Walley,
We wnet your proposed route in reverse order a couple of years ago. We went over the Monument portage to Ottertrack, then north into Jasper, Lilypad and into Saganagons. The portage we took out of Lilypad ended up in the middle of the outflow of Slver Falls.
We ran the fast water from the portage to "T" without a real incident. My partner (paddling stern) ruddered instead of prying or bracing in the middle of the pillow after the first turn. Got us turned sideways, so I turned us backwards (the boat's pointed on both ends) rather than trying to straighten out and really losing control. Ended up the run stern first, but without incident. Got to see where we had been rather than where we were going. Believe it or not, we didn't ship a drop of water.

I've heard that there's another portage into Lilipad from Saganagons, but we couldn't find it. I don't think I can reccommend trying our route in reverse - it would really be a stinker paddling from the bottom of the outlet to the mid-point, and we didn't see any way to track or line the fast water on our trip.

Maybe db or somebody else knows this other portage.

Fishing - Ottertrack wasn't too shabby for smallmouth. Jasper is a beautiful lake. Holds smallmouth and pike, but we weren't too successful on walleye. 'Course, we don't specifically target walleye, especially with artificials. We didn't fish Lilypad - just traveled thru.

Posted by Skip Guyer on February 04, 2001 at 09:37