6/10/24
Sherri & Nicole planned a backpacking trip to Isle Royale together, allowing me to tag along if I agreed to hike a separate route once we set foot on the island (girls ONLY trip). Today we drove 6 hours up to Houghton, MI where we will board the Ranger III passenger ship in the morning. On the drive up, we binge listened to the entire Dateline podcast, “There’s Something About Pam,” inspiring our favorite saying of the trip, “Say hi to Kathy for me.” Knowing that we wouldn’t arrive until late, Nicole treated us to a Super “Hairy” 8 hotel, which was a welcome sight at 11pm after a butt-kicker drive.
6/11/24
I chowed down on almost everything the hotel served at the continental breakfast (waffles, hard boiled eggs, Jimmy Dean sausage & cheese muffin, yogurt, and extra creamy coffee) in preparation for the next few days of trail rations. We rode another 6 hours on the Ranger III out to Rock Harbor, the touristy northern end of Isle Royale. As we pulled up to the dock, a drizzly rain greeted us as passengers eagerly disembarked the ship. It felt as if someone had just blown the horn for contestants to take-off on the first leg of the Amazing Race TV show, quickly grabbing their packs, and taking cover under the eaves surrounding the ranger station to put on rain gear. After snapping a couple shots of Sherri & Nicole in front of the National Park sign, they took off one way, and I headed off in a different direction. I hiked 7.14 miles to Lane Cove. On the way, I bumped into a father and son searching for the trail to Mt. Franklin. The path along the lakeshore seemed to be going around in circles, so I checked the map, and suggested we traverse up the rock outcropping we passed a little ways back. Once on top of the ridge, I fortunately spotted the trail again, to which they kindly thanked me for helping navigate. Pulling into Lane Cove, I snatched campsite #5 on the far north end of the cove, took in the view while cooking some rice & beans, and then hit the hay. Later, I woke up in the middle of the night to what sounded like a dog sniffing around my campsite. It came right up to the vestibule of my tent with a huge exhale power sniff. I yelled scram, sending the fox or wolf trotting down the trail.
The ladies hiked out to Three-Mile Camp where they snatched one of the campsites nestled in the hillside along the shore. They enjoyed dinner on a beautiful floating dock reaching out into Lake Superior. While heading back to camp that afternoon as the fog settled in, a wolf crossed the path right in front of them. It turned and stared at them for awhile, then moseyed back into the woods. Later that night as Sherri was taking a spit-bath discreetly behind camp, and heard a twig snap in the woods nearby. Nicole heard Sherri call from the woods, “Nicole, the wolf is back,” after which Sherri could see Nicole trying to peek through the mosquito netting around the bottom of the tent.
6/12/24
Today I tackled one of the more rugged sections of trail in the park on a 19-miler out to Todd Harbor. The Greenstone Ridge Trail featured beautiful vista overlooks with a slight breeze that helped keep the bugs at bay. I later transitioned to the Minong Ridge Trail that dropped into old-growth forest where I came across 3 different moose, one of them with a calf. Navigation was a mess as beaver dams completely flooded entire sections of the trail, forcing sketchy bushwhacking re-routes. While walking into the campground that night, a group already settled in asked me where I had hiked from. I told them Lane Cove, to which they repeated with astonished cussing. I now realize the validity of their shocked reaction. Hiking 19 miles on a decent trail is one thing, but navigating that same distance on a trail from Hell is absolutely nuts. I feel fortunate to have made it into camp before dark. I discovered campsite #1 completely abandoned where I washed-up in the lake, washed some laundry, and cooked some chow. I watched a couple of loons fish and chatter calls back and forth until the approaching thunder clouds snuffed-out the sun. Not 10 minutes after crawling into the tent, I started counting the seconds after lightning flashes before thunder shook the ground. It rained cats and dogs throughout the night, but to my amazement, my little Fly Creek 2-person tent proved its worth in gold, completely water-tight, including my pack sitting under the vestibule.
Sherri & Nicole continued along Rock Harbor Trail to Daisy Farm today. They snatched one of the shelters at the campground which provided some welcome security and added protection from the storm that night. It also happened to be the day of the week when the resident zoologist researchers canoe over to the shelter at Daisy Farm to conduct a presentation about the predator/prey relationship between wolves and moose on the island. For the record, Sherri & Nicole were the only audience members who fervently sang the sing along nature song, which they hummed for the remainder of the trip. While settling into their sleeping bags that evening, they heard weird sounds echoing throughout the forest, later identifying them as the guttural groans of moose calls. The eerie sounds mixed with lightning and thunder set the stage for what they called “Blair Witch Night.” The pinnacle moment occurred when a lightning strike startled Nicole awake, only to find Sherri creepily hunched over facing the opposite corner of the shelter. She was actually going potty in a bag (brilliant idea by the way, but also extremely creepy under strobe lighting mixed with deep brain fog).
Ladies Snatched a Shelter on Day 2 at Daisy Farm
Screened in for the Evening
Wine Time!
Quix
6/13/24
Packing-up wet this morning wasn’t ideal, but at about 9 miles rounding Hatchet Lake, I found a sun-baked rock outcropping where I sprawled-out all of my gear and enjoyed some lunch. Good thing because high above the western horizon rose massive cumulonimbus clouds. I took the hint, packed everything up tight in my pack with rain gear at the ready. When the storm finally touched down, I could feel static in the air as lightning and thunder struck in perfect unison overhead. I kept hiking because I needed to pull a 20-miler in order to reach Daisy Farm at a reasonable hour. Thankfully, I pulled into camp just as the storm passed, and was able to actually catch some afternoon sun for dinner on the shoreline. While sipping some soup on the beach, a beaver swam right in front of me, crawled onto the shore not 20 feet away from me, and hacked down a little poplar tree that fell straight into the lake. After snacking on some leaves, the beaver snipped off a few branches and tugged them across the lake to fortify the dam around the bend. Nature’s wildlife channel didn’t stop there as a fox sauntered right into camp as I was brushing my teeth. I later learned from Park Rangers that wolves and foxes are getting far too comfortable with humans, walking right up to people with a “more food please” sign strung around their neck. Once the fox realized that I wasn’t a vending machine, he hopped right back into the woods where he pounced on a mouse, chomping it down in a few quick bites. It was immediate proof that foxes will do just fine in these parts without human hand-outs. No more rain tonight, but plenty of mosquitoes holed-up in between the rain fly and mosquito netting. They stopped swarming as soon as the temperature ducked below 50 degrees.
Earlier today, Sherri & Nicole hiked from Daisy Farm up Mount Ojibway, and then followed the Greenstone Ridge Trail out to Lane Cove where they spotted another wolf in the woods just off the trail.
6/14/24
I slept in this morning since I only needed to put in a 7-miler today back to Rock Harbor where I would meet back up with Sherri & Nicole. This section of the Rock Harbor Trail is absolutely gorgeous, following the shoreline of Lake Superior with a cool breeze pushing the mosquitos away. When I arrived at camp, Nicole spotted me from a shelter tucked away up on the hillside that they had snatched earlier that day. The ladies had already washed clothes and scoped-out a secluded cove along the shoreline where we enjoyed some celebratory beers together. After exchanging highlight stories and close-calls on our island adventure, we stopped-in at the lodge for fish & pulled pork sandwiches.
6/15/24
Waking-up to a gorgeous sunrise from our shelter felt like Isle Royale’s final bow as the curtain closed on our backpacking adventure. However, Sherri & Nicole had yet to catch sight of a moose. Wouldn’t you know, walking back from the restroom that morning, a moose walked right through camp. A few other campers joined the audience until Sherri’s phone alarm went off, garnering a few judgmental looks as the lumbering beast headed back into the forest.
