A Cave at Cave Lake?

I am a fan of frivolous side trips.  You just never know what you'll find.  When planning a Boundary Waters trip I scrutinize the map.  Will it be colder on Frost Lake?  Are the bugs worse on the Louse River?  What demands will be made on me at Extortion Creek?  (For the record the answers are:  No, maybe, and none I could determine).

So when I saw a Cave Lake not far from our main camping site I just had to go there.  To see if there was a cave there of course.

The nice thing about day trips is you can pack very light.  Pretty much just the canoe. And these new Kevlar babies don't weigh much.

Tuscarora is the outfitter we worked with.  Nice folks.  I assume they are the Official Outfitter of Blue Man Group.

Cave Lake is a picturesque place.

A panoramic view from a rocky hillside.

Thick, luxuriant moss.  Too bad there is no campsite here, it would be delightful to sleep on.

But where's the cave?  

Caves are not common in the hard rock geology of this part of the world.  So I figured at most we might find some tumbled down pile of stones with a niche among them.  But no, not even that.

Until right at the portage one of our party noticed this!

Yes, it does look like a cave but inspect closely.  See that leaf at the cave entry?  This "cave" is about five inches tall and probably home to some sort of grumpy rodent.