I am planning a two person trip this summer...maybe over July 4 holiday. We are experienced wilderness campers. I am looking for some suggestions on a great 5-8 day route where we will see less people and experience great solitude. We are willing to portage long and technical if necessary. Ideally a route where we can do a circle to get back to our vehicle. Also, looking for lakes with undisturbed fishing. Will going over July 4th holiday make it tough to avoid crowds?
Can anyone offer any suggestions? Thanks!

4th of July weekend will be tough to avoid crowds but not impossible. Your biggest current challenge is determining a route and getting a permit. The lottery closed on the 15th of January and now it will be first come first served for permits. That starts on the 20th. Many of the entries will have no permits available once the lottery results are finalized.

One option would be to find a route that stays off main pass through routes and goes off the beaten path. Most entries have obvious paths that the majority of people take. If you are willing to do a couple of tough long portages into lakes that either dead end or have long portages coming out of them you can get away-and it sounds like that is OK with you to do some tough work and get the rewards.

What i would do is wait until the entry availability is posted at the BWCAW website http://www.bwcaw.org/ on the 20th, get some maps or look at the maps that this website has online and see what possibilities exist. It does not pay to determine a route until you know if you can get into it.

Fishing is good almost anyplace you go in the BWCAW so do not worry about missing out on fishing. You will find it no matter where you go. July 4th is best for everything except Lake Trout so stay away from the really deep Gunflint lakes and you will find fish.