Looking for recent information on this portage. Is this end of portage still flooded?

The flooded part, from what I can tell, is about a football field length. Is it easily navigable?

I'll be taking this portage next week and can let you know. Most of the comments suggest putting the canoe in and paddling crossed it.

In 2018 it was very much floatable. Most of the down trees had been removed making a good path for the canoe. It's a straight shot.....you can see the other side. Just reload the canoes and push/paddle through the very obvious channel.

Haven’t been that way in about 4 years so Im not much help for recent conditions. At the time it was floatable and uneventful. Looked maybe 2 or 3 feet in the middle.

Just wanted to give you heads up with the end of the portage on Shell lake. I seem to remember it was shallow and sinking mud. While trying to push out the canoe out floatable water sinking to my waist multiple times. My wife found it hilarious while sitting in the comfort of the canoe.... It’s funny now and a good memory but I wasn’t impressed at the time.

Thanks for the responses everyone. We will doing a portage and a half for this. Travel time estimate for it is 2 hours. That is hard for me to put my head around right now. I am estimating 1 mph but perhaps we will be faster than that.

Here is what it looked like last fall. Not difficult at all... just a pain to have to unload then load back up. The view is looking back to the west.

Honestly, I have't been there since 2016... but from what I remember, it was kind of "hiden" so just be on the look-out.

It was extremely muddy at the landing

The beaver damn in the middle was the pita.

Here is our trip report

Over the years, I've traversed this portage when it's been dry, when it's been muddy, and when it's been wet and flooded. Twice I've floated the boat across with the gear... pain, but not too tough. Once, on a solo, I thought I forgot by paddle at the far end. I walked back to find it. Upon coming across the flooded area, I swam across it. Was like 10 yards.

Mike

We went through this portage twice this past week. The flooded area does still exist and is about 30-40 yards in length. We just loaded up the canoes and paddled across both times. You could walk through it, but I would imagine that it would become difficult.
Overall the portage isn't that bad. It is a bit difficult to locate but just look through the grassy area. If you are coming from the short southern portage you don't want to cut the corner too quickly to the portage.
If you want to know anything else let me know. We went from EP 14 to Lynx lake and returned after several days. The heat has the fish down deep during the day.

I wonder if there's any plan to ever remedy this "feature" of this portage?

How far out of the way would it be to route it around the beaver swamp? From satellite images, it looks like it wouldn't be too much problem to skirt the portage to the north of the swamp. I'm pretty sure most people would be fine with 25 extra rods of portaging vs the beaver swamp. I think it's too long to build a boardwalk/bridge, but maybe not.

ghamer: "Here is what it looked like last fall. Not difficult at all... just a pain to have to unload then load back up. The view is looking back to the west.
"

It looked like that in, wait, we did it last fall too. We put the boat in, put the backpack in the canoe, took three paddle strokes, and unloaded until the end of the portage.

It is pretty thick in there and it might be difficult to skirt it. I think you will find that floating is best. You can walk through it with a few of the remaining boardwalks. But it looks pretty mucky and you may have to pull off some leeches.

Csilbaugh: "It is pretty thick in there and it might be difficult to skirt it. I think you will find that floating is best. You can walk through it with a few of the remaining boardwalks. But it looks pretty mucky and you may have to pull off some leeches. "

Watched a SHUG video where one of his pals walked across, and he was covered in leeches!

I was on this portage on 6/26/20.

I decided to float it and get a picture after reading the forum.

Floating it was the way to go. We named it the double feature portage because it was like two portages in one.