Of the 3 campsites shown on Fisher maps, we camped on the NorthEast end nearest the portage to Dumas.  We never located the other 2 on the map, but did find one on the South end not marked.  Our site was decent with lots of firewood, a good high rock above the site for pondering and a firepit with 3 sitting logs.  If you have more than 2 tents it will be difficult.  One good pad and the other was small and right on the edge where you might find yourself in the water.  There is a hump near the opposite bank SouthEast of the campsite where the rocks just break the surface in Fall water levels.  Good Smallie fishing on all sides.  Also had some fast action on Edge Lake but was only there briefly and never got beyond the South end.

Regards,

Bob

How was the campsite on Fauquier, mossback?   I'd like to camp between Louisa and Glacier sometime. 

BTW that long portage was never there, I've been told - one of many completely fictitious Quetico portages on the Fisher maps.  It's best to get the official park map to see what portages actually exist.

MossBack wrote on Nov 6^th, 2010 at 2:51am:

I did that the other direction last year with the original 60+ year old parts. (Of course, that was the back end of a trip that started up the Falls Chain and up to McKenzie then back to McEwen (using the long portage in) the down the Glacier-Louisa route.  By the time I hit those last portages, the knees were pretty much well oiled.)

dd

Well,  I appreciate everyone replying with their thoughts and information.  We did make our trip the week prior to Labor Day.  Mostly good weather although it was unseasonable warm except for the last day when we had sleet blowing in our right ear all the way out of the park.  We base camped on Fauquirer and got as far north as Edge.  Smallmouth fishing was excellent along with a couple of big pike, but no Lake Trout.  I would guess the painfully hot weather had them deep and out of our lazy reach.  Twenty some odd years ago I walked up Louisa portage, saw the falls and swore I would come back some day and carry a canoe and gear up and hit the bathtub.  Finally got there and did it with a 9 month old knee replacement.  Nothing like a good test drive on the Meadows and Louisa portages to convince yourself you still have several good trips left.  Kind Regards to everyone.  Bob

Quote:


This description by Denton Doc was dead-on accurate. We recently were in the neighborhood and also took a day trip to Glacier. "Beautiful chain of lakes" indeed. Downright gorgeous. I love paddling through the little beaver areas, gently nudging aside weeds and feeling the stillness.

Connecting streams, especially from Fauquier to Rod among the prettiest I've seen. I wanted to set down the canoe and stay awhile.

A few landings and some step-ups along the portages a little tricky, but otherwise easy.

When we finally got to Glacier, the air was heavy with mist, making it seem like we'd entered another dimension. Wish we'd brought our gear and stayed for a day. (And did I say we saw nary a soul the whole day? Actually, we didn't see anybody from Saturday afternoon until Thursday evening, and even then it was just a far-off canoe.)

-- kypaddler

Oh, and my newer M maps no longer show the Gamp-to-Glacier portages either.

To explain my question about the "long portage into Glacier", it was based on an aging small scale Fisher map of both parks.  It shows an 80r portage into Gamp and then the long 480r into Glacier.  I just looked at my current set of larger Fisher maps and it does not show either one.  My guess is if they still exist they would be ugly at best.
Regards,

Bob

I've been on Louisa twice, and would love to go back again.  It's always nice to get out of the lower Agnes bottleneck onto a less popular route.  I'm recalling that the campsites we saw were very exposed, but we only saw a couple.

If you enjoy smaller lakes and creeks, a day trip to Glacier would be worth it.  I'm also unaware of a long portage, but have taken the several portages to get there.

As to wind, I guess you can get it anywhere and it can be dicey on any large lake.  Agnes gets the reputation mainly because of the length the wind/waves can travel up or down the lake with minimal obstruction added to the general populairty of the lake.  The high cliffs also seem to funnel the wind.

Gentlemen,  Thanks for taking the time to reply.  Hard for me to imagine that a lake like Louisa does not have walleyes?  Lake Trout will do nicely though.  Our crew has just started getting good at catching Lakers on the past few trips.  Although I have to admit feeling a bit bad about pulling them up from the depths when many of them do not make the trip in great condition.  This group has been over Agnes and North Bay several times in the last few years, and each time there was nary a ripple.  They are starting to think I am fibbing about how rough they can be in some spots.

Thanks Again.

Regards,

Bob

I was on Louisa in '08 for 3 days. In that time the fishing ranged from dismal to decent and same for the weather. We paddled in from Agnes on an almost mirror flat lake. That night a nice storm blew in and the lake was kicking. I'll add that during the three days we stayed there we didn't see a soul. We didn't catch any walleye, but then again we were rigged for lakers the whole time. I too was there in late august early sept. If you can fish deep (I caught fish in over 140' of water, almost on the bottom) you'll be into them.

[quote author=MossBack link=1272165076/0#0 date=1272165076]Anybody ever been over the long portage into Glacier?[/quote]
Bob -

Don't know about the "long portage" to Glacier, but I did the 10 portages between Louisa and Glacier last year (but in the opposite direction).  It took about 6 hours, but then our pace was leisurely.  Nothing particularly difficult along this route (but then I could have been influenced by the beautiful chain of lakes).  A couple were immediately beside the connecting steam making the footing a bit tricky in a couple of spots.  There were a couple of put-ins/take-outs that were a little sloppy, but you'd expect that in May.  But once you've mastered the slight uphill portage into Louisa from Agnes, I don't think you'll find any of these portages to be a challenge.

dd