TR: 5/31-6/5 2013 [Hiking] Moskey-Ritchie-Cbone-Lane UPDATED

[Wilderness Junkie]

Woo Hoo! Done with work and heading to Copper Harbor tomorrow at 7am.

Here is our itinerary, but the first day may change based on the last minute weather forecast and conditions. Might just grab a shelter at Moskey if we are setting out in T-storms.....

Arrival Date: May 31
Departure Date: June 5 (provided the Queen maintains the special Wednesday shipping date)
Coming From/Via: Copper Harbor
Itinerary:
Day 1: Arrive via the Queen and take the water taxi to Moskey Basin. Hike to Lake Ritchie for the first night.
Day 2: Wake up, fish Ritchie for a bit and then head to W. Chickenbone, set up camp and do some fishing.
Day 3: Get up early and hike with minimal gear to Hatchet Lake then on to Todd Harbor. Spend the night at Todd (if I can get a shelter) or head to McCargoe (where i will spend the night or head back to WC)
Day 4: Head back to W. Chickenbone and do some fishing / relaxing
Day 5: Spend the day working my way towards Lane Cove for night 5
Day 6: Get up and hike from Lane Cove to catch the boat back.

I will update the report with our actual itinerary and adventures!

[NancyT]

Have a safe, enjoyable trip. Looking forward to your trip report when you get back.

[Tom]

Indeed, good luck - And don't forget, at Todd Harbor, it's "if you can get THE shelter." Never have I hiked faster than when caught in a good rain squall, hoping to be the first party to get the dry shelter!
Also, this time of year, I wouldn't hesitate to stay at Moskey (it probably will be quiet) and hike the extra two miles the next day. Ritchie isn't the best campsite during a storm. A little exposed.

[Wilderness Junkie]

I don't know why I always procrastinate posting my trip reports, but here goes.....

May 30th. I met my buddy at the Chrysler dealer in Clarkston, MI since he needed repairs done and he wouldn't need his care for the week ahead. We got on the road about 7:30am and headed north. Before we knew it we were across The Big Mac and headed West through the UP. We stopped around 12ish for a beer and pasty at a local diner, then continued the journey.
Since it was still early and we were ahead of schedule, we decided to get out and stretch our legs and check out Craig lake State Park which is on my 'near future list'. It’s a ~7 mile drive off the highway which is ½ graded gravel road and ½ rocky two track. We arrived and successfully completed the ½ walk to the lake from the parking area to the lake. I was very impressed and it’s now on my ‘next to do’ list…..
We got back in the car and continued our journey stopping in Houghton for dinner at one of the local breweries and completed the drive to Copper Harbor. After settling into our room at the North Point motel, we took a stroll down to the dock and since the weather was getting a bit ominous, we headed over to Zik’s for a couple pops. The place was pretty much empty except for one local fella, but before long a few more people straggled in including Captain Don and what we have now coined “The Swiss Miss Girls” from the local restaurant. As usual in quaint, UP towns, the conversation was very enjoyable and before we knew it, it was after 11PM and we decided we should hit the sack.

May 31st. I woke to what I thought was my buddy coughing, but found it he was slightly worse for wear after someone dumped too much beer down his throat the night before. He’s in for a fun morning…..we headed over and got a nice big breakfast……well, I had breakfast…..and then we jumped on the boat and headed out.
The crossing was uneventful, but there was a very thick fog on the East end and Captain Don was concerned that we might not be able to take the short cut into the Harbor and that would extend the trip another 20 minutes. After 3 ½ hours on the boat, that’s not something anyone wants to hear….Anyhow, we made it through without a hitch and as soon as we entered the harbor, the fog partially cleared.


We exited the boat, listened to our Ranger presentation and headed over to the water taxi dock.
We arrived via water taxi at Moskey Basin in the bright sunshine and clear sky, snapped a few pictures, ate a quick cold lunch of GORP and a protein bar and headed out to lake Ritchie.





The hike was very uneventful but we did note lots of standing water.
There was also a significant amount of wolf scat on the trail in this area.
After arriving at Lake Ritchie and selecting a camp site (can’t remember which one, but it was the closest to the lake in a large opening), I anxiously headed down to do some fishing. One thing I noticed was the lack of any vegetation emerging from the water. On previous trips the reeds were already 6-12” out of the water. You could see them underwater, but they were only a couple inches long. This didn’t bode well for fishing success. I don’t usually fish this soon after ice out, so only time would tell. Turns out the fishing at Ritchie was the best we had all week. I managed to catch several pike on my lucky 5 of diamonds and we selected one to eat for dinner.
After clean up I headed back out for more fishing and was alerted by some strange splashing sounds coming down the shore. Turns out it was a couple otters. They were hanging around and soon realized they had swam down and retrieved the pike carcass from our lunch. We were treated to 15 minutes of watching them chomp down the remains only about 20 feet away from us. This was the best / closest encounter I’ve ever had with an otter. Pretty cool…..



Towards evening time the clouds started looking nasty and before long we knew we were in for some storm activity. Sure enough several waves of storms came through.







In a way I’m kinda glad as I had a new tent and I always like to get a high wind, nasty thunderstorm test out of the way. It passed with flying colors.
As there was no hope for the weather to clear out before dark (which was after 11PM), we turned in early. I was also anxious to test my new sleeping pad and bag, so this was not a disappointment. The temps dipped down pretty low (upper 30s) and my equipment passed the test. Last year I would have froze. My buddy bought some new gear for this trip, but decided against upgrading his cheapo sleeping bag – boy, did he pay the price. He went to bed every night with everything piece of clothing he brought, but he was still cold. Lesson learned.

June 1st – We woke to a misty, gray, windy cold day. Exactly what you hope for when backpacking . Oatmeal was the breakfast choice of the day, so we ate up and did a little fishing. After a bit the mist stopped and the tents managed to get reasonably dry, so we decided to head out a bit earlier than planned and make the hike to Chickenbone.
The hike was pleasant although my buddy had to stop and make several adjustments to his pack.

We arrived at West Chickenbone around 3PM and again had the whole place to ourselves.

We set up camp and I headed out for a little fishing. I did catch 2 pike, but I was really hoping for some walleye fishing.
Around 7PM a couple came in from McCargoe Cove via canoe / portage so we talked for a few minutes while they set up camp.
I know shore fishing for walleye really doesn’t get decent until dusk, so I was patiently waiting. Around 9PM I decided to switch tactics, but I did not manage to catch any walleye. Turned out that I was not able to catch a single walleye, which was a bit disappointing, but due to the extremely late thaw, not uber surprising.
The weather shaped up a bit, but it was still dark and gloomy. We ate dinner and turned in since there was no point in trying to stay up and see the stars…..

June 2nd – We woke to an overcast sky, but there were significant breaks, so it was looking promising. Around 9am the clouds cleared out and the blue sky came through. It was still very cool (dropped into the upper 30s that night) and breezy, but I will take that over the gloom any day.
Today we decided to deviate a bit from our planned agenda and do a day hike to McCargoe Cove and the Minong Mines instead of hiking Hatchet to Todd. My buddies pack was really giving him grief and he was not up for 2 long days of hiking. This appealed to me also.
We set out after breakfast with gear for cooking lunch and fishing. The hike to McCargoe was very pleasant (having a 10lb pack sure made it nice) and we arrived late morning. Several logs jams and fast water along the creek / river made for some very pleasant background music.


Shortly after arriving at the McCargoe dock, we were greeted by Zims group heading out. We chatted for a bit and talked about the days previous events before they headed out down the trail.

As usual, first order of business is some fishing. After several casts / snags off the dock, and several ‘follows’ by small pike, I decided to walk around the shoreline to do some casting. On my first cast into the shallow, rocky bay just East of the dock, a dandy pike hammered my spoon. Ended up somewhere between 34-36” – our largest of the trip, and LUNCH!


As I was carrying the fishing up from the shore, we noticed a Mom / Daughter team headed down from a shelter to check it out. We chatted for a bit and offered to share the pike. My buddy brought some torillas, so we turned that fish into Cajun pike tacos. My goodness I don’t think it gets any better than that! Needless to say, we ate every bit of that fish!
After cleaning up our lunch mess and hanging out in the sunshine, we decided to head over to the mines. We left our packs in a shelter and headed out.
Not long after getting on the trail, we bumped into the Mother / Daughter team on the trail with hand signals indicating moose in the area. Our first moose sighting of the trip!! This was something my buddy really wanted to experience since he’s never seen a moose close up and wanted to experience the size. It ended up being a very large bull round 40-50 yards off the trail in some thick stuff. We snapped some pictures and continued on.


Since we were ‘sans packs’, we jumped in from the other hikers and headed up the trail. We did see another moose (cow) a little further down the trail and arrived at the mines.


I was expecting a similar ‘hole’ in the ground, but was pleasantly surprised that there was significantly more to these mines and I would HIGHLY recommend that anyone passing through stops here. Very, very cool. We crawled down into the mine (the second one) and did some general exploring.




We ended out on the tailings piles. The Mother / Daughter (dang, I wish I was better at remember names) ended up showing up so we chatted as we all rock picked for what seemed like hours. My buddy found a solid 2-3lb chunk of pure copper. Amazing how dense a chunk that size is!

After thoroughly exploring the area, we headed back to McCaroge. On the way back we saw another small bull moose.
We gathered our gear from the shelter and hiked back to Chickenbone via the trail around the East end of the lake.
We arrived back to camp and prepared dinner. The weather was clouding back up and it was rather chilly.

We decided that this would be a good night to reduce the weight in our packs by putting a significant dent in our flasks.
After polishing off our ‘liquid refreshment’ and a cigar, lights out came easy…..

June 3rd – According to our original itinerary, we were supposed to be at Chickenbone again tonight, but since we had already explored the area and the walleye fishing stunk, we decided to relocate to Daisy Farm for the day / night.
We ate breakfast, packed up and headed out.
We arrived at Daisy and picked the cabin closest to the Ranger station and spent the afternoon exploring the camp area. We spent quite a while looking through rocks over by the small creek and I spent several hours casting from the dock for some type of salmonoid. The Ranger showed up (it was his off day) with his groceries and we chatted for a bit. He mentioned that the lake trout were just starting to move in from the deep water (he was out fishing earlier in the day), so my chances were not so good. Oh well. There is something about fishing even if there is not much chance of catching fish that’s relaxing.
A short time later Rolf and Candy paddled over (they were waiting for someone to arrive), we chatted for a bit and they headed back across the harbor.
There were several groups milling around the area so we spent the evening chatting with several of them and headed off to bed.

June 4th – I don’t understand how sleeping on rock is more comfortable than wood planking, but I always sleep better in my tent out at one of the sites rather than in a shelter……We woke up, ate breakfast, packed up our gear and got an early start out toward Lane Cove, our next destination. We climbed back up onto the Greenstone and took our first break at the Mt. Ojibway firetower.





We spent a bit exploring the area and shortly after leaving had an awesome moose encounter. There were 3 bulls feeding just off the trail. After their initial reaction to move off the path into the woods, they emerged and began feeding in our direction. The largest of them ended up a mere 30 yards away (and 100 pictures later) before we backed away and continued on our trail. My buddy was elated as this was a significantly better encounter than he had ever anticipated (that’s his side in the picture).







The weather was great (low 50s) with partly clouding skies and a slight breeze on the ridge.
We arrived at Mt. Franklin, took a short break and headed down the trail to Lane Cove.



As we were descending and descending and descending and descending down the steep, rocky slopes, we were both silently (and later vocally) thinking that this was going to be a real fun way to start the day tomorrow heading back to RH. The coolest part about this area is that it is like no other part of the island that I’ve been on. The landscape and flora is completely different. It reminded me of a haunted, mythical forest.


We arrived and picked a spot to set up camp – again we had the place to ourselves.





We ate lunch and I headed out to do some fishing. This area is not very conducive to fishing since the water is shallow and you need to walk out quite a long way in bitter cold water to get your lure deep enough. It didn’t take long before I put the fishing pole down and decided to sit down on a log and do some rock picking. Each part of the island seems to have it’s own unique rocks.
We spent the afternoon on the shore in the bright sunshine just relaxing.
One thing we noticed was that there was very little wildlife in this area. Other than an occasional call from a loon or merganser, the area seemed devoid of life.
Around dusk, the breeze completely died and we found ourselves immersed in complete and utter silence. I mean nothing. Not a bird, breeze, wave – nothing. It was very eerie. My buddy was going nuts cuz he said all he could hear was a buzzing in his ears. What a cool, yet unsettling experience.


We hit the sack around 9:30 and I spent a while reading since I couldn’t fall asleep.

June 5th – we woke up around 5:30am (as planned), ate a quick breakfast and packed up camp. We were both anxious to get up and get that climb back up the Greenstone out of the way. I do have to say that while I would recommend that everyone visit Lane Cove, I don’t think I will go back – at least not for a long time. I’m not sure what it is was, but I just didn’t ‘feel it’ there….
As usual, anticipation is always the worst part. We cranked up the trail and made it back on top in no time. I wanted to take the Duncan Bay trail since I have not been down that section before. It’s a very pleasant and easy walk back to ‘civilization’.
We arrived back at Rock Harbor, stopped into the Ranger station to revise our itinerary for the record and strolled around town for a bit bumping into the Mother / Daughter team and exchanging trip events.
Around 12PM we headed over to the Café and had the traditional burger and a few beers and went back to wait for the Queen to depart.

Trip bullet points:
- All in all it was an awesome trip. The weather was great for hiking, but a little cooler than I would prefer for hanging out in the mornings and evenings.
-We only encountered about 5 bugs, literally. I got blasted on my neck within 10 minutes of arriving and only swatted a couple mosquitos up on the ridge.
- The fishing was ok, but not great.
- My next trip will be in the late summer or early fall
- All the trails that we travelled were 100% clear from blowdowns. Hats off to the clean up crews!!

Equipment bullet points:
- My pack weighted 32 lbs at the end of the trip (still had my garbage in the pack and 1 full water bottle, but the food was gone). My buddies was over 40 lbs (poor fella). I estimate my pack was around 40 ish when I started (over 6 lbs of that weight is in fishing gear / supplies). I could barely feel my pack the entire trip and only noticed it when I took it off at the end of a hike. Lightweight is the key.
- I also purchased a quality down bag. Made all the difference in the world. My buddy had a synthetic down back that was ‘supposed’ to be rated to 38 deg. He was miserable every night.
- I also picked up an inflatable sleeping pad and that also made sleeping 1 billion percent better than last year.

Well, that’s about it. I think my next trip will be in my solo canoe in the 5 fingers area. I have not been through there yet and can knock off several ‘paddle only’ camp sites. I may do the inland lake loop again though with a 2 day hike along the Greenstone. Not sure yet.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. It’s tough to document all the details reports as they would end up longer than they already are…..

Thanks for reading!!!

John

[MikeT]

Thanks for the report John!
Sounds like things continue to be delayed on the island. Maybe an advantage fishing at Richie so you did not have to deal with snags as much. Same with Chickenbone I imagine. I agree on the Minong Mine site. It is well worth seeing and contemplating what the life was like then. Tough! Lane Cove is an interesting campground. Different than all others on the big lake as it is so protected from the lake and can be surprisingly calm. I think the "buzz" you hear there is the earth breathing. In my experience, the only other sites that have been as quiet are Desor North and Chickenbone West.

I HIGHLY recommend the Five Finger area.
1) Duncan Narrows is nice, but usually busy, I'd choose Duncan Bay over it or, hit both.
1) Belle Isle and Crystal Cove are a must see. It can be a bit busy at Belle Isle, but it is big enough and Crystal Cove is a jewel historically.
2) Pickerel Cove is possibly the best "wilderness" campground on the island. Very small, with great views and peaceful.
3) Birch island is not spectacular, but you cannot beat it for location right at the mouth of McCargoe.

[zims]

Hey Zim here, was great reading your trip report. We must have been just before or after the moose. WOW is all I can say.!