Jimbo, My group hit these portages on our last day. To me they were easy to moderate, but our packs were lighter and we were stronger. The portage between Pickerel and Gillnet was 800 yards, it was a neat portage that went from being in deep woods to opening up into meadows. Gillnet was a scenic lake, I wish we could have spent some time on it. The Portage between Gillnet and a small no name lake had a few moderate hills and some muddy spots the most impressive hill was at the end going down to no name, it was steep with tricky foot holds but still not too bad, it is 950 yards long. The small no name lake was stagnant, whould not recommend drinking from that lake, the lake was shortened by a beaver dam which made the next portage a few yards longer than mapped, it was mapped at 300 yards long but was probably 350 to 400 yards. It was easy and pretty much flat. It puts in at a small creek which was a scenic paddle, the creek empties into Black Bay and from there on it is paddling and navigating the small islands of Nym to the take out. I have done the route mentioned previously twice and it is a nice route, we are doing it again but are probably going into Sturgeon, Russell, and Maybe Chatterton Lake. We want to see Chatterton Falls and may go as far as Split Rock Falls. If you have any information on the condition of the Portage between Fern Lake and Olifaunt Lake it would be appreciated. It is a slightly hard portage, but it was made bad by a lot of blow down. It is scenic portage and I thought it was great. Thanks for all the info you gave me.

Posted by Chief on June 17, 2002 at 19:43
From IP address 65.214.236.15