Good evening all

Heading out of Mudro on the 28th with the family (their first trip to BWCA my boy is 4) I love Mudro as an access point and was hoping to make it up to crooked again for the fishing. Reading this the Horse River post is disheartening to say the least. Last time on the Horse river was low but sounds like its much worse. Anyone have any recent reports? If its as low as it looks I might adjust course and go over to Fourtown instead of Basswood/Crooked. Is the juice worth the squeeze fully loaded with a 4 year old? Obviously I want this to be a great trip for them…its not my first or last trip to BWCA just wanna make sure the bug bites them as much as the rest of us.

We traveled a loop out of Mudro 01-05 August this summer. Picket stream from the parking lot to Mudro lake was a muddy mess. The portage trail from the parking lot to the put in on the stream has been extended several 100 yards so that you can either walk the stream from the original put in location or take the portage extension to reach floatable water. Even after portaging to a floatable put in location we still had to exit the canoe to drag or lift over obstacles in several locations before reaching Mudro lake. At one point in the stream my partner became stuck in the mud requiring me to pull him out.

We made a counter clockwise loop to Crooked traveling the Beartrap river on the way in and the Horse river on the way out. Both rivers had several pullovers. The pullovers were often difficult for my partner to negotiate. He dumped the canoe and he struggled with exit/entering and lifting the canoe in the moving and sometimes deep water.

If conditions are similar to what we encountered I am not sure how easy it will be to negotiate the obstacles with a 4 year old while keeping everyone happy. My tripping partner and I travel very well together but he wanted to end this trip a day early.

I suggest that you take your time and have realistic expectations. We always plan for the worst and hope for the best but I pushed my partner too hard this year.

Thanks for the info. Its a sad state of affairs. I did mudro to crooked back in 2014 mid aug and water levels were great both in mudro and horse river. Had same trip planned for 2021 and due to the draught and the fires we had to cancel and adjust to another route. Spent half the trip pulling/pushing the canoe through rice. Were flexible so fourtown may be an alternate route out of horse lake. Thanks again for the info

I did the loop (sort of) this year. 7/25 through 8/1.
We went in at Mudro. The usual low water but had no issues. Had a brand new paddler with me so I just guided him on what to do and where to stand etc.
Went Sandpit Lake to Range River over to Jackfish Bay. Was an easy paddle. Plenty of water in the Range River.
Jackfish Bay up to the Upper Basswood Falls and then down the Basswood River to Wed/Thurs Bay. Hung out for a few days.
Decided not to loop out Friday Bay as I was having some shoulder issues and didn't want another 300 rod portage to deal with so we went back the same way but went up the Horse River to Horse lake. The river was fine on 7/31. Only had to portage the marked portages but did have two spots where we had to walk the canoe through some boulders but it was easy.

Of course we are a month away from that time frame so water levels could be worse or better but for us it was a pretty easy ride.

The only issue we had was the wind picked up on Jackfish Bay and because we were in no hurry we decided to camp halfway across. Found a great island site with a beautiful campsite. Even had a little sandy beach for some excellent swimming.

A 4 year old changes the game drastically however and you have to make the call on what is safe for you.