BWCA Campsite 2008 on Ester

Huge open sight with mature trees and very nice kitchen/fireplace. Good deep water swimming just to the south and a sandy shallow narrows to the east. Big food hanging tree just to the north of the site. Site showed some misuse when we visited, with small sapling cut, poop/wet wipes on the food hang tree trail and a large amount of pancake mix (?) spread over a large area on the way to the latrine which took a good while to clean up.

Good site, with several tent pads. Nice fire pit area, but you have to search a long way for wood as the island is heavily used. Decent landing and good canoe storage.

Nice campsite on the south side of the island. Lots of room to explore and many possible tent pads and hammock trees. Good smallmouth fishing off the front. Only thing that keeps this from being 5stars is proximity to the neighboring east campsite (we had loud neighbors).

Landing could be a bit suspect in rough water; fortunately the water is shallow. This is a sprawling site that stretches back into the woods where there are a few ideal sheltered tent pads. There is a southern exposure but, most of the shoreline is guarded by cedar trees while the main camp area is populated with several mature red pine sentinels which provide shade and tarp options. There's good log seating around the fire grate and there are trails running in all directions; including a rise behind camp for sunset viewing as well as to the shallow sugar sand swimming spot in the eastern narrows.

I stayed at this site back in 2016, and again this year (2019). This is a nice expansive site that lets your crew spread out. Lots of good trees for hanging hammocks, and decent enough tent pads for about 3 or 4 tents, though dodging the rocks and roots can be a challenge. A nice breeze keeps the mosquitoes in check, and there are lots of smallies off the shore and around the lake. The only down side is the way the site has been poorly treated by other visitors. Trees cut into with axes, trees cut down, a nail in one tree, and an abundance of used fishing lures laying around the firepit when we arrived. When we used this site back in 2016 there were hot coals still burning in the fire pit when we pulled in! As with most wonderful things in this world, people do their best to ruin it. We stayed here two night in 2019 and spent most of one day fishing the rarely-visited waters of Rabbit Lake next door. We probably caught 40 smallies in that lake!

Very nice site on Lake Ester...Does get morning sun, but afternoon and evening is well covered. Good fishing off shore. Nice Swimming location between island and shore with Sand bottom. We spent 3 nights here in July 2019. Wind kept the bugs down and great view of sunsets on ridge to the west of the camp.

Very beautiful site. Elevated rocky site, with great view of south end of Hanson lake. South facing makes for beautiful sunrise mornings. The landing is rocky and more difficult - had to side-load/offload. Elevated fire hearth, but the logs arranged in a U-shape do not actually surround the fire. The wind had easy access here, dispersing the few mosquitoes easily.

Open and sloping, with space to spread out, great hiking up to northwest view of sunset, box might be shared with other side of island?

Not a bad campsite. Well USED, but definitely not abused. The firepit is pretty good, and tent pads are better than average. Canoe Landings were scarce. We had 3 canoes and found it tough landing the canoe. Shoreline fishing is OK.