I was looking at doing a trip to South Lake in August by portaging from Topper Lake to South Lake. I have heard the portage is difficult and steep but has anyone done this before? I'm also wondering if parking is available off of Mayhew Lake Road. I believe there is private property on Mayhew Lake but wanted to see where people have parked for accessing Topper Lake.

There is, or was, parking at Mayhew. The campsite on topper is pretty cool. The portage from topper to south is very steep. Nothing else like it in the bwca.

jwartman59: "There is, or was, parking at Mayhew. The campsite on topper is pretty cool. The portage from topper to south is very steep. Nothing else like it in the bwca."

You can park on the side of the road, but it's not really a parking lot by any means. At least that's the way I remember it.

i've only done a winter trip into south lake but from what i recall , going into south lake is easy coming out is another story ;)

There is only room for about 2, maybe 3 cars at the end of Mayhew road, and you are sharing those with BRT hikers in addition to paddlers. If full, you could drop all your stuff and park down near the gunflint trail and walk back. Or pay an outfitter a small fee to drop you off there.

Not sure if you are solo or tandem, but I don't think I would want to do the portage down to South solo unless I had a really lightweight short boat. If you have a tandem, you will probably want to do a tandem carry on the really steep parts, or at least have someone helping you from banging the stern as you go down. People definitely use the portage though, saw some folks this spring going up!

The paddle into South from Gunflint lake isn't too bad if you have light winds. This spring I had ~10mph southerly wind and it took me around 6-7 hours I think (I didn't actually time it) to solo into South. Big east or west wind on Gunflint could be pretty hairy though.