Snowshoeing in Superior National Forest

Summary

From December 2022 to January 2023, I went on a snowshoeing trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northern Minnesota. Specifically, I went to Superior National Forest. This was a solo trip, because I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to go hike around northern Minnesota in the dead of winter with me 😅. I hiked a total of 3 days, spending 2 nights camping, and used the nearby town of Ely, MN as a bit of a base camp to work from. This trip was the second time I had tried something like this, as the year before I had gone on a similar trip in the BWCAW, with the same intentions, but ended up abandoning that trip before the first night because my tent was not suitable for winter camping, and I also had serious trouble following any sort of trail in the snow.

This trip went much better, as I had a proper 4-season tent, and I also decided to instead hike on frozen lakes, which made following trails unnecessary. Specifically, I snowshoed around Hegman Lake and Angleworm Lake. Overall, this trip was a great experience, and I learned a lot about winter camping and snowshoeing. I also learned how to safely snowshoe on frozen lakes, watching for areas of wet snow, and I learned how to self arrest in case I fell through the ice (luckily I didn't need to test this skill). It was a great feeling to have the second attempt at this trip be so successful, and I hope I get the time (and motivation, if I'm being honest) to do a trip like this again.

Weather

The weather was classic northern Minnesota winter weather. During the day, temperatures were generally in the mid teens (°F), while at night temperatures dropped to below -20. The nights got pretty windy, which made me happy to have my 4-season tent, but I didn't have any issues with the cold because, as you'll see in my packing list, I had some pretty great cold weather gear. There was also some pretty snowfall, but nothing too extreme. Overall, the weather was pretty great for a snowshoeing trip, and really made me appreciate the beauty of winter in northern Minnesota.

Highlights

Because this was a shorter trip, there weren't as many highlights to remember, but there were still a few standout moments. The first was seeing the Hegman Lake pictographs. These are ancient Native American rock paintings that are located on a cliff overlooking Hegman Lake. Seeing these pictographs in person was a really cool experience, and it was amazing to think about how old they are. It was also fun imagining how the Native Americans who created them got them drawn there. Did they walk over the frozen lake like I was doing? Or did they canoe there in the summer?

My second highlight was the first night camping, when it dropped to about -20°F. I was a bit worried about how cold it would be, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well my gear kept me warm. In fact, I slept with very little clothing on, with my sleeping bag unzipped, and was still warm. My sleeping pad and bag are rated for much colder temperatures (around -40°F), but I was still surprised by just how warm I was. Additionally, hearing the wind howl outside, knowing my tent was literally maybe a foot above a lake of ice cold water was a pretty cool feeling. I wonder if any fish swam under my tent that night?

My third highlight was my second night of camping. This night I was much further from any civilization, and I had an entire frozen lake to myself. Knowing that I was miles from the nearest person, in the dead of winter, was an experience I know not many people will ever get to have. And then, out of nowhere, a pack of wolves started howling very close to me, in the nearby surrounding forest. They howled for maybe 15 minutes, and I sat out on the lake on my bear canister and just listened. It was an experience I'd almost call spiritual, if it didn't sound so woo-woo. But it was definitely a feeling I'll remember for a long time.

Finally, I don't know if highlight is the best term for this, but my second route I snowshoed, out to Angleworm Lake, was some of the hardest hiking I've ever done. Angleworm Lake was a roughly 3 mile hike from the road, and about 2.5 of the miles were in completely untouched snow, in which I was sinking up to my knees WITH my snowshoes on. Just to test it, at one point I took one snowshoe off, took a step, and I fell down to about my waist in snow. Snowshoeing 2.5 miles in that, with a 40 pound pack on my back, was something to remember.

Packing list for the hike

Clothing:

Base gloves
Windproof mittens
2 t-shirts
1 long sleeve shirt
1 sweatshirt
1 Winter coat
2 pairs of sock liners
2 pairs of underwear
Long underwear
2 pairs of wool socks
1 pair of gaiters
Winter hat
Balaclava
Raincoat
Snow goggles
1 pair of sweatpants
Rain pants

First Aid

Medical tape
Tylenol
Hand sanitizer
Hot hands heat packs
Lip balm
A&D ointment (for chafing)

Food & Smellables

4 Mountain House freeze dried meals
6 Clif bars
6 Tuna packets (yuck 😖)
A jar of creamy peanut butter
A block of cheddar cheese (because the weather was cold)
Hot chocolate mix
Gatorade electrolyte mix
6 Fruit snack bags
A bag of dried mangoes
A fork

Shoe gear

1 pair of snow boots
1 set of snowshoes
1 pair of down slippers

Sleeping gear

1 MSR Access 2 tent
1 Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xtherm NXT Sleeping Pad
1 Polar Ranger sleeping bag
1 Closed cell foam sleeping pad
1 Sleeping bag liner
1 bag bivvy
8 Snow stakes
1 Inflatable pillow

Cooking gear

Pot
MSR Whisperlite stove
White gas fuel bottle
Lighter
Soap
Sponge

Electronics

1 26800 mAh power bank
Phone
1 Garmin In Reach
Garmin Fenix 6 GPS watch
1 Camera (Olympus OMD EM1 Mk 3)
2 Lenses (Olympus M. Zuiko 12 - 45 mm lens and Olympus 100-400mm f/5-6.3 IS M.Zuiko Digital ED Lens)
1 Peak Design Carbon Fiber Tripod
1 Extra camera battery
1 Peak Design Capture Clip
1 Kindle
Charging cords

General gear

1 Deuter Air Contact Lite 85 + 10 quart backpack
4 32 oz water bottles
3 Bottle insulators (to stop my water from freezing)
Steripen
Hiking poles
Poop spade
Snow shovel
Headlamp
Compass
Map
Toilet paper
Small toothbrush
Small tube of toothpaste

My routes

Shown below is a map of the routes I hiked through the national forest. I hiked two entirely separate routes, sleeping in Ely for a night in between the two routes. Here's a download link for the GPX file of my first route. Here's a download link for the GPX file my second route.

Map of my first route — Map of the first route I snowshoed

Additionally, here is an elevation profile of the first route. Obviously the majority of the elevation map should be flat, because I was hiking on a frozen lake, but there are slight inaccuracies with my GPS map, so oh well.

Elevation profile of the first route I snowshoed

Next, here's the second route I snowshoed.

Map of my second route — Map of the second route I snowshoed

Finally, here is an elevation profile of the second route.

Elevation profile of the second route I hiked

Pictures

Finally, here are some of the best pictures from the trip.

A picture of my tent at night — My tent the first night of camping on Hegman Lake

My stove — My Whisperlite stove at night

The Native American pictographs on Hegman Lake

A tent at night — My tent on Angleworm Lake at night

Me after arriving to Angleworm Lake — A picture of me after I arrived at Angleworm Lake

My campsite on Angleworm Lake — A photo of my campsite setup on Angleworm Lake

Me sitting at my campsite at Angleworm Lake. At this moment, a pack of wolves was howling all around me, and I wanted to get as much of a picture of it as I could.

A tent in the snow — A photo of a hot tent someone else had setup across the lake from me, on Hegman Lake. You can actually see this tent in the first photo, if you zoom in and look for the small point of light in the background.

A photo of a tent with streaks of light — This was an experiment I did with my camera, where I did a long exposure of my campsite and moved my headlamp around as the photo was being taken. I think it turned out pretty good.

Conclusion

For this trip, I did two shorter snowshoeing routes out to two different lakes in Superior National Forest, camping overnight both nights. Overall, this trip was a great experience, and I learned a lot about winter camping and snowshoeing. It felt so good to have a successful second attempt at this trip. It showed me that I was learning from my past mistakes, and that I could push myself to do hard things. I also felt so lucky to get to experience wolves howling so close to me in the wilderness. I hope I can experience that again one day.