Isle Royale Forums

We did a couple 15+ days on a section of the PCT in California, but I hear the Greenstone can be slower going than other trails. Would you suggest any campgrounds along the route if we feel like it's going to be too much? The only other option I could think of was stopping at Hatchet Lake, but that...

I provisionally second the endorsement! I've dayhiked with my (PURPLE) 35L and also used it for the shortest possible backpacking trip on IR. So far so good! I'm slated to walk the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier in September, and I'm hoping to have a more fully informed assessment after that. I...

what a great trip! Thanks for writing it up. This was probably the only time the bugs were an issue the entire trip - otherwise, nothing worse than a normal Minnesota evening as far as I can tell, a "normal MN evening" is way more bugs than those not raised in the upper midwest can take! I also hike...

something to keep in mind (possibly as a reason to come back for a second trip!) is that the GRT gets really awesome E of the first Daisy Farm junction. If you exit there for Moskey, then follow the coast to Rock Harbor, you'll miss the best part of the ridge. One way to have (some of) it all would ...

The critters. Literally every step of the way, you're in danger of seeing something that doesn't frequent suburban shopping malls. Usually they hear you before you hear them, so periodically stop, look, and listen. Especially at bodies of water---a moose that may have been submerged throughout the d...

Now that's redemption! About the concession employees bushwacking on their day off: I took the Ranger over with a quartet of new staff, who had traveled directly from Taiwan to Houghton to start their summer on IR. All of them had giant shiny rolling suitcases. I wondered whether they had any idea w...

I know facebook was incidental to the real point of the opening post, but for what it's worth, I'm also going to start trying to direct a subset of the adults raising questions on the private FB group there to this forum. FB is great for pictures, but this is a better platform for expressing sustain...

Thanks for the great report and the good deeds! (Did you fight over who got to lighten their pack by donating their filter and bladder?) I was also astonished and dismayed by the snake population at McCargoe. Good thing those shelter doors latch.

Awesome! He looks so much like my dog trying to shake Huron River water out of his ears . . . .

Wonderful report---thanks! The best ever beaver dam on the way down to Three Mile, and the painted turtles swarming the shores of Lake RIchie (it didn't occur to me they were nesting!) made a big impression on me too.

The current issue of "National Parks" magazine (Summer, 2018) has a letter to the editor that provides a counterpoint to the article in the previous edition (Spring, 2018) regarding the shrinking moose on Isle Royale. The letter reads: " . . . . examples include pigmy mammoths that lived on Califor...

What's the best route from moskey to mccargoe? What's the best route from mccargoe to daisy? You can't really lose. But here's my vote: Moskey to McCargoe: I don't find the stretch of the GRT between the two chickenbone junctions that inspiring. So I'd go west on the lake ritchie trail, then follow...

Torpified, I was on the Voyageur with you. I think you are the one I told about the school at Chippewa Harbor. I am tall and I was wearing a grey fleece pullover. I believe we met before on your previous trip to Isle Royale when you backpacked the Greenstone. I talked to you at the junction to Sout...

I have gaia on my Iphone ( https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?layer=natgeo ). You can download maps at home to call up in the field, where you'll often have GPS but not an internet connection. The base service is free, but if you're willing to shell out $40 for a premium subscription, you'll get snazzy Na...

I haven't walked the Minong between Windigo and the turnoff to Hatchet Lake. I gather that's the most challenging stretch. East of the Hatchet Lake junction, the Minong undulates, but very rewardingly: most crests reward the hiker with a view. And while it's not a superhighway, once you've got the k...