Hello hello! I am planning a 9 day trip from June 1 thru June 9 with two friends from the Moose Lake EP, a loop from Birch to Kek to Jordan and out through Ensign/Splash. We are getting a tow from our outfitter (Williams & Hall) to save us a bunch of time paddling. Time is money and I'm willing to spend $60 round trip (per person) to save a bunch of time paddling on a big, potentially windy lake with motor traffic.

The three of us are fairly novice-to-intermediate paddlers, me being the weak link as it's been a little over a decade since my last trip, as a Boy Scout no less! However I am in better shape than I was back then and I'm ready for a back to basics trip with two best friends. I am willing to push myself. We will be doing a lot of base camping and fishing which is why I want us to push to Kek on the first day, so we can have an extra day base camping and day tripping from Kek.

Based on Padiddle Planner and the reports I've read on this website and various other places, it seems like we might be able to get to Kek from Birch in about 5 to 6 hours. We will have a 3 person canoe, a Minnesota III, so we should be able to move fast on the water but maybe a bit slower on the portages due to its unwieldy length. The three of us agree that we don't want more than 6ish hours of travel. We didn't really talk about time added by breaks though. I am hoping we can make this time.

What do you think? Is Birch to Kek do-able in 5 or 6 hours in a fast but long 3 person canoe with somewhat competent and somewhat in-shape paddlers?

Thanks!

What data did you put into PP? Travel speed, number of portages?

is your plan to head east from birch to knife and cut south into bonnie, spoon, pickle to kekekabic?

i would say if you get a tailwind you could do it. with novice to intermediate paddlers, plus double portaging, it would be a long day to travel that far, longer than 6 hours. this is just a guess. try to get the first tow of the morning and have all your gear packed IN packs as much as possible so there isn't a bunch of loose stuff to keep track of. have your fishing poles bungied to the thwarts...

so, no fishing on the way to kek?

Blatz: "What data did you put into PP? Travel speed, number of portages?"

I kept close to the defaults, 3mph paddle, 2mph portage, double portage. I think this is pretty fair for the seemingly easy portages along the way. I cut the load time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes though. I have played with it at 10 minutes as well.

Mocha: "is your plan to head east from birch to knife and cut south into bonnie, spoon, pickle to kekekabic?


i would say if you get a tailwind you could do it. with novice to intermediate paddlers, plus double portaging, it would be a long day to travel that far, longer than 6 hours. this is just a guess. try to get the first tow of the morning and have all your gear packed IN packs as much as possible so there isn't a bunch of loose stuff to keep track of. have your fishing poles bungied to the thwarts...


so, no fishing on the way to kek?"

Yep, down through those lakes. I would hope for calm water, a tailwind as a bonus. We definitely want to be paddling on Birch by 8am if possible but I don't know when the earliest tow from W&H is. I don't think we would do any fishing if we were making good time just because we'll be hanging around Kek and South Knife for a few days and we'll be doing plenty of fishing later in the trip as well. There are enough sites along the way to the Bonnie portage that we can make camp there for a night and tackle the portages to Kek the next morning. In that case we would do some fishing around the area because why not?

Consider continuing further east on knife for night #1 instead of doing all the portages into kekekabic. This will make things quicker and easier on day 1 and many people will attest to good fishing on knife. You could move camp to kekekabic later in the trip very easily.

murphylakejim: "Consider continuing further east on knife for night #1 instead of doing all the portages into kekekabic. This will make things quicker and easier on day 1 and many people will attest to good fishing on knife. You could move camp to kekekabic later in the trip very easily. "

I think you are right. I got together with my two friends for the trip this weekend and we went over our options. We all agreed that camping on the South Arm makes a lot of sense and we will spend at least part of the second day on Knife for sure. Instead of going through the portages at Bonnie/Spoon/Pickle, we will head to Kek through Eddy Falls and the Kek Ponds. We had planned a day trip up to Eddy Falls and the South Arm, leaving the base camp at Kek, but there's enough to explore around the South Arm and it's easy enough to get to Kek that we might even spend two nights on Knife before heading to Kek, sacrificing a day around Thomas/Ima/Jordan/Ensign. We all liked the sound of this so that's what we're gonna do. We have a lot of campsite options along Knife as we paddle further east, so we can stop at any point, or push on for a nice site at the South Arm. We may spend 5 hours traveling, we may spend 7 hours. We will see!

I had a group of 5 go from birch into knife lake campsite #1255 in about 5 hours last june with 4 seasoned and a newbie paddler. one 2 man and a 3 man wenonah kevlars. we singled portaged everything and even took a wrong turn at seed lake and went into canada-a waste of 30 mins. did all this in on and off rain showers. small portages before knife lake can get a bit congested at times if you're still hoofing it late morning. if you get a east wind at knife lake it's gonna be a slow and long paddle. 6 hours from birch to kek is doable but you're gonna have to push real hard. the portages from knife>bonnie>spoon>pickle>kek are quick and easy. but realistically, you could do it in under 8 hours tops. but it'll be one long ass kicking day. if u decide to camp around south arm of knife, paddle up to campsite #2041 and fish at the bay behind/next to the site. we had lots of wallies there in mid june last year. good luck and enjoy !

shinythings: "I had a group of 5 go from birch into knife lake campsite #1255 in about 5 hours last june with 4 seasoned and a newbie paddler. one 2 man and a 3 man wenonah kevlars. we singled portaged everything and even took a wrong turn at seed lake and went into canada-a waste of 30 mins. did all this in on and off rain showers. small portages before knife lake can get a bit congested at times if you're still hoofing it late morning. if you get a east wind at knife lake it's gonna be a slow and long paddle. 6 hours from birch to kek is doable but you're gonna have to push real hard. the portages from knife>bonnie>spoon>pickle>kek are quick and easy. but realistically, you could do it in under 8 hours tops. but it'll be one long ass kicking day. if u decide to camp around south arm of knife, paddle up to campsite #2041 and fish at the bay behind/next to the site. we had lots of wallies there in mid june last year. good luck and enjoy !"

I don't know if we will be able to single carry, we'll see. We'll have 3 people, 3-4 packs, and 1 canoe, with fishing rods. We might be able to do it. We figured wind will really screw us over so we're definitely open to the idea of stopping early if we are having a tough time making progress on Knife, but we'd love to hit the South Arm on the first day. You are right, it would definitely be an ass-kicking day to get to Kek on the first day. But if everything went right, it would be so awesome! Thanks for the advice!

I think its doable, especially if you get the first tow of the morning and are properly packed. I've done it twice, once with a blistering tailwind which threw us across Birch in record time. The portages are simple, but can be busy if you get a late start. The rapids that wash into carp by the portage hold some great Pike and Smallmouth if you get bottled up there or cast a line by accident.... I'd 2nd the lower arm of Knife. Its a beautiful lake and the fishing is outstanding. Kek is awesome and the loop back is good fun too. We paddled from Kek to Canadian Border Outfitters in a very long brutal day after being stranded by wind for 2 days on the island campsite. Have fun!

I looked back on my Delorme tracking points for my solo 5/16/14.

One solo boat, double portaging and not the fastest paddler ;-)

I took the first tow up Moose and was at the Birch-Carp portage by 9:46am. Met up with some guys from the board and we ended up paddling together to Knife Lake. Stopped at the Bacon Rock and then stopped on Robbins Island for a 30 minute lunch break at the guys' campsite and headed on down to the end of the South Arm near the Eddy Portage stopping at campsite #1435 at 4:33pm. So that was 6 hours 50 minutes with paddling around 2 MPH as I had a wicked head wind that day on Knife.

The next day I paddled from my campsite on Knife to the south island site on Kek down by the Strup portage-campsite #1472. No lunch stops, windy on Kek but averaged closer to 3.50mph paddling. Total trip time that day from campsite to campsite was 6 hours.

With three people paddling in one boat you should be able to dramatically decrease those trip times for sure!