Just got off a trip from lake one through alice up the kawishiwi to little sag and then kekekabic over to snowbank.

If you are planning on traveling the stretch between alice and little sag, take extra precaution as the river is ripping right now. Water levels are super high, some of the portages are flooded out (but still passible). There were a few sections 3 strong paddlers had to paddle as hard as we could to make any forward progress at all.

All that said, its very beautiful right now, not trying to scare you off, just a heads up.

cheers.

Thanks for the input, much appreciated. I am going in next Tuesday Lake One to Alice.
How was that section? 3 of 4 members of the party are adult newbies.

Ill be honest, the specifics of the river and where it was the worst is sort of a blur! If you go from lake three up to firebox instead of going to hudson you can avoid some of the dangerous water, and its not really any longer. I would suggest that for your group.

and wow...insula is a bit of a navigating 'challenge'. Im not too proud to admit I had to take out the phone once or twice to verify I was not going down the wrong bay.

Great insight, thank for the pointer

Hello III,
Have you done the route up to Fire from Lake 2? I understand from previous trip reports that the 163 Rod Portage (into Rifle) is a killer. Being so early in the season and an expected reduction in maintenance I would be concerned with a combination of a killer portage along with clearing/debris. Could be a turn off for newbies on the first day of six.
Anyone?

I did the portage last year from lake two to fire lake (with kids) and don't remember the portage being anything terrible. I would take safety of a potential bad portage over dumping a canoe in moving water this time of year.

Also- We did around 50 portages on this last trip a few days ago. Im guessing we were the first people through many of the portages we went through, and only a few times did we have to re route around a fallen tree or blocked portage. I was actually surprised how good of shape and cleared all the portages were.

wayneIII: "and wow...insula is a bit of a navigating 'challenge'. Im not too proud to admit I had to take out the phone once or twice to verify I was not going down the wrong bay. "

Not Insula, but I didn't take my phone out and verify one time. We didn't figure that out until we got to the other end of the wrong 400 rod portage...

Awesome - nicely played and reported!