BWCA Portage 66 (Fay to Flying)

Portage landing is visible. Bearing shown on McKenzie map is good. Appears the marsh has "grown" and may have covered the original trail. Bushwhack portaged following bearing and barely visible path back to marsh edge. Floated the marsh edge on apparent path until stumps dead end path. Barely visible path on land following marsh edge resumes. Bushwhack overgrown trail continuing on bearing towards flowing water creek. Clear trail along creek to exit. Small headwater by creek is the other landing. A sharp machete would make very quick work of young post-fire saplings and save the trail before you need a real saw. Hopefully someone will adopt this and save it, not a horrible trail if post fire saplings were cleared back. Beautiful route.

From Flying to Fay: This portage is relatively hidden/not obvious. The take out is just north of the beaver dam at the mouth leading into the marsh area. NOTE: The marsh outline on PP and McK maps may not match the current marsh water level. To get around the dam, follow the overgrown trail NW up the hill, then turn back south toward the north shore of the marsh. The marsh water was VERY high due to recent reasons, and the trail was submerged. If this is the case, float/line the boat along the shore of the marsh until the water trail dead ends. Then take out again and head NW (the path of travel will match the bearing shown on the map) up the hill, then follow the creek down to a small waterway/inlet that empties into Fay.

As of 2022, this portage is very hard to find and has essentially gone back to nature. It has been taken out of the routing since the usual route to get to Fay is through Bingshick and Glee. If the USFS starts maintaining the portage again, please let us know.

To start off we were traveling from Fay to Flying. This portage was hard to find and not near where it's located on maps... When you get to the East end of Fay lake, you have to continue down the small waterway that looks like a creek/inlet... You'll see the portage from there... It seems like a typical portage to start, but be cautious that it splits partway up the trail whether you're going to Bingshick to Flying Lake. To head to Flying, turn right. The path gets a bit harder and less traveled, but continue on. You'll finally get to a swampy part, but continue following the path that looks trampled until it looks like you can't go any farther (muddy along a swampy shoreline). Once you don't think you can go anymore, look up the hill for the path that goes around the last swampy beaver damn area... To be honest this is my least favorite portage I've ever done, and I've done some doozies!

Agree that it is hard to find and it looks like most people take the northern loop to get to Fay Lake

We tried to find this one from Flying Lake and were unsuccessful. We looked for about 30 minutes, but couldn't find it. Reading the other comment, it looks like we were in the right place, but didn't push into the swamp to find the dry start of the portage heading NW to Fly lake.

Took this portage by mistake since we missed the one south from the channel to Flying Lake (ending up in Fay Lake)...Some elevation and tricky footing...the end of this portage requires wading and push/pull canoe through waterlogged area for some 100 meters or so before you get to the lake...stay along the left side doing so.