20 Great BWCA Trips: Exploring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Paperback – April 1, 2011

I looked at book before I bought nice reviews of the boundary lakes and trails my husband will be happy to receive

While I consider Dan Pauly's Exploring the Boundary Waters to be the most complete BWCAW guide, this compact little guide will provide the occasional BWCAW visitor with many years worth of great trips. They pack a lot of information into a pocket sized book. Each route opens with a section titled "Why We Like This Trip" that briefly summarizes the highlights of the route. They go on to describe the details of the route and include the usual things like maps, portage descriptions, directions to the entry point, and so on. One of my favorite features is the "Selecting a Campsite" section which will direct you to the best sites on each route. That's great info to have with you on busy summer days when not going to a prime site first may mean sleeping on a bed of rocks or tree roots. While veteran BWCAW travelers might want to dig deeper with books like Pauly's guide or the two volume Boundary Waters Canoe Area: Eastern Region and Western Region books, this guide is really all the more casual visitor will need. It's also small enough to take with you and it's printed on coated paper so it won't be destroyed if it gets wet.

The book is well-organized, has useful information and puts together some interesting trips. But it's outdated. Specifically, my son and I picked out the Lake Isabella trip. But when we talked to an outfitter, he told us that the area near Lake Isabella had still not recovered from a fire that occurred shortly after the book was published. So, we ended up choosing another entry point away from the burn area.

I purchased this book because my family was planning a trip to the BWCA. It is very informative about what permits were needed, what to bring along, and even had a checklist of things that you might forget. The book is very well organized and gives great directions to different campsites. It gives suggestions for a variety of day trips and tells you the difficulty of each trip. The pictures are fantastic and give a great idea of what you can expect to see. The size of the book was also very nice because it could easily fit into a pouch or large pocket. Anyone going to the BWCA would benefit from this book, even seasoned visitors.

I've read a lot of books on the BWCA. This one is a good one, I'd recommend it. Simple, and to the point book. The pictures and maps in the book are very helpful. There are other books that go into more detail about camping (what to bring, etc) but this book is a good one for deciding which places in the BWCA to go. With the somewhat overwhelming number of entry points, this book is helpful in the process of narrowing down your options. Also, the recommendations for specific campsites on lakes have been very good in my experience.

This book is great. I have heard of some of the places this book recommended, but most of them I had no idea. The author gives a good description of each entry point as well as a difficulty rating. I took my Fiance on her first boundary water canoe trip and this guide helped me pick to the right spot to take a beginner. She is not much of a canoe camper, but enjoyed the trip none the less. Book has some good information if you're not familiar with the boundary waters.

We are planning our first boundary waters trip. This book has some useful information on very basic information, but lacked depth on potential routes that were listed. We found "Exploring the Boundary Waters" by Daniel Pauly to be much more useful in planning a route for the trip.

We have a specific area in which we will be going with a Boy Scout Troop (via BSA's Northern Tier High Adventure program out of Moose Lake. This did not help us plan our trek from there at all. May be useful for other.