BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
January 15 2025
Entry Point 52 - Brant Lake
Number of Permits per Day: 4
Elevation: 1500 feet
Latitude: 48.0692
Longitude: -90.8455
Brant to Tuscarora via Little Sag Route:RoundBrantBat - MudGillis - burn area is evident: FrenchPeter - first lake trout: VirginLittle Sag - green trees again!Mora - gorgeous divide of burn and greenCrookedOwlTuscarora - second lake trout!Missing Link - with lighter food pack, the portage is OK Round
10th anniversary day trip to Johnson Falls
Entry Date:
September 12, 2015
Entry Point:
East Bearskin Lake
Number of Days:
1
Group Size:
2
9-11-15
We left Stewart for the Trail Center at about 3:00 pm. We had to make a quick stop at Steph's parents to drop some clothes off for the kids and we were on our way. While sitting in traffic in the cities we realized that even though we only had a fraction of our normal gear along the fishing poles were still sitting in the basement at home. After a few minutes of disbelief I called a buddy in Duluth who set a couple out for us to take along. Even though we made pretty good time through the cities and great time on the freeway the extra stop made getting to the Trail Center by 10 a tough task. We left Duluth a little after 8 and just before we got to Grand Marais made the call to the Trail Center to let them know we were running a few minutes late. They told us not to worry as they would still be there when we arrived. We made it to the Trail Center at 10:20 to get checked into our cabin for the night, they even had the heat and the lights on for us!
Cabin #2 at the Trail Center[paragraph break]
9-12-15
We woke up around 6 and made some oatmeal for breakfast before hitting the road. There was a pretty dense fog that had settled in over night that made for some awesome photo opportunities when we got to the landing at East Bearskin. 
[paragraph break]
While the fog and glass calm water made for a great paddle it made navigation on a new lake a little tricky. Thank goodness East Bearskin is pretty regular shaped and doesn't have the islands some other BW lakes do. My plan was to keep the north shoreline to my left and paddle close enough to keep it in sight, I had a GPS along but keeping the shoreline in sight and the sun in front of us I knew we were headed in the right direction. We paddled for a while just taking in the scenery and marveled at the silence of the dead calm morning. My plan of following the north shore worked fine except for the fact that I failed to read any of the portage ratings available on the website. Portage distance is nothing we've ever been afraid of but the north portage from East Bearskin is by far the harder and less used of the 2. We had to crawl over 3 fallen down trees and climb sharply out of East Bearskin and drop just as much to get to Alder. We took the south portage on the way out which was like walking on a sidewalk. 
[paragraph break]
We made it to Alder just as the fog was starting to break up but the water was still a sheet of glass. We made good time across Alder and Canoe where we landed the canoe and had to shed a few layers of clothes as the sun was getting hot. It didn't take long at all to walk across the portage to Pine where we took the spur to the left that led to Johnson Falls. When we got to the falls we were not disappointed at all. Although we've seen the falls in a bunch of pictures it was awesome to see them in person. After snapping some pictures and eating some granola bars and trail mix for lunch we headed back out. 
[paragraph break]
The paddle back out was much less eventful as the wind had picked up, the sun went behind the clouds, and we were headed back to the truck which is never fun. We made good time on the return trip and had completed the loop to the falls and back in about 7 hours.
We still had some time left in the day so we took the short hike up to Honeymoon Bluff that a lot of people mentioned was a nice overlook. It was breathtaking but would be even more cool in a couple weeks when the leaves begin to turn. 