About Portager

Portager helps you choose where to enter the Boundary Waters. There are about 70 entry points, and each one has its own daily permit quota, road in, first portage, and feel. Pick the wrong one and you can spend your first day on a long carry you didn't plan for, or paddling with a crowd you drove five hours to get away from.

The Forest Service publishes the numbers as a table. Portager puts them side by side and says what they mean for a trip, so you can get from “we want to go in July” to a short list you can actually reserve.

Where the data comes from

Entry point and permit data comes from the Recreation Information Database and the Superior National Forest. Drive times, portage lengths, and the write-ups are Portager's own research. When something hasn't been checked yet, the site says “Not recorded yet” instead of guessing.

2 entry points are listed right now. The data was last updated October 17, 2026.

What Portager is not

Portager is an independent project. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the USDA Forest Service, Recreation.gov, or any government agency, and it doesn't issue permits. Reserve permits on Recreation.gov, and check current rules there before you go.