Don't count on hiking the Pictured Rocks area without calling ahead about conditions. I live just a few miles west of Munising and there is still several feet of snow in the woods.

Always take the warmer sleeping bag to IR.

I have an Icom M-73 VHF and it has worked out well. Securite calls in the fog, especially in Rock Harbor are a great idea. My impression of most power boats is that they operate at full throttle even in the fog. My garmin gps has a barometer which while good, is not too useful on the water as I ...

It depends on how skilled and strong a paddler you are and how much of the island you actually want to see as opposed to just being able to say that you have circumnavigated IR. We don't like to do more than 20 miles or so in a day. We like to explore the coast, not just paddle by it. In our trip ...

If you were happy at Caribou, you will like Belle Isle also. There are no real trails, but you can get around some.
There are no fire rings. Each shelter has a grill like you see in roadside parks. There is a large pavillion that has a big fieldstone fireplace. Really nice. The backside of the ...

I generally sleep in a military goretex bivy sack. I like being able to keep my sleeping back dry and the sack keeps me on the thermarest even if I roll around. I have never had any inside the sack condensation issues with it. We generally go to IR in May also and the sack was good even on our eight ...

As a sea kayaker who lives in the UP and does all of his paddling on Lake Superior, please believe me when I tell you that the kayak that you mention is not suited for IR. A sea kayak is the only suitable boat to use on Lake Superior. It will have two bulkheads in it so there will be flotation ...

Palisades.

All three trips of ours have been in the last full week of May. Snow will not be much of an issue this year. It is more likely to be very cool for temperatures. It can be warm, but, most likely very cool. 30's and 40's. You can very well have mornings in the 20's. Have thermal underwear and forget ...

I was at the Houghton meeting Wednesday. The room was very full. It was plain that complying with wilderness regulation was a large driver of the DEIS. If the wolves decline was not a human induced change (parvovirus), NPS would quite likely not have considered reintroducing them. The preferred ...

Bug season starts to crank up about that time also. Don't underestimate its effect.

Chippewa Harbor.

I can't comment too much on the inland lake part of the itinerary, but it is no problem to go from RH to Moskey Basin. Same for McCargoe to Belle Harbor. pretty easy paddles. Belle Island to RH is about 14 miles. You might want to look up my trip report from this May. We paddled almost 100 miles in ...

I really don't know what got into us as we generally don't do more than 14 miles a day.

Pucker factor was quite high. Key is to stay in deep water and stay out of breaking waves around rocks and shallows. As long as the waves aren't steep & breaking in the deep water, you just go up and down. Kind of alarming, but really fairly safe in a good sea kayak. Blake Point is definitely scary ...