Thanks to all who have posted on this portage. We just returned from Quetico on Saturday June 20 but had decided to explore the West side if the water levels looked decent.  From our experience the beaver dam has achieved a water level high enough to paddle up to the NW corner of the talus area.  We landed fairly close to what I recall as the original take out point. The places from which you can do this are quite limited.  From the take-out point we used we easily found the portage path, although it is quite overgrown. We did not encounter any need to pole our canoe perhaps due to some recent rain being added into the water pool level.  We only saw a few other footprints along the portage indicating that only a few folks have passed through this year.  We did not look for the East side portage so cannot verify its current condition.  As long as the water levels hold up the West paddle/portage is doable.

We went over this portage on Thursday (9/3/15) coming out of Kahshahpiwi and the reversion to the old, western route is now complete.  If you are coming from Kahsh on the portage, when you get to the junction of the old and new (west and east) routes, you will find that the "new" (east) route is now the one that is blocked off.  Follow the "old" (west) route and you soon come to a put-in in the beaver meadow that has *just barely* enough water to float in, though the depth improves as you head downstream (south).  At the far end of the meadow that you are floating through there is an approximately 10-rod portage over the granite outcrop on the east side of the waterway into the unnamed lake between Kahsh and Side.

The route is easy to follow if coming from the north as we were, but might be harder if coming from the south, because it would not be immediately obvious how far up the shallow waterway in the beaver meadow you should paddle to find the portage takeout.  I took a GPS waypoint when we were there and will add it to this post later on when I get it downloaded.

Coming from the south it is easy to find the take out, just paddle beneath the high cliffs past the talus slope until you can't paddle anymore. Did this 8/31- the new pond is considerably deeper than the old.