Some years, the MV Sandy runs an early morning hiker special out to the Hidden Lake dock several days each week. Check the Greenstone as soon as it comes out for the year you’re planning for.

A hike majeur? I think “fait accompli” would also apply, once you’ve done it.

As soon as you arrive at Rock Harbor, go to the lodge office and sign up in in a notebook they keep. Actually, it may be more likely that an excursion is cancelled for lack of people than that it is sold out. The one time I did a tour (Passage Island), it was pretty full.

Isle Royale’s configuration does not really lend itself to my definition of a through-hike. My definition is something along the lines of: start someplace at a well-defined start, eventually end someplace else at a well-defined end, and the hike is long enough so that the hiking itself becomes a lif...

Do you have a packraft? Thinking Raspberry Island, Mott Island, and there is a well-used but maybe unofficial trail on Amygdaloid Island. In setting your own goals, do you have to carry that packraft (+pfd and paddle) the whole trip? Passage Island is a regular excursion of the MV-Sandy. Fun project...

If you have a firm date where you have to be home, make sure you leave an extra day in case of flight delays on the seaplane. Or, you could take the seaplane out to the Rock and then come home on the RangerIII which seems to be the least likely mode of transportation to have a trip delayed significa...

By all means, pre-tape areas you know are trouble spots. You can even paint up the area with tincture of benzoin which acts as a primer and makes the tape stick better and longer. Carry an alcohol wipe or two to clean off the benzoin after you remove the tape....

RE: the waterfall, is this between Feldtmann Lake and Windigo? Or in one of the ridge drop-offs between Feldtmann Lake and Siskiwit Bay? I recall a beautiful shady spot and a creek with a waterfall, in a ravine along the trail to Siskiwit Bay that noone seems to ever mention as a reliable water sour...

Just FYI, you might not have the option to buy a 4-oz canister - last time I was there, they had plenty of supplies but only 8-oz cartridges. Quite a few freebies in a milk crate out front of the store, from people dropping them off before taking the seaplane home. All 8-oz. What you could do is tak...

Can't answer all your questions, but it is simple to pinch or file off the barbs on a set of hooks, and then exchange the hooks on your lures of choice to fish where barbless is required. There is a growing trend in sport fishing to fish barbless anyway - less injury to the fish if catch-and-release...

I have used GMRS radios for hiking (high Sierra) and for canoeing in the Boundary Waters, to communicate mostly when we arrived at a destination lake and split up with different canoes checking out different campsites. They were marginally effective, but they did work well enough for the groups to j...

The "mud baskets" might well be snow baskets for use with snowshoes. I personally find them awkward in the kind of terrain you'll find at Isle Royale. The poles tend to get tangled in the underbrush when they have larger baskets, which slows your travel. My preferred tip for established hi...

Have you decided yet whether you are going solo or with a group of buddies? You can lighten up on your camp kitchen in particular if you can share the water filtration, the cookset, the stove, and some of the first aid items. If it were me, and I was solo, I would bring the whole deck of cards but m...

You have hit on most of the main reasons why cross-country camping is so difficult at Isle Royale. One more reason that you didn't mention is the terrain contours. Because of the underlying geology, IsRo's contours range from ridges to swamps following the backbone of the island, and north slopes ar...

Maybe try for other locations in the NorthWoods that are not as access-limited, where you could enjoy a similar seasonal environment. Superior National Forest, maybe something on the edge of the Boundary Waters. Or Porcupine Mountains in upper Michigan. Or any number of similarly amazing places in C...