I am planning a trip to the NE are of the park. This will be the first trip into the BWCA. It will be a 4-5 day trip and we were looking at a loop like:
Clearwater - Pike - Little John, and back out Pine.

Initially we had a lot of flexibility in dates so were going to try to snag the ever popular #62 Clearwater whatever date we could. Life happened and we can only fit the trip into the first week in July.

The priority is scenery. My paddle partner is an avid hiker and has interest in spending some time on the border trail.

I looking for suggestion on other entry points to maintain a similar route or alternate routes that would have similar scenery.

Thanks

Lerbken, it's a really nice area you are contemplating. Portages are few but tend to be long and moderately difficult. I have done that trip a few times but usually the reverse way that you have proposed. Get a John Lake permit which are in somewhat less demand than a Clearwater permit - they fill up extremely fast. Enter at Little John and head over to John. From there through East Pike to West Pike and to the East end of Clearwater. Portage to Caribou and east to Little Caribou and on to Pine. Paddle Pine to the riffle at the east end you can probably float through and down the length of McFarland Lake which brings you back to Little John Lake and your vehicle.

The main reason for doing it the other way is...although the Pike Lakes are fairly big and long West to East lakes and subject to some wind, Pine Lake is a huge lake and by doing the route this way you are likely to have the normally west to east prevailing winds at your back rather than in your face. I have battled a headwind on Pine Lake for many hours and it is not that much fun.

Scenery - the narrow west end of East pike Lake is beautiful with clear water and small car sized rocks to paddle around and over. At the west end of Pine Lake there is a short trail to Johnson Falls which is gorgeous and one of the prettiest spots in the BWCA. It is a two level falls which you wouldn't know if you were there and hadn't heard about it - and above the second falls is a really nice serene pond that feeds them. Absolutely worth a detour or short daytrip. The lower falls has an awesome swimming hole at the base of the falls. If it happens to work out that you hit Little Caribou lake when you are ready to make camp one day and the lone site there is open it is an amazing campsite with amazing views and you will have the lake to yourselves.

Be prepared for some challenging portages but the good news is that you will likely only have one or two a day. From memory I recall the portage from Clearwater to Caribou being the worst of the bunch so tackle that one early in the day if you can and be thinking camp not too long after that. You are probably aware but if by chance you are not you can read reviews of the campsites and portages by going into the entry points section, click on the map and click on the red dots for campsites and the yellow lines for portages. Great information with some photos.

And just in case you don't know, cuz I want you to be able to do this trip, permit reservations open on January 25th at 9am and if you need a permit for a specific day on a specific lake you had better be ready to reserve, logged in and ready to click that mouse on the BWCA recreation.gov website when they open up. They go amazingly fast for many places.

It's a great loop with a lot to see, hope it works out for you.

You can really enter at Clearwater, East Bearskin, Pine, or John and then do a loop depending on where you end up with a permit. You can also get North Fowl and go out Moose and Mountain, then cut down to Clearwater and back through the Pike Lakes or Pine. Some tough portages in places, but all doable with the right attitude.