Who, Where, When...

After a great trip in October of 2000, I really wanted to return to the Pow Wow Hiking Trail area and explore some of the old logging roads in depth. Can you make it to Insula? Is there a campsite on Arrow that people still use? Where exactly was I when I got lost and camped at what I've been calling the shore of Ahmoo Creek back in October of 1989?

Pow Wow Planning

Over the winter my plan for a Pow Wow solo hike changes slightly. Instead of strictly a exploration of the area I got lost in back in 1989 and some other exploring up in the area, I start thinking about the Pow Wow East Loop. I know the USFS considers it closed, but I can hike where ever I want in the BWCA. I have excellent trail finding skills and if I'm not mistaken much of the trail runs along old logging roads (like much of the open West Loop). I camped along the Isabella/Perent River back in 1998 with my son and a friend right where the trail crosses the river. The bridge (which wasn't necessary in the summer of 1998) was still in place. Because my 4 year old son was along, I never did explore the trail, but it really intregued me then, as it does now. What I'm hungry for, more than anything else, is to explore new territory. While I might explore some more north of the trails like last fall, my first goal is to try to follow the old Pow Wow East Loop trail. I figure if it's just too difficult (this would require lots of deep standing water with no apparent way around), then I'll modify my plans to explore north of Ahmoo Creek again.

Closet KTC Member

For the last 4 years or so, I've been an "online" member of the Kekekabic Trail Club. Don't bother to look it up, that classification of membership doesn't exist, I made it up. I'd love to join, but the logistics of doing anything from central Indiana are too burdonsome to a family man. It's not the trail clearing, it's the manditory training session in the spring, followed by a late spring clearing trip. Just too many 11-15 hour drives to Minnesota during baseball and soccer season. I do, however, read the Hungry Beaver, the KTC newsletter. In the past couple years there has been a lot written about opening up closed BWCA trails. I must admit, while I've always known about the East Loop, it was the KTC that prompted me think more seriously about trying to hike it.

I don't know the politics, but it looks like the KTC has split with its founder, Martin Kubik, forming a new organization called the Kelso Mountain Trail Club (KMTC). Actually, I think these are two separate entities, that share some common goals and will probably work together quite a bit, but are legally different entities working to maintain (KTC) and restore (KMTC) BWCA hiking trails.

Pow Wow East Loop Planning

So where do you start? As someone who loves maps and has quite a collection of new and old BWCA maps, I started looking thru all of them for traces of the old East Loop. Here's a list of the maps I have of the area and what they contained relative to the East Loop:

• USFS Superior National Forest Map © 1984
  • Contains map of trail. Includes both Ferne Lake and Pow Wow Lake routes. Also contains route up thru Arrow Lake connecting to trail that runs first north, then east from the Pose Lake turnoff on the West Loop. This is the only map I've seen with this Arrow Lake trail shown as a complete loop.
  • Scale is 1/4" = 1 mile or 1:253,440, so it only give approximations to location.
• USFS Superior National Forest Map © 1999
  • Contains no map of trail, except for a left over trail number "151" SW of Calamity Lake. Map of no assistance.
  • Scale is 1/2" = 1 mile or 1:126,720.
• USFS SNF Powwow Lake Hiking Trail brochure with map, no copyright, but picked up at Isabella Ranger station in October 1989.
  • Contains map of trail from trailhead south of Isabella to campsite on Perent River. Really a West Loop trail brochure and map.
  • Scale is approximately 1" = 1 mile or 1:63,360
• USFS SNF Pow-Wow Hiking Trail brochure with map, no copyright, but picked up at Isabella Ranger station in October 2000.
  • Contains no trace of East Loop.
  • Scale is approximately 1 1/4" = 1 mile or 1:50,688
• USFS SNF PowWow Trail BWCA Entry Point #86 Trail narrative with map, no copyright, but picked up at Isabella Ranger station in October 1989.
  • The narrative specifically mentions the East Loop, but has no details, for this is a West Loop narrative. The map does show a trail running north at the Pose Lake turnoff which crosses Ahmoo Creek and then cuts back east. It aslo shows a little spur heading east from the midsection between the Fallen Arch Lake turnoff and Pose Lake turnoff, but no real details given. Makes me think there may have originally been an East Loop narrative as well as the West Loop narrative that I have.
  • Scale is approximately 3/4" = 1 mile or 1:84,480
• Fisher's Map #113, © 1952 renewed 1980.
  • Contains map of trail excluding southern trailhead and most of the trail to the Perent River which is too far south on the map. It contains both the Ferne Lake and Powwow Lake sections and a spur trail running north to Arrow Lake from the trail about 1/2 mile west of where the Ferne Lake and Powwow Lake sections rejoin and about 1 1/2 mile east of where the trail diverges from the West Loop.
  • Scale is 5/8" = 1 mile or 1:101,376
• Fisher's Maps F4 and F5, © 1983, reviewed for accuracy by USFS in 1989.
  • Contains virtually the entire East Loop, but only first three miles, from southern trailhead to Perent River, are marked with red dots to indicate hiking trail. The rest of the trail is marked with narrow black dashed line indicating a rough trail. All the trail accounted for except a one mile section starting at Fungus Lake and going NNE. It picks back up the trail as it turns more westerly towards Nuthatch Lake. No spur to Arrow Lake present. Shows some of the Ahmoo Creek section, but it "deadends" between North Arrow and Tornado. Shows Hiking campsites on South Arrow, Powwow, Fungus, Tomahawk and one just an 1/8 of a mile north of the Perent River "canoe" site. What's weird about this is that it shows up on F4, but not F5 when they both cover this territory due to overlap. From the map, I can't tell if it's supposed to be on the Perent River, on Snusbox Lake or in the middle of the woods. It's located about halfway between Snusbox and Perent River to the east of Snuxbox.
  • Scale is 1 1/2" = 1 mile or 1:42,240
• McKenzie Map #19, © 1999.
  • Contains much of the East Loop marked as old logging road, but it appears that some of it was intentionally erased. Because of it's scale and white background, I used it as the map to retrace the original East Loop. It contains no campsites and no spur to Arrow Lake. It looks like an old logging road was possibly erased (consistent with other parts of the trail on the map) that ran about 1/4 mile west of the Arrow Lakes, but this seems too far west relative to other mappings of the trail I've seen.
  • Scale is 2" = 1 mile or 1:31,680
• Microsoft TerraServer.
  • Contains much of the East Loop marked as old logging road on topo map. Also contains much of the trail on the image or satellite photo part of the map. Spent hours out at this site. Special thanks to Derrick Passe for putting me onto it. I'd used it before, but never even thought about using it for remapping the East Loop. I suggest using the map to locate the trail then switching over to the photos and maxing out the zoom feature. This map supports much of what the fisher map shows. I can't find the trail over in the Fungus Lake area and do not see a spur trail to the Arrow Lake campsite. Maybe these where never logging roads and thus don't really show up on the photos and maps.
  • Scale varies depending on settings.

Mapping Results

While I still want to do some more verification, I feel I've done a fairly accurate job of mapping out the East Loop. Here are my results:

• Powwow Trail East Loop Map - west
• Powwow Trail East Loop Map - east
• Powwow Trail East Loop Map - north

October 2001 Planning Update

I've updated my map slightly (not the online version). The eastern tip of the trail, after leaving the area south of Tomahawk Lake extends a little further east toward Chickadee Lake and then runs along the trail shown NW for a ways and then I believe it follows the western shore of the swamp south of Fungus Lake and Fungus Lake up to the old campsite. While not 100% sure of these changes, I'm thinking this is more accurate.

I have been lucky enough to use a copy of Delorme Topo USA 3.0 recently. I was using the national version, non-USGS topo based maps. While the accuracy is just not there for any serious duty, I did use it to calculate some waypoints. I'll be using these waypoints in conjunction with a Garmin II+ GPS unit to potentially aid in my navigation. I figure if I loose the trail I can punch in my next waypoint and cut cross-country for it, hoping to find the trail once again when I get there. It's a nice theory, we'll just have to see how it works in real life.