Hi, My buddy and I will both be 65 this summer. We go every year once or twice and have a May trip planned already. But we both want to do a longer trip now while we can still do it, a bit more of an adventure than we are used to. We typically have gone in half a day and basecamp with lots of daytrips over the last several years and we enjoy that. But we want one more shot at covering some ground and seeing a new area on a longer trip with enough leisure still built into the trip.

I am strongly considering LIS 14 entry because I have never been there and it's a classic area. We are thinking 8-10 days which would be our longest trip ever together. Probably the last half of August or the first half of September, not sure yet about that. Fishing is somewhat important, especially to me but we don't spend a lot of time on it. Exploring the woods around the campsite and interesting features on the lake for photography is a big part of it. And plenty of time in the morning with good coffee enjoying the beauty of our surroundings.

We can get an early start on day one and I am interested in the lakes under the Lac La Croix umbrella, perhaps jumping up to LLC for a day or two if we are so inclined...or not. Want a loop route that will bring us back through Oyster or thereabouts through Lynx. For some reason i just have this idea of Lynx as a lake I have to get to and would like to spend a couple days there.

Within the 8-10 days as a rough estimate we would be up for a few 6-7 hour travel days, a few 3-4 hour travel days and a few layover days. We like portaging but don't relish super long or hard ones and I know there a few lengthy ones along he way and that is okay, We will tackle those on a short day:)

Thinking first day in making it up to Loon or Little Loon and stopping mid day for a good campsite. Reasonable? Then heading NE then east, perhaps as far as GEBE or LLC, then heading back towards Oyster and out.

What do I need to know about this route? Will 8-10 days fit our desired paddling schedule? Any particular things we have to see or lakes we need to hit(not concerned about seeing pictographs)? Any portages we should be mentally prepared for? Fishing spots? We are fine with walking a canoe down a shallow creek for a bit, or humping over a couple beaver dams but are not interested in a hour long muddy slog through a shallow waterway so if there are any of those along the way that might not have sufficient water levels that time of year please point them out.

If any of you BWCA route geeks would be willing to throw out a rough route it would be much appreciated, in fact any thoughts or comments will be appreciated. I know many of you have been to this area and I will take any insights you might have.

Last thing, we double portage and generally move at a steady but leisurely pace. We both know what we are doing having many dozens of trips behind us. Layover days are a must for us, we typically don't move camp a lot but going to give that a shot for over half of this trip. Should be interesting.

Probably asking a lot here - if you have the mid winter blues and want to take a shot, it would be much appreciated.

FWIW here is my EP14 plan for a 6 day trip this coming May - My first solo. I'm 53 in average shape but with plenty of experience. This is a brand he area to me and I am very excited about it. I know I am being a little redundant with my post in the other EP14 thread, and I think there should be lots of good input from people that have trekked in this area.

Day 1 (Wednesday, May 19th) - Early start after driving up the day before. EP14 to Lynx
Day 2 - Lynx to Oyster
Day 3 -Oyster to Finger through Gebe.
Day 4 - Finger to Fat through Thumb, Beartrack(s), and Eugene.
Day 5 - Fat to Lower Pauness
Day 6 - Lower Pauness to EP14. Out by noon for a shower, lunch, and the drive back to the cities.

Shortest travel day (outside of the last day) is about 4 hours and the longest will be close to 6 hours. As you can see I do not plan on any layover days. I am going CCW to hit the southern lakes (Shell, Lynx, Oyster) before Memorial weekend. Most reports I have read indicate CW is more common.

With 2-4 extra days you could do something similar and still get in a couple of layover days. If you layover on Pocket you could do a day trip to LLC. I would think Lynx would be another nice candidate for a layover as you can do some hiking on the Sioux Hustler trail (check out the other recent EP14 thread). Beartrack or Eugene would be another spot where a layover could afford you opportunities to check out a number of lakes that reportedly are worth checking out.

Interested in following this as I've started one of the other recent EP14 threads.
Making it to Loon/Little Loon is certainly reasonably on Day 1. Seems most trip reports have people stopping at the northern site on Little Loon for their 1st night. For various reasons, we stopped at site 58 on the south shore at the entrance to East Loon Bay. Beautiful site up on a point with a sand beach on a shallow bay. We decided to go up and around LLC instead of the interior route that trip. Will be doing the smaller lakes this time. From what I've read, we'll have a decision to make on Slim. Do what's been described as somewhat of a bushwhack to Fat or face a steep uphill portage into Steep Lake.

lindylair: "
Thinking first day in making it up to Loon or Little Loon and stopping mid day for a good campsite. Reasonable? Then heading NE then east, perhaps as far as GEBE or LLC, then heading back towards Oyster and out.

What do I need to know about this route? Will 8-10 days fit our desired paddling schedule? Any particular things we have to see or lakes we need to hit(not concerned about seeing pictographs)? Any portages we should be mentally prepared for? Fishing spots? We are fine with walking a canoe down a shallow creek for a bit, or humping over a couple beaver dams but are not interested in a hour long muddy slog through a shallow waterway so if there are any of those along the way that might not have sufficient water levels that time of year please point them out.
"

Hi there lindylair! I did the LIS North Loop last June. Entered June 21. I did the loop in 6 days.

I researched the loop on this site first and have had some time to think about it since.

First thing I will say is that if you aim for Little Loon on day one it is more paddling than portaging and that it will probably be worth it. We had Little Loon to ourselves. We choose the northern camp site on Little Loon and it was a great site.

The second thing I will say is that I wish that I had budgeted 7 days for my trip. I could have definitely used a layover day.

If you are taking it easy and looking for a shorter day. I would recommend considering camping on Eugene Lake. This would give you access to Fat and Gun for a possible day trip. Fat and Gun have lake trout.

We spent a night on Beartrack Lake. We had the lake to ourselves and my trip partner heard wolves howling at night. However, I have since learned from this site and my own experience that Beartrack is basically fishless. I think this is because water flows out of this lake but there isn't really any river that feeds the lake. The forest service fire grate was substandard and I would try to find somewhere else to camp. We were tired and need to stop for the night.

Another highlight was Finger Creek on that connects Finger Creek to Pocket Lake. We had a great day on this creek and on Pocket Lake.

When I passed through Lynx it was full. It seemed that several groups had decided to base camp on Lynx. Lynx did seem like a nice lake.

You can read my trip report for more details.

Not much to add beyond the good advice from others...
I will say that having passed through Gun, and then spending half a day fishing on Takucmich...I wish we'd done a night on one or both. The island site on Tak has the potential to be great - but when we stopped to check it out (May 2020) there was some large deadfall that made it less nice (still OK). Gun is just a cool lake.
Also preferred Finger to Pocket.

I think your day 1 goal of Loon or little loon is fine...especially if you're on the water at a good time in the AM. That portage on the river between the EP and the Pauness lakes is a cool one but I'm so jacked up to get going that I fly over it. Have your camera out or at least look around a bit...on your way in or out.

The Devil's Cascade portage is your usual up and over but not hard. Boats on Loon are possible. The Loon to Slim portage sticks in my head as being harder than I thought it should be.

Hope it is ok to jump on with my question. When I go up in May my last day will be Memorial day. Sunday night on the way out I hope to get a site on Lower Pauness. Could there be an issue with finding an open campsite? I will be starting the day on Fat and will try to get an early start but I have two pretty tough portages so I can't imaging getting to Pauness before noon.

I did not realize that mine was the third LIS 14 thread started in the last couple days - sorry about that. I will read them as well but thanks for the insights so far. One thing i want to figure out is do we have plenty of time for the route to include a few good paddling days, a few short paddling days and a couple layover days. Another question I had is that there is a cluster of 7 campsites on LLC directly above Takumich Lake, all on islands, and only one has a campsite rating. Should I conclude from that they are not particularly good sites or just that folks haven't stayed there much or written about them? They seem like they are in a prime spot.

I will keep reading all three posts:)

Cricket67: "Hope it is ok to jump on with my question. When I go up in May my last day will be Memorial day. Sunday night on the way out I hope to get a site on Lower Pauness. Could there be an issue with finding an open campsite? I will be starting the day on Fat and will try to get an early start but I have two pretty tough portages so I can't imaging getting to Pauness before noon. "

If you are on the Paunesseses by mid-day...maybe. Maybe.

I'd say it's 50/50 if you are open to both lower and upper (or the Cascade site). When we came through (with the same general plan you have) I recall getting to the Devil's Cascade site and finding it occupied...we had hoped to stay there, but I knew we were in trouble then.

The mantra became "Dinner in Virginia!" And so it was.

lindylair: "I did not realize that mine was the third LIS 14 thread started in the last couple days - sorry about that. I will read them as well but thanks for the insights so far. One thing i want to figure out is do we have plenty of time for the route to include a few good paddling days, a few short paddling days and a couple layover days. Another question I had is that there is a cluster of 7 campsites on LLC directly above Takumich Lake, all on islands, and only one has a campsite rating. Should I conclude from that they are not particularly good sites or just that folks haven't stayed there much or written about them? They seem like they are in a prime spot.


I will keep reading all three posts:)"

I see on one of my maps that the site on the SW corner of 27 island is a 3 star site. But I think I jotted down someone else's opinion, because I don't remember it. If I have been there it was on a LLC trip. Took a tow to snow bay. My map says there are some nice sites around snow bay. Might be a long paddle going that way.

lindylair: "I did not realize that mine was the third LIS 14 thread started in the last couple days - sorry about that. I will read them as well but thanks for the insights so far. One thing i want to figure out is do we have plenty of time for the route to include a few good paddling days, a few short paddling days and a couple layover days. Another question I had is that there is a cluster of 7 campsites on LLC directly above Takumich Lake, all on islands, and only one has a campsite rating. Should I conclude from that they are not particularly good sites or just that folks haven't stayed there much or written about them? They seem like they are in a prime spot.


I will keep reading all three posts:)"

I reviewed my notes from my trip. I went clock wise, double portaged and took 6 days. I don't think we are the fastest paddlers or portagers. We had the following approximate travel times.

Day 1 to Little Loon ~ 6 hours
Day 2 to Beartrack ~ 8 hours
Day 3 to Pocket ~ 6 hours
Day 4 to Oyster ~ 5.5 hours
Day 5 to Little Shell ~ 7 hours
Day 6 paddle out ~ 7 hours

These travel times include lunch stops most days.

So if you take 8 days for the trip, you should have some shorter paddle days.

lindylair: "

What do I need to know about this route? Will 8-10 days fit our desired paddling schedule? Any particular things we have to see or lakes we need to hit(not concerned about seeing pictographs)? Any portages we should be mentally prepared for? Fishing spots? We are fine with walking a canoe down a shallow creek for a bit, or humping over a couple beaver dams but are not interested in a hour long muddy slog through a shallow waterway so if there are any of those along the way that might not have sufficient water levels that time of year please point them out.

If any of you BWCA route geeks would be willing to throw out a rough route it would be much appreciated, in fact any thoughts or comments will be appreciated. I know many of you have been to this area and I will take any insights you might have.

"

Here are my thoughts on the portages and beaver dams based on when I went through and the fact that this was my second ever trip to the bwca. We were there in late June and I think it was kind of dry for June.

1) There is a beaver dam north of Devil's Cascade. We tried to go left and ended up having to unload the boat and drag it over the dam and walk over some slippery rocks in the shallow water.

2) There is a portage between Slim and Section 3 Pond that is not marked on the Fisher F-16 map that I bought last year. This portage is there because of a beaver dam. When I looked on the drop of the beaver dam I figured that there had to be a portage that we missed. This portage has multiple possible end points depending on the water level. We didn't have to portage too far before we could put back in to floatable water.

3) Be prepared for the Steep portage between South and Steep lakes.

4) There is an unmarked/unofficial/unmaintained portage between Slim and Fat.


Unmarked portage thread.

Unmarked portage trip report.

5) The 20 rd portage that is marked on the Fisher F-16 from Pocket to Pocket Creek was no longer needed. The water level was high enough to paddle out of Pocket Lake into Pocket Creek.

6) We didn't run into much mud on our trip. Certainly no going in up to the hip. The Oyster to Hustler portage has some potential for mud. On the first half you go through a swampy area. I was able to carefully step on logs that had been laid down and not test how deep the mud is. This portage also had at least one downed tree that required putting down the canoe.

7) There is a beaver pond on the Lower Pauness to Shell portage. We loaded and unloaded and floated across this beaver pond. This area was muddy. The Lower Pauness side of this portage is also muddy.

Cricket67: "Hope it is ok to jump on with my question. When I go up in May my last day will be Memorial day. Sunday night on the way out I hope to get a site on Lower Pauness. Could there be an issue with finding an open campsite? I will be starting the day on Fat and will try to get an early start but I have two pretty tough portages so I can't imaging getting to Pauness before noon. "

It is really hard to say about camp site availability. If I recall correctly both camp sites 40 and 42 were available when I passed through.

JRUWL: "Interested in following this as I've started one of the other recent EP14 threads.
Making it to Loon/Little Loon is certainly reasonably on Day 1. Seems most trip reports have people stopping at the northern site on Little Loon for their 1st night. For various reasons, we stopped at site 58 on the south shore at the entrance to East Loon Bay. Beautiful site up on a point with a sand beach on a shallow bay. We decided to go up and around LLC instead of the interior route that trip. Will be doing the smaller lakes this time. From what I've read, we'll have a decision to make on Slim. Do what's been described as somewhat of a bushwhack to Fat or face a steep uphill portage into Steep Lake. "

The portage from Slim to Fat is no bushwhack. It’s long (about a mile) and not maintained, so it is a little harder to follow, but I did no scouting and trotted along that portage no problem. I’d highly recommend it as it saves you lots of time getting to Fat and beyond.

Tony

Last spring my dad, 2 brothers and I did a loop through that area and had a blast. We only had 5 days and we single portage, but I'll give you my brief report and two cents on where I would spend more time.
Day 1: We entered EP14 at noon and made camp on Slim at about 5. Loon or little Loon would be a great stopping point as the 170 rod portage into Slim can be difficult at the end of the day.
Day 2: We decided not to take the portage into Fat lake, instead going north and around. That way we got to see more lakes and terrain. We spent the next two nights on Finger lake. North Lake and South Lake looked very interesting to me, can't speak to the fishing but they were beautiful. The portage into Steep is a steady incline, not overly difficult or long.
Day 3: We had good fishing on both Finger and Thumb lake. Caught a few northern in the 30 inch range as well as some nice smallies and a few walleye.
Day 4: Camp was made on Oyster lake. Ge-be lake is on my must stop list the next time through this area. Big beautiful lake with lots to explore. The fishing looks good too. Oyster yielded us a few more pike and smallies.
Day 5: We exited out EP16.

Overall this entire area is great! Enjoy the planning and have a great trip!

I've only been through that way once in June about 5 years ago- LIS to Oyster and back. Hustler was my favorite lake for solitude and fishing. I went up to my thigh in mud on the Shell side of the Pauness/Shell portage. The rock field on the Shell side of the Shell/Little Shell portage was the worst part of the trip for me. We were able to skip the portage between Little Shell and Lynx. The campsite on Little Shell was nice, and it was a fairly easy travel day out.

Following as we are doing this route July 11.
My first plan was to do the northern route through Section three pond and on towards pocket, finger and south thru gebe etc.

After mapping and figuring 7 days there really wasn't time for a layover day and i really want to incorporate that. I like to rest up and enjoy things a bit but also want to see as much as possible.

Did this loop June 2017. First night on Slim, did not take the outfitter portage to Fat but went up through Steep and checked out Fat from front side, then moved on to Finger for 2 nights. Long day through Pocket, Gebe, Oyster to Hustler for last 2 nights. Last day we paddled out to 14. That was 6 days, 5 nights and no adventures out into LLC. We single portage mostly and cover ground quick so we got into Finger and Hustler in early PM. Lynx, Shell and Paunesses were fairly busy on our way out but had a few open sites.

This is one of my favorite areas in the BW. Gorgeous lakes, few people, solid campsites, decent fishing. Shhh...don't tell too many folks.
I really like the site on Slim in the middle of the lake up on a bluff, but it's a hike up ad down from the water. If you don't make it to Slim, the north campsite on Little Loon is beautiful, although I have seen a motor boat sneak into that lake/bay illegally.
We stayed 3 nights on the north site of Eugene. Not too bad. Good smallmouth fishing, but that was June. Gun is a gorgeous lake as is Fat.
For pictures, the cliffs on Gun were nice. Devil's Cascade is also beautiful. The portage between Gun and Beartrack also has some very cool cliffs and a canyon feel to it.

I am doing EP 14 to EP 14 counter clockwise.
EP 14-Hustler
Layover on Hustler exploring the SHT and doing some pike fishing
Hustler- Gebe
Gebe-Takucmich via Laq La Croix
Taku- Fat
Layover day on Fat
Fat- Little Loon or Loon
Out on day 8
You could easily stay at Lynx your first night instead of Hustler. The site to the right of the Ruby portage is my favorite. Great fire grate with log seating, easily accessed launch area. Fishing was incredible. If you find a 5" copper jointed rapala in a fishes lip, it's the one that got away. Massive bass just smacked the crap out of it and stole my favorite lure from me!
I definitely suggest trying to make it up to the Gun/Tachucmich area. Beautifully clear water. There are a lot of smaller lakes in that area you could explore as well.
There is also a Portage from fat to slim that is marked by carnes but not on maps. That is if you are feeling ambitious. It is 260ish rods long
Good luck and make sure to post a trip report!

I don't know that I can add a lot to what has been said already, I've been on this loop several times. My son and I got a 10:00 start and stayed on Slim our first night on our last trip. The portage from Little Loon to Slim sucks, plain and simple. It's not a good portage to end your day, but it isn't a good way to start your day either. The campsite on the North end of Little Loon is nice

The portage to Steep Lake is named after the lake, It's brutal. There is a campsite on the left just after the portage to take a break at if needed.

One of my favorite campsites in the BW is the island site on Finger Lake. We caught smallies from camp, throwing all the way over to the rock wall and bringing back in.

I think you would have a couple of nice lay over days on this route. Have fun and take in the beautiful area.

Maybe you need a slightly younger stock- boy along to help carry stuff?

Did the Slim --> Fat portage a couple years ago in June. There's a discernible trail, but it's definitely unmaintained and it feels like you're in the middle of the woods at times. The Fat landing is okay on a big rock, but the Slim landing is a bit clunky. Once you get off Slim, it's fine. North, South, Steep, Eugene are all beautiful lakes and worth a visit, but Fat is also really nice with a lake trout bonus. Sadly, we caught none there as we trolled around for a few hours.

In the end, the portage from Slim to Fat is longer than the main portage into Fat, but not much harder, other than the Slim landing.

It's worth it if you love lake trout. If you don't, enjoy those small lakes on the big curve to the north.

Lindylair, I sent you an email. Let me know if you don't get it. Hopefully it didn't go into your spam folder.