BWCA Portage 247 (Iron to Crooked)

ups and downs, nothing difficult. Very well beaten down. great views of falls and river.

Legendary portage around Curtain Falls. We paddled over just to see it before heading for LLC. I haven't seen it since the canadian fires which may have impacted that side. Very special place.

Pretty standard portage, can feel a little long but the terrain is generally good. Looking at this map makes me question whether we approached the portage from a different angle, as we had to do a little bit of upstream paddling on slight fast water. Curtain Falls is stunning, a nice reward after listening to them throughout the portage trail. Paddling out of the current and round the corner on the right was a nice swimming spot where we washed off the sweat and grit from the portage. Recommend it if you've portaged on a hot day like we did!

Portage landing is hard to see, and further east than we originally thought. There are two small cairns on each side that mark it.

Very nice (multiple) landings on both ends. As one would expect, the trail is well worn and easy to traverse. There are some ups/downs along the way but, nothing too serious. Seen an old barrel and some trash back in the woods just off the trail; which is almost certainly from the days when there was a resort located here.

There is another landing on the Iron end in the bay directly to the south of the end of the portage. If the water is high I would recommend using this landing when heading upstream, we tried to go up the strong current to the portage on the river and weren't able to get up it.

This trail is wide and well-traveled. There are two landings at each end. I took the "safer" (upstream) takeout at the east end, but the alternative at the lip of the falls should be ok for reasonably-skilled paddlers and will shorten the portage by about 100 m. At the Iron end, I used the upstream of a short section of fast water. Most paddlers should be able to handle the current even if going upstream, but if not, there is an alternative which bypasses the fast section and which will lengthen the portage slightly.