The motivations for the lodge were that my wife came with me and I got out to Passage Island (finally). Weather was great, sunny and 70s every day. Room was literally on the water and listening to the waves lapping on the rocks outside the window each night was wonderful. Hiked Scoville Point and Suzi's cave, paddled to Hidden Lake and Scoville Pt, but didn't have time to hike to Lookout Louise--we were a little lazy packing up and needed to get back for lunch and the boat. Lots of flowers, too early for berries, lots of snowshoe hare around, but didn't see any moose
.Passage Island was great. It's about a 1 mile hike from the dock to the lighthouse. Normally there would be an interpretive ranger, but we were on our own because of the sequestration. The deckhand followed the 8 of us there and back, just to make sure everyone made it OK. Views back to Isle Royale and the Canadian shore were fantastic. The island is higher than I expected and the trail has a decent climb to the top (and rocky). You can't go into the lighthouse, but the boat captain said a volunteer org has plans to clean it up (the lead paint in particular) so it can be opened to the public. Would have loved to spend more time there, but everyone else had already headed back while I was still exploring on the rocks. Definitely worth the trip out if you have the chance--a private boat would be great
.Got up at 1:30 one night and walked over to Tobin Harbor to check for northern lights, but no luck. Apparently there was a solar flare a couple days earlier. Great star gazing though, and a nice night walk (with lots of DEET).
The dining room meals didn't seem as good as I remember, but maybe that's because I wasn't coming off the trail. OK, but nothing you'd spend that kind of money for anywhere else. Burgers and wraps at the grill are pretty good. We brought a bunch of trail snacks which were great for a couple lunches. The lodge says they have free WiFi for guests, and indeed I was able to connect to a router, but apparently the capacity is so poor as to be completely useless. I tried to check email 3 times for 10-20 minutes each, and just gave up--we weren't counting on it in any case.
All in all a great trip, even when I was yearning for the backcountry.
) Might ask to use a room picture and Passage Island picture for the book. I have only seen Passage from the boat and Blake point.
