with figuring out how to get us up there and to the right destination. We eventually settled on option C for the canoes.
We were graciously allowed to use the cabin of a friend up in Lutsen to spend the night, so we didn’t have to throw down our sleeping bags in a parking lot somewhere. We spent the night in Lutsen, and then got to the Tofte station by 8 for orientation and permits.
Caribou trail took us first to Eagle Mountain, the highest peak in Minnesota. On the way there we saw a black bear, but he was too quick to get a picture.

Eagle Mountain is not much of a mountain, but at 2301 feet above sea level, it is the 39th highest state point in the USA (beating out Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa).
Everyone made it up and down, ending a little lighter thanks to the thirsty mosquitoes on the trail.
We got into Brule lake around one at began our paddle to the north west portion of the lake. We were able to make it into camp just before the rain hit, thankfully. It was a little questionable with the zipper technique for paddling of a few of the guys – back and forth, back and forth.