Thanks to everyone who offered advice on my first trip. We came out yesterday after 8 nights from Prairie Portage.

We entered under sunny and windy weather and were able to ride a tail wind about 10 miles up Agnes on our first day. We spent the second day wind-bound but the weather was otherwise nice.

Day three we traveled from Agnes to the top end of Kawnipi, through Keewatin. Keewatin was beautiful, I thought, and we checked out the pictos there. Had a storm roll through our third night on Kawnipi. Learned our lesson about pitching the tent in an exposed area. No hard done, just a few iffy moments of tent poles bending quite a bit.

From Kawnipi we traveled to Sark and stayed on a five-star island site in them middle of the lake for two nights. The river portages of Kahshapiwi Creek were rugged. Having not been to the Quetico, I wasn't expecting them to feel so remote given it's a somewhat popular route but we did them no problem. Cairn and Sark were especially rugged and pretty.

From Sark, we sailed down Keefer and Kahshahpiwi with little wind, but then struggled across the McNiece portage. Spent a rainy night on McNiece.

Headed to North Bay the next morning. After checking out the white pines along the McNiece/Shan Walshe portage, headed for Shade. Landings were tough on these portages and the Grey to Unnamed Lake portage was a beast (though I didn't think as bad as McNiece). The swamp was challenging but not too awful, however the rest of the portage from the swamp to Unnamed Lake seemed totally overgrown and perhaps recently re-routed as the beginning of the portage from Grey to the swamp was in great shape. Trip from Shade to North Bay was easy and pretty.

Stayed two nights on North Bay, then exited really early yesterday to avoid a windy Bayley Bay.

Not including our time on Basswood, we saw four groups. From when we hit Sunday Lake on our first day, we saw one group (on Agnes) until we got to the portage from Keefer to Kahs and went over three days without seeing anyone between Agnes and Kahs.

Sounds like a great trip! Did you guys fish much?

We're heading through part of that route starting next Sunday. Heading through Sarah into Brent, and then we may overlap your route on the way back out through Kahs, McNiece,etc. How tough was that stretch? Are you happy you went that way based on scenery, fishing, etc?

We didn't fish at all. I normally fish on BWCA trips but my wife doesn't fish and I'm not that committed so I thought it wasn't worth the cost of the license, etc. And lord knows if I can't use live bait, I'm not catching anything...so can't offer up anything on that front.

If you are mentally prepared for that stretch you will be ok. It's hard but passable. Here is a little run-down:

Kahs to McNiece: First 10-15 rods are fine, steep downhill on rock face, short muddy section then once it climbs out of the muddy section it's kind of game on. A deadfall that you can carry to the left around, just takes some time. Then it's clear for maybe 15-20 more rods, then another downfall, and from then on it's just kind of downfall after downfall, only a couple that required taking the canoe off, and lots of brush. Rock garden landing on the McNiece side, lots of ticks throughout.

McNiece to Shan Walshe: No problem, some huge white pines on the portage.

Shan Walshe to Yum Yum: Also no problem, except the landing on the Yum Yum side is blocked by floating logs and a downed tree. There is a spot you can use a rock to walk up to the down tree (which is over water) and set the canoe down over it. Then you'll just have to shimmy over the down logs once you're in the canoe.

Yum Yum to Armin: Nice landing on Yum Yum side, downed tree on Armin side but I was able to slide over with canoe.

Armin to Grey: Rocky and muddy but ok

Grey to Unnamed: First 50 rods or so are fine on a nice trail. Uphill the first portion then it drops to a flooded swamp. You can get across using the logs if you are really careful, otherwise if you find small trees etc, the ground is usually firm enough to step on. Kind of have to just keep moving not to sink in. When you get across that you will find the forked trail. You have to go left. Keep skirting the swamp to the east. We wrongly turned onto a side trail to the right and quickly the trail just sputtered out. Turned around and kept going east along the swamp and found the portage. It's very brushy the rest of the way to the unnamed lake.

Unnamed to Shade: No problem and the landing on the Shade side will seem like an extreme luxury after what you've been through.

Glad you asked and that I got all this down while it's still fresh in my mind. Let me know if you have other questions.

The trail between Grey and unnamed gets narrow after the swamp because there are two routes. I prefer the route to the immediate right after crossing the swamp (not the right spur after following the trail left along the edge of the swamp- that right disappears in a mossy glade in the woods- head to the right as soon as you finish crossing the last set of logs over mud) that rises up and stays up, rather than the route to the left which traces the edge of the swamp before heading into unnamed. Both are approximately the same length.

Nice report and welcome to the Quetico crowd.
Were very very luck to have the BWCA and Quetico. I think we all take it for granted sometimes.

Kash to McNiece is quite a portage. Never boring for sure.
On the Grey portage, after we skirted the swamp to the left, I thought the trail up over the hill was a pretty decent portage.....this was in May 2014.

quote cowdoc: "Kash to McNiece is quite a portage. Never boring for sure.
On the Grey portage, after we skirted the swamp to the left, I thought the trail up over the hill was a pretty decent portage.....this was in May 2014."

agree on the kash portage.