Day 1: We entered the BWCA on July 3, 2026 via the North Fowl entry point. We put in at the landing on Little John Lake and continued into John Lake. The campsite on the southeastern end of John was a nice place to have lunch. The trip down the Royal River was scenic, with nice views of rock cliffs. Royal Lake was full of reeds, but we were usually able to see a channel through. Neither of the portages on the Royal River were particularly challenging. Once we got to North Fowl Lake, I was suprised to see quite a few cabins on a sliver of land on the American side that is not in the BWCA. We didn't see anyone at those cabins and didn't see any motorboats or other canoes on North Fowl though. The portage from North Fowl to Moose was a bit rocky and muddy, but not terrible. We spent the night at Campsite 742 on Moose. It was decent enough.

Day 2: We continued west through Moose towards Mountain without seeing anyone else. As far as I can tell, we had Moose all to ourselves our whole time on the lake. Vaseux Lake was very pretty. Fan Lake is very shallow in many places. The portage from Fan to Mountain was in bad shape and very muddy. There are two places to access the portage going east to west. One is about 30 meters from the end of the lake and the outlet from Mountain. The other is just south of the outlet into Fan. I would recommend the latter. It would have cut out the muddiest part of the portage and looked to have a less muddy landing. Mountain is a nice lake. We spent the night at campsite 717, which was a nice site. I was suprised to hear a motorboat on Mountain but now know that motors are allowed on the Canadian side of the lake. We only heard one and onlyh for an hour or so. We only saw one other group paddling on Mountain today.

Day 3: We saw one other group of canoes pass our site in the morning. Altogether, that was only two other groups of paddlers on Mountain. We continued out the west end of Mountain and took the portage to Clearwater. We set down the canoe and pack without the food at the intersection of the portage and Border Route Trail and hiked west on the BRT to an overlook of Mountain Lake. This part of the BRT goes through a blowdown area, so there was no shade and it was very hot. The view of Mountain was very nice though. We continued our portage to Clearwater. The eastern end of Clearwater was very scenic and we only passed one other group. After lunch and a swim on a point near the eastern end of the lake, we portaged into West Pike. I had considered portaging into Caribou and eventually going to Pine but thought there would be less traffic on the Pikes. The campsite we were hoping for on West Pike was occupied, but the one we ended up with was even better. Campsite 727 was great: towereing white pines, good overlook of the lake, and very few bugs. While we were sitting on the rocks on the point, we saw a beaver slowly swim by within 5 feet of us. As best I can tell, three of the five sites on West Pike were occupied on this night.

Day 4: We continued to the east end of West Pike and portaged into East Pike. The long, narrow west end of East Pike is kind of different, more like a river than a lake. We ended up passing on site 750 and camping at 751. This was a good site with a nice view of the lake and lots of places to sit on the hillside down to the water. Shortly after we got to camp, two groups passed us going east to west. After seeing so few groups on the other lakes on our trip, I was suprised to see two other groups on this smallish lake with only three campsites.

Day 5: We continued out the east end of East Pike and portaged into John Lake. John is a nice looking lake. We had lunch on the south eastern end of John at the same place we did on the first day of our trip.

Overall this was a good trip. I was hoping to avoid crowds and lots of competition for campsites. We were largely successful with that. The lakes were beautiful and the portages weren't too bad. It was my first time in the BWCA in five years and much longer than that for my daughter. It was good to be back and good to spend time with her. I'm hoping it won't be another five years before we're back.