Couldn't find a trip report for this type of trip and I'm mostly an east side BWCAW kind of guy. But I was thinking of a trip that would start at EP14 - Little Indian Sioux, head up to Lac La Croix via Oyster and Agnes, then Iron to Curtain Falls, Crooked to Lower Basswood Falls, then the Horse River to Mudro and out.

OR should I do it in reverse?

Target date is mid August, the week of the Perseids. I'm thinking 6 days / 5 nights. Veteran group. Could stretch to six nights if you think its necessary.

I think this sounds great and I would take more than six nights. That is a great sounding trip.

Sounds like a great trip though I’d do it in reverse, paddling down stream on the Horse River and Basswood River to get to Crooked. The current on that stretch isn’t much but it’s definitely something.

That is a dream itinerary for me. My comment is that you will have to move every day and that leaves very little room for bad weather or high winds. I'd recommend 7 days for that much paddling.

For reference, we did EP16 to LLC then across Crooked to Basswood and out EP24. We stayed at 5 different campsites with long days of paddling between them.

I'd prefer to start at LIS. If you're going to be on LLC, I'd want to be traveling west to east. The only disadvantage is where will you stay on your last night? Horse and Fourtown can be quit busy, so I’d get to that area late morning or early afternoon. If you head west you might have a few more options on your last night. You could stay on Loon or detour through Heritage, Shell, or even Lynx on your last night. Pauness could be a last night option, but if it’s full, you’d have no choice but to exit.

I've been down the Horse River and I have been up the Horse River. I have been down LIS and I have been up the LIS.

There is no question in my mind. I would go DOWN the Horse for a variety of reasons. 1. The current is stronger than LIS. 2. If you get a high wind, traveling from Crooked to LBWF is brutal, been there done that.

Your trip from Mudro, down the Horse, across Crooked and Iron, up and around LLC to LIS is approximately 68.2 miles, 64.9 paddling, 3.3 portaging. if you average 3.5 mph paddling and single portage you're looking at 22:13 to travel the route.

Hope this helps

This sounds like a great trip. I definitely agree with those saying start at Mudro. I have traveled both up Horse Lake to Crooked, and from Crooked to Horse Lake, you definitely want to use the current to your advantage in this case, so its much better to travel from Horse to Crooked. Also, I'd plan for the extra night so you have a buffer for unpredictable weather.

Darin

I appreciate everyone's comments.

I'd like to avoid adding another travel day. If I were to change this from LIS to Moose River, do you think that shaves enough distance off the route to make a 6 day trip more of a no-doubter?

Also, my experience on Knife Lake, Kek, and Sag have always made me very wary of doing the big water east to west because predominant west winds can be a killer. So that said, is fighting the Horse River current really worse than potentially fighting a LONG Crooked/Iron lake westward paddle? It seems I have to choose, easier on the Horse vs. tough on Crooked/Iron. OR is there enough islands, etc. to tuck behind and break up the wind while paddling on Crooked/Iron?

I actually did Moose River North => Mudro on my very first trip, with very little knowledge and subpar gear. Our group of 4 (all first-timers) completed it in 5 days (4 nights), so it’s definitely doable within your timeframe. That said, we were pushing pretty hard: we didn’t stay at any campsite longer than one night and barely did any fishing. We were all in our mid-to-late 30s and in good physical shape, which helped quite a bit.

As a caution about westward travel on big lakes: Crooked Lake gave us serious trouble. We spent the morning taking our time (sightseeing and checking out waterfalls) and ended up hitting Crooked in the mid-afternoon after leaving Curtain Falls. Not knowing any better, we pushed on and ran straight into some ferocious headwinds. At one point we ended up crossing some mid-lake reef areas with three-foot rollers crashing in, and one canoe bottomed out briefly. It was scary, completely exhausting, and still ranks as one of my worst wind experiences. Once we got down near Sunday Bay, conditions became much more manageable.

All that said, it's a great route, which one day I'll do again, but properly next time, giving myself more time in the areas and fishing way more.

Great advice on here. I'm wary of big water so that would dictate a lot of what I would do.

1. I've found Agnes to be just as bad as Crooked on rough days.
2. I've done the Horse River both ways in August several times and didn't find the direction to be that big of a deal. A consideration for sure, but not the biggest for me. The main reason I'd go down would be to camp near Lower Basswood falls and get an early start on Crooked.
3. If it's my trip, I'm starting (or ending) at Moose River. The Shell/Lynx/Hustler area is excellent but I'd personally save it for another trip. Plus Oyster is another big body to navigate and plan around.
4. That being said, I do think the six days is doable if you really like to move and paddle a lot. If you're trying to fish that sounds tough to me. I would just plan it to hit the big water early.
5 (edited to add). Iron's pretty manageable with the islands, but Crooked has some big water crossings that you can't avoid with those long north-south bays. My first ever trip, I didn't realize how long those bays were because the Canadian side of my map was shaded.

That's going to be an excellent loop. I'm excited for you.

You can avoid going up Horse River by heading south down Friday Bay. Your trip will be shortened some. That long portage is pretty mellow

Closing the loop on this: I wound up snagging a Mudro permit because of my uncertainty on length. Now we can decide later how far we want to go and pick an exit point appropriately.

Holy smokes, that Mudro entry point is popular! After I bought the permit I rechecked availability and just about every Mudro permit is gone from Mid may to the September. Amazing!

Blatz: "You can avoid going up Horse River by heading south down Friday Bay. Your trip will be shortened some. That long portage is pretty mellow"

I absolutely hate that long portage to Gun. It goes uphill for what seems like 3/4 of it.