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We headed into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness this week for I think my seventy second time. It definitely is my favorite wilderness area. The first wildlife we see is this red fox.

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You need an entry permit to camp in the BWCAW and only so many permits are giving out each day. You can’t reserve individual campsites so you never know what will be available. In all my trips I have never had to camp in a bad site but this trip we definitely found a five-star campsite.

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The weather that first day was also five-star.

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View from the campsite.

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The island around the campsite was covered with beautiful red and white pine along with northern white cedar.

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Two of my friends had a unique tent that I have never seen before. It stretched out between the trees and was like sleeping on air.

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I had the traditional type tent. The tent pad was surrounded with huge pines. You could go to sleep to the sound of the breeze blowing through the needles.

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If you have never camped in the BWCAW before I’ve included a few photos of what it is like. You need to hang your food pack in case a black bear shows up.

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Each campsite has a fiberglass latrine. This one was surrounded by beautiful cedar.

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The first night we were sitting in our campsite listening to the loons when we spotted the moon coming up behind the pines. It was an absolutely gorgeous evening.

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The next day we did have rain that kept us in the campsite but there was lots of unique vegetation to discover and photograph, like this lichen.

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We were also entertained by different wildlife. We had loons, pileated woodpeckers, a young merlin and some of us got to hear what sounded like a couple of weasel or pine marten fighting it out.

I was wondering how this young baby loon would ever develop fast enough to fly in only two short months.

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That night the clouds begin to break and we experienced a beautiful sunset. This photo was taken at a long exposure creating the starburst.

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Shortly after the sun went down our friendly loon swam into the scene.

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The next morning blue sky returned. We just sat there taking in the beauty of it all.

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I took a panoramic photo with my cell phone to show the entire view from the campsite. When you see natural wonders like this it isn’t hard to realize that this area needs to be protected for generations to come. I want my grandkids and great grandkids to be able to experience the beauty of this place.

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When we got home I saw a second fox. This one must have been this year’s kit.

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