BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
January 08 2025
Entry Point 16 - Moose/Portage River (North of Echo Trail)
Number of Permits per Day: 5
Elevation: 1348 feet
Latitude: 48.1230
Longitude: -92.0991
A favorite route offering many trip options and memorable things to see including;
World Class fishing for all four BWCA Species
Pictographs
Soaring granite hills and cliffs
Small lakes
Small rivers
Tumbling rapids and waterfalls
Wildlife, including Moose
Vistas from high points across the region if you're willing to climb. Rating Easy to Moderate. Day One. Get to EP16 off of the Echo Trail early. The initial portage is long, but well worn and smooth, sloping gently downgrade to the launch area. Load your canoe and head North. You'll be paddling with the slight current on this narrow winding river. The water is clear and make sure to tell the bowperson to watch for looming rocks!
Lake Trout & Solitude - John & Lynn's September 2009 Trip
Entry Date:
September 09, 2009
Entry Point:
Little Vermilion Lake (Crane Lake)
Number of Days:
5
Group Size:
2
[paragraph break]We left for Crane Lake around 11:00 a.m. so we could catch Zup’s last jet boat tow to La Croix. We stayed overnight at Zup’s Resort so we could get an early start the next morning. After a nice breakfast, we left the resort in a towboat around 8:00 a.m. In less than 30 minutes we were at our drop off point on the Canadian side, at Island 45 (on LLC they number the islands). Checking the map and my compass, we figured out the right direction & followed the shoreline south around Island 41 and to the 80 rod portage into Gun Lake.[paragraph break]Gun is a very scenic lake with large peninsulas with high cliffs. It is also 140 feet deep, has lake trout & smallmouth bass and has a nice campsite on the east side (about 10 years ago we camped here with Lynn’s brother & a friend of his). During that trip I was able to take a very nice sunset picture and it is the one we use for the backdrop for our booth at sport shows. 
We paddled through Gun to the 85 rods portage into Eugene Lake. This trail starts up hill out of Gun and then levels off to a good trail. I started to feel my back aching on this portage, most likely because I had thrown my back out in August & it was still healing. I also realized that when I carried a pack & the canoe, it didn’t hurt but when I just took a heavy pack, it did. What actually made the difference was that when carrying a canoe I stood up straighter. Once figuring that out & changing my posture the rest of the time, it was just fine.
[paragraph break]Eugene is divided into three parts. There is a small channel connecting the first part of the lake with the rest. There are 2 campsites on Eugene and you can fish for northern pike & smallmouth bass. On the southwest side of the lake is a 60 rod portage to Fat Lake, which is your typical portage trail. Fat Lake is a small lake, just about 100 acres and 100 feet deep, full of lake trout. I hoped to be able to see the campsite from the end of the portage to see if the one & only campsite had been taken, but couldn’t spot it from there. After we paddled around the first point we could see the site was open & we were the only ones on the lake. In fact, we hadn’t seen anyone all day once we got off the towboat. The campsite is small but quite comfortable. It had a smooth granite hill which was a good spot for setting the pots & pans and other cooking stuff as well as being a good wind break for the fire pit and a great place to relax.[paragraph break]After setting up camp, we got the fishing rods set with ciscoes (frozen dead bait, much like smelt). Unfortunately, during this project I got my hook snagged and then broke the tip off of my heavy fishing rod while trying to get it loose. What a bummer! Lynn had built a fire and we cooked our steaks up for dinner. We still had ice in our Nalgene bottles (we freeze water in them before we go out), so we made up a lemonade & vodka cocktail afterwards. 
The Slim Lake side of the start of the portage is right before a grassy, marshy area and has a good canoe landing along with a large rock cairn to mark the spot. 
The trail from Slim to Fat is tougher because it is more uphill from west to east. On the trail we spotted a number of animal prints; moose, deer and wolf. In fact I walked up on a deer that took off running before Lynn could spot it. I was glad that we got to check out the portage and that we were able to walk the long, tough trail without having to portage a canoe and gear. As we paddled back to our campsite I had Lynn troll Fat Lake for lake trout, but we had no luck. We laid around camp the rest of the day on the big rock ledge, catching some sun and reading & relaxing and enjoying another great day up north. 
We decided to “check out the neighborhood” as well as having Lynn troll along the way for lake trout. We paddled to the east end of the lake to check out the island campsite Mark Zup had mentioned. The campsite has a great view of the lake and a large fire pit area with lots of log benches, but has only one good place for a tent. 
Lynn wanted to explore the island & take some pictures, 
so I took that time to put new, longer line on her reel. She hadn’t been able to get deep enough to get lake trout with the other stuff. As we paddled our way over towards Trygg Lake, Lynn caught a nice 4 pound trout, just perfect for dinner. We looked over the northeastern site that Ron had been on, nobody was there anymore. We took a couple pictures of the trout, put it on the stringer and then went looking for the portage into Trygg. This portage is very steep and at least 45 rods, not the 15 rods the map shows. There are rainbow trout there & at the top of the portage you can turn around & see a spectacular view of Takucmich Lake.[paragraph break] Back on Takucmich, we fished the bay by the portage for smallmouth. We hit a bunch of bass on the surface. As soon as the lure hit the water the fish would strike it. Bass was out of season so we released them all. As we paddled back over to our camp, Lynn trolled again. Then she caught a nice sized laker, about 10 pounds. I had it up to the boat and my hands on it when there was an “early release” and it fell back into the water. No problem, we had plenty of fish to eat already, it just would have been nice to get a picture. [paragraph break]Lynn brought some dried tomatoes, mushrooms and bell peppers and she filled the trout with that, some spices & butter and we baked the trout over the fire, wrapped in foil. It was delicious! After this great dinner we sat at camp watching the sunset and listened to one of our audiobooks on Lynn’s iPod. 
All in all, it was a great trip. The weather was excellent, we checked out a new portage, we caught some fish and only saw one other group of people in five days.