My wife and I are planning a trip the first week in August. We are putting in on EP 69, John Lake. We are going up through East Pike and hoping to get into West Pike in one day, is that reasonable?. Then base camp on West Pike.

All of the info I have been able to find on those lakes is from a couple years ago. Does anyone have any information on those lakes? suggestions? secret fishing spots??

Yes not a problem, the portages are not very bad, the Island campsite on the south side in the middle is a very nice site, enjoy your trip and have fun.

My advice is to get an early start and if you find a nice vacant site on East Pike, take it. That particular section of the BWCA can be busy, and vacant campsites can be hard to find. I don't think any lake in that area is further than 2 portages away from an entry point. West Pike is very popular.

We are planning on getting a pretty early start, so that should not be a problem.

We were trying to find a lake with not much traffic...did not think that West Pike was busy, but I guess that assumption was wrong.

We were just up in Sag, Alpine and Seagull over the 4th of July weekend and we saw probably 5 canoes all week. It was surprising, because have done that route before and seen a ton of people.