BWCA Campsite 1600 on Basswood

This ended up being a nicer site than we expected from the reviews. I'm sure it helped that the weather was cold, windy, and rainy before we arrived, so there were almost no bugs. The best feature of the site was the sunset view over Pipestone Bay. The site is deep enough that when the weather was not great, we could retreat to a tarp set up amongst the pines sheltered by other trees flanking the site, but when it was nice, the rock point offered panoramic views. The site is so open, however, that a west wind would probably run straight through the whole site (we did better with a north wind). The fire grate faces the "wrong way," but this worked to our advantage in the morning, when the lake breeze pushed the smoke off to the side, rather than into our faces. There is plenty of seating and places to put food prep items. There are 2 take-outs. The better one is to the south, and has a nice little beach that would be great for swimming (had it been warmer). The northern take-out doesn't have as much room for boats, and the rocks make unloading and loading trickier. We didn't see the better take-out at first, but portaged the boat through the site in the morning, since that was easier. There are plenty of tent pads, but most of them have stones or roots sticking up, or aren't particularly level. We found a good one up in the pines, near the path to the latrine. It was easy to hang the food bag. It is clearly heavily used. We found quite a bit of trash (the most of our trip).

This was the first camp site of our trip. Overall not a terrible site, but I guess we were just not adjusted to the bugs yet...they were bad long before the sun ever set. Near the water, on the rock, in the edge of the woods...bugs were everywhere! I suspect this could be a very nice site given less bugs, which I know change all the time. Also if we hit it later in our trip, our perspective might have been different.

Small rock/gravel landing on the south side of the point. The site is mostly a wide open space on a granite dome. It makes for a good view. There is a little shade, but not much. None of the tent pads are great, but they will do.