Any comments on this as a loop next summer- late july/early august. We like to travel every other day and then spend alternating days exploring the edge of PMAs or little visited lakes. Thought the Beartrap River would be a good intro to actually humping all our gear through a PMA, and at the end of the trip at least the food pack would be lighter.

We usually stay out 2 weeks, which seems like more than enough time to complete this loop at our leisurely pace.

Thoughts, comments, bad patches of poison ivy?

I have traveled this route twice, counterclockwise in 2021 and clockwise in 2023. Edited: Both were 5 day 4 night trips during the third week in July.

Did you write a trip report either time?

No trip report.

We also did this route in 2021, in September with very low water. I'm always watching for poison ivy and don't recall any problems on this route. The Beartrap Lake campsite looked nice but we didn't land there. The portage from Beartrap was not too bad. There were a few smaller windfalls down but the path was pretty well-traveled overall for a PMA and easy to follow. I recall slow going with the boat through tall grass feeling my way among hidden rocks toward the creek end of the portage. We double portaged and found this one less difficult than expected but had allowed lots of time. We would have loved to explore Sterling Creek, which seems to fit your exploration agenda nicely, but didn't take time ourselves.

We had the PMA permit and stayed over on Sunday Lake. As you know as a veteran poster here (great reports, by the way), there's an ongoing discussion about where to camp in a PMA (on the natural, already used site or somewhere less obvious). We picked the one obvious site on the north shore which was likely an official campsite pre-PMA. It's on rock and we didn't think we would leave any trace doing so. All of the portages were tougher in low water; "type 2 fun" but still "fun." As I recall, we struggled a bit to find our way into Sunday Lake itself through thick grass and no obvious channel. Otherwise, the worst for us was parts of Peterson Bay being rock fields instead of what should typically be floatable. It was really low water in late 2021!

You may well already know the approach below Curtain Falls. If not, I strongly recommend tucking in to the cove on the south/US side and taking the longer portage trail for safety rather than paddling up into the faster water channel for a shorter portage. For camps, we loved the first site on Crooked between Curtain Falls and Sunday Bay. It's a bit of a climb but has a great vista and sand beaches below it on either side.

This is a really nice route. We loved having the small river PMA experience back with the beavers and swans, combined with the open majesty of big Crooked and seeing Curtain and Lower Basswood Falls. Enjoy/Happy trails.

I'd suggest getting a PMA specific overnight permit for the a couple nights around the time you expect to be traveling through the Sundial PMA so you can camp in the PMA if you find the need or desire to do so. In my experience (late July), it takes a full travel day to get from Beartrap to Iron with a loaded canoe (double portaging) and stopping for a leisurely lunch along the way. I don't recall water levels being unusually low during that trip, but the last stretch into Sunday (from Beartrap) was low and we had to walk through the mud pulling the canoes for a couple short sections. Had the water been lower it likely would have been much slower moving. If we had had a PMA overnight permit for the day we traveled that way, we likely would have stayed the night on Sunday and taken our time to explore the area more.

Edit: If you want lots of detail on the stretch between Iron and Beartrap Lake, then look at this trip report.

plander: "I'd suggest getting a PMA specific overnight permit for the a couple nights around the time you expect to be traveling through the Sundial PMA. "

This is our plan.

We did mostly that loop in August of ‘22. See my trip report
“Return of the Cousins camping “ and let me know if you have any other questions. Epic trip

BonzSF: "We did mostly that loop in August of ‘22. See my trip report
“Return of the Cousins camping “ and let me know if you have any other questions. Epic trip "

Great trip report! I'm impressed that you triple portaged through the Beartrap...LOL

Triple portaging, yeah we like to bring a lot of stuff. Chairs, table , fishing gear, and even the ax for splitting wood. Also we’re really into eating well. Hamburgers, ribeyes, a dozen eggs, bacon, a box of wine, scotch for cocktails.
We’re getting better. We got it down to two and a half on our last trip. We worked hard on trimming gear but with only two of us last time we still did a lot of walking.
That’s okay we got ten days and are in no hurry

Great idea, enjoy!
We did it clockwise in 7 days in Jun/Jul 2012--PMA permit we used on Sunday Lake--if you think you might stay there consider getting your PMA permit early. PMA portages very obvious, usual Sunday Lake PMA campsites obvious. Beartrap Lake is secluded, Beartrap River only had normal beaver dam pullovers. We found bushwacking to some of the smaller lakes in the PMA interesting (downed tree liftovers, mud, bugs, you get it). While fun, the fishing in those remote lakes was limited for us.