BWCA Portage 851 (Basswood to Basswood River)

I have been through this portage a couple times. It is a beast taken in one go, and there are a couple wet patches and difficult to navigate areas. This portage has a lot of campsites along it (some that aren't even listed.) They aren't private because of the portage, but most of them are really nice sites. We hit this portage at the end of the day both times (and stayed at one of the sites) so we were able to break up the portage into different days, which made it much easier. There was a tree down near the West end of the portage the last time I was here, which made for a more difficult crossing. All in all, the most confusing part of this portage is the extra landings and campsite pull offs. There are quite a few options for paddling and shortening up this portage if you would like, but these landings make it somewhat difficult to find the true landing. Just keep going until you run out of trail.

A few sections with slightly trick footwork where there's streams crossing the trail and rocks to step on, but mostly easy, other than its length. It went faster than we expected.

This is a tough portage no matter how you slice it, and it is misrepresented on this map. When traveling from East to West, there is another spur down to the river about 80 or 90 rods east of west end of the portage. A much easier landing that shortens the long portage considerably, but requires a crossing of the river to the Canadian side and adds a short (20 rod) portage on that side (not shown on this map). This map also does not show the next portage (60 rods or so) about 1/2 mile downriver on the US side.

long, difficult, fairly level and straightforward trail but can be completely different in spring run off when parts are under water and muddy; portage has numerous spur trails that can be confusing - they dump you into short cuts where you paddle briefly and then get out and carry again; beware - there are severe rapids between each short cut. the overall portage is about a mile and a half all together - so, long.

A little rocky, but mostly an excellent level path that provides plenty of scenery along this historic mile path.