Boundary Waters!

I've returned from my trip to the Boundary Waters. What a great place to visit! We spent some time in the District Office discussing fire support and our field protocol. The District Office is right on Lake Superior in Grand Marais, MN. The water moderates the temperatures and the town was very pleasant. This was my first time seeing and touching Lake Superior, so it was a treat.

We spent 4 days up in the Boundary Waters gathering data on about 40 field plots. What a cool trip. I preselected 32 plots and we broke up into a few teams to get to as many as possible. We'd canoe to an area close to the plot location and then hike up the burned, rocky landscape to get to the points. It was a great experience. We spent most our time on Sea Gull Lake, which was great for us. The water was smooth and felt fantastic. It was a great lake to swim in, too.

The burned areas were very unique. They had a storm in 1999 they call the "Blowdown" that snapped and killed thousands of trees. This created a huge fuel load just waiting to burn. Well, those burns have come. Some of those burns have been quite severe, even burning down to bedrock. It was very interesting seeing the effects of the fire on these areas. Cool place to visit.