Who am I kidding? My TP will consist of a half dozen pictures and about 300 words. 200 if you take out all instances or "cool" "awesome" "neat" and "too short".
TR: 5/29 - 6/2 [Rock & Tobin Harbor, Moskey Basin, Daisy]
Moderator: Tom
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hooky
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- Location: Central Indiana
TR: 5/29 - 6/2 [Rock & Tobin Harbor, Moskey Basin, Daisy]
This is my placeholder. We leave tomorrow at oh dark hundred to make the 14 hour drive to Houghton. Just trying to meet the new expectation that Rafiki has set for trip reports.
Who am I kidding? My TP will consist of a half dozen pictures and about 300 words. 200 if you take out all instances or "cool" "awesome" "neat" and "too short".
Who am I kidding? My TP will consist of a half dozen pictures and about 300 words. 200 if you take out all instances or "cool" "awesome" "neat" and "too short".
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fonixmunkee
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Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
Sometimes short and sweet TRs are good, to.
Enjoy your trip! Look forward to the TR.
Sent from my GT-P7310
Enjoy your trip! Look forward to the TR.
Sent from my GT-P7310
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Rafiki
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Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
Ha Ha Ha Hooky. I actually just got finished writing you an email because I knew you were due to leave in the next coming days. As far as my trip report is concerned, honestly, I think I made it way too long. I wrote as much information in a single day of my report as a person would write in their whole report and sometimes some of my days were way longer than any of the reports I have read. I was so eager to share my experience in its entirety that I kind of got carried away and shared much more than I should have and I think many stopped reading it because of that. It would have been better if I submitted everything at once instead of in parts, because I know it probably was a drag waiting for me to post my pictures and videos.
Anyways, enough about me and my lengthy report. I look forward to your report, no matter what the length and wish you a wonderful time on the island. Stay safe and have a great time.
Anyways, enough about me and my lengthy report. I look forward to your report, no matter what the length and wish you a wonderful time on the island. Stay safe and have a great time.
343.1 Miles Hiked: 2004 (3 Days), 2010 (11 Days), 2011 (13 Days), 2012 X 2 (8 + 12 Days), 2013 (9 Days/Paddling), 2019 (30 Days/Paddling)
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hooky
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- Location: Central Indiana
Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
Here it is, with apologies ahead of time for the ramble and grammar. It's also kind of heavy on the pictures.
DAY 1
We made the drive up to Houghton on Memorial Day and arrived around 6 pm to check in at the Super 8. We had dinner at the Library, then walked around downtown and along the water. We finally decided to head to the hotel and get showered, knowing it would be hard to sleep that night.
The forecast called for 2-4 foot waves Tuesday, but i don't think they got much above 3 feet. After a late start, the Ranger would have a little rocking, but it was a pleasant ride out. Dollar Bay High School's SOAR club gave everyone on board a presentation about the submersibles they were making for the park service to remotely inspect zebra mussels on the docks and hulls of the boats. Very nice hour of information by some good kids.
After dropping NPS employees (including the Park Super) and freight at Mott, we realized that there were only about 7 actual hikers going in. It was about 25 minutes past 3 when we docked and almost 4:00 by the time we got packs squared away and headed out. The plan was to go to Lane and set up the tent. Clouds threatened overhead and we were soon walking in persistent rain. This is where my rush to get going caused us problems. We hadn't taken the time make sure rain gear and pack covers were readily accessible. Squared away at the dock had equated to make sure water bottles were on biners and our boots were laced up tight. Standing in the rain on Tobin HT for about 10 minutes, getting ourselves actually squared away made us wet and frustrated.
We walked almost the entire length of Tobin in the rain. My son was grumbling about being wet already and I was quietly dreading the fact that we may be setting up in the rain with no way to dry things out in the tent. The rain finally let up and then stopped when we hit the junction with Mt. Franklin. At this point I realized that this could quickly turn into something that my son wouldn't enjoy.
Since the whole idea of the trip was to spend his birthday together having fun, I decided to offer up an option. We could push onto Lane or head south to 3 Mile. Since there were so few hikers and we knew that 2 of them were trying to make Chickenbone that night and a third was going to Lane ahead of us, I felt pretty good about getting a shelter there. A shelter would let us regroup, dry out and get things back on track. To my son's credit he did list out pros and cons of each and logically come to the conclusion that 3M was probably the best bet.
We turn left and headed south to 3M. We scored the shelter behind the 2 waterfront tent pads, got out of our damp clothes and started preparing for the evening. I was disappointed that we weren't going to Lane, but in hindsight, it was the best decision we could have made. I took no pictures on the trail today.
DAY 2
It was overcast and COLD as we awoke. We purposely hadn't talked about today's destination when we settled in the night before. As we ate breakfast, I threw out some options and it was decided we would spend the night at Moskey after all. We knew this would mean backtracking most of the RH trail, but we were in good spirits.
As we left 3M, the skies slowly began to clear. By the time we hit Daisy around noon, the skies were blue and they would stay that way the rest or our trip. We couldn't have asked for better weather over the next 3 days.
We hung out on the dock, ate some lunch and soaked up the sun. After getting out of our rain jackets and fleece, we took off for Moskey.
Between the locations of those 2 pictures, I took a couple of more.
This was our first moose sighting of many for the trip. She looked a little ragged. Her coat was mottled and looked to be mangy. I couldn't pull the camera out in time to get a picture of her out in the open.
The walk to Moskey was the first time we were really challenged with heat. What a difference your location relative to the water made. Lesson learned and applied for the rest of the trip. We made a few stops to take pictures and drink plenty of water.
We got to Moskey around 3 and there were only a few open shelters. As a kayaker, it was hard for me to hold a grudge, but the fact that people had paddled in and soaked up all the shelters pushed me closer to holding one as we stood there sweating with our packs on.
We ended up in shelter 7 and again, it turned out to be a great situation with this view from the steps.
After getting the shelter set up, we walked onto the rocks that sloped down to the water and enjoyed the rest of the day.
DAY 3
Beautiful clear day again. We had decided the previous night that we would head to Daisy, stash packs in an open shelter and then take Ojibway to the fire tower before returning to spend the night.
The hike to Daisy was uneventful. I had led most of the hike the day before because my son wasn't comfortable with all the rock that the trail traversed. He had made a couple of wrong turns and decided he was going to get us hopelessly lost. I had made sure I was explaining how I was keeping the trail and today he was confident and led the entire way out. Strange the things that a dad can find to be proud of, but that was one of them.
We got to Daisy, grabbed a shelter to dump packs and headed back to the OT trailhead. The pace was pretty brisk as Ben took off. The scenery was great and this was probably my favorite hike of the trip.
While talking about the size of that clump, we almost walked into 2 more moose on the trail. We backed off and they meandered off the trail and began to browse.
It turned out to be about 15 minute break. We finally got underway again, made the firetower and climbed up to take pictures.
We met our new friend Paul for the first time here. A retired naval doctor, Paul provided us with several interesting conversations over the next couple of days.
When we got back to Daisy, my son was delighted to find what he called tiger butterflies. I'm not knowledgeable on butterflies, so I'll take him at his word. We had seen singles throughout today's hike, but what we saw capped his day.
We spent the rest of the day knocking around Daisy and ran into Paul again. We also met Alfred who was from a town within 30 miles of where I grew up. Alfred was going from Windigo to RH and back to Windigo. We would run into Alfred again.
Around 7, Paul decided it was time to head to 3M. He was headed to Copper Harbor the next day. We all said our goodbye's and then it was just Alfred and us at Daisy.
DAY 4
Today would see us head to RH on the trail. I realized that I had yet to take any sunrise pictures, so I did what I could this morning and kicked myself for not taking any at Moskey.
The ducks in the second pic caught my attention as they swam across my field of view back towards the dock. As luck would have it again, my choice to take pictures this morning after missing chances the day before led me to a pleasant suprise. As I watched the ducks make there way to the dock, movement caught my eye. First one, the a second moose came into view.
I watched them and took a few pictures. Soon they made there way back up the slope and out of view. Curiousity got the best of of me and I walked back to the footbridge and was rewarded with these shots.
Busted, I slowly backed up and slipped behind some brush to break up my outline. I watched for a little longer and then turned to go wake up my son. When I got back to the shelter, he was already up and had begun breaking down camp. I told him what had happened and showed him the pictures. We fixed breakfast, ate and put our packs back together. As we were doing a quick once over to make sure we'd left nothing inside, he whispered - "Moose on the trail".
Sure enough, here they came down the trail.
One of those will probably end up framed on his bedroom wall. We hung out for a while and then walked down to check out the trail. Still not clear, but they saw me step out into the trail and moved up the trail and I lost site of them.
After another 15 minutes, Alfred passed by and we told him what had happened. His shelter wasn't far from where I had taken pictures from the footbridge. he had watched them a long time that morning too. Alfred took off down the trail after our short conversation. We ran into him again about 3/4 of the way between Daisy and the mines. He hadn't ran across the moose after leaving our camp.
The walk to RH was uneventful for us. We took a bunch of pictures along the way and just enjoyed the day. Way made RH around 1:00, grabbed lucky 13 and started poking around RH.
We ran into Paul and showed him our pictures and shared the story. He had ran into Alfred earlier and knew we had seen more moose. Poor Paul didn't see a moose the entire time. That just showed us how lucky we had been. I related that I had been to Yosemite and never saw bears. It wasn't until last year with my son that I saw my first bear, and then we saw 4. Paul decided my son was the good luck charm and the nickname "Magnet" was coined.
We watched the boat leave for Copper Harbor as the Ranger made it's way up the harbor. After the ranger docked, we decided to go do Scoville point. Much to my chagrin and embarrassment, I managed to not get a single decent pic at the point. for some reason, nothing got saved to the card or I accidentally deleted them somehow when I transferred to the PC. We did get a few on the way to the point though.
After a hot shower, a hot meal and a warm good night's sleep, only interrupted by the howl of wolves, we were on the Ranger headed home. We had a wonderful time and I've decided that I'd like to go back in the September/early October timeframe and do a canoe trip on the inland lakes. Maybe Moskey to Ritchie and finish up at Chippewa. Duncan bay as a base camp also has some appeal though. Now it's just a matter of figuring out if it happens this fall or next.
You can find the above pictures and a few more here: http://s1097.photobucket.com/albums/g34 ... le%202012/
If you're reading this, thanks for hanging in their until the end.
DAY 1
We made the drive up to Houghton on Memorial Day and arrived around 6 pm to check in at the Super 8. We had dinner at the Library, then walked around downtown and along the water. We finally decided to head to the hotel and get showered, knowing it would be hard to sleep that night.
The forecast called for 2-4 foot waves Tuesday, but i don't think they got much above 3 feet. After a late start, the Ranger would have a little rocking, but it was a pleasant ride out. Dollar Bay High School's SOAR club gave everyone on board a presentation about the submersibles they were making for the park service to remotely inspect zebra mussels on the docks and hulls of the boats. Very nice hour of information by some good kids.
After dropping NPS employees (including the Park Super) and freight at Mott, we realized that there were only about 7 actual hikers going in. It was about 25 minutes past 3 when we docked and almost 4:00 by the time we got packs squared away and headed out. The plan was to go to Lane and set up the tent. Clouds threatened overhead and we were soon walking in persistent rain. This is where my rush to get going caused us problems. We hadn't taken the time make sure rain gear and pack covers were readily accessible. Squared away at the dock had equated to make sure water bottles were on biners and our boots were laced up tight. Standing in the rain on Tobin HT for about 10 minutes, getting ourselves actually squared away made us wet and frustrated.
We walked almost the entire length of Tobin in the rain. My son was grumbling about being wet already and I was quietly dreading the fact that we may be setting up in the rain with no way to dry things out in the tent. The rain finally let up and then stopped when we hit the junction with Mt. Franklin. At this point I realized that this could quickly turn into something that my son wouldn't enjoy.
Since the whole idea of the trip was to spend his birthday together having fun, I decided to offer up an option. We could push onto Lane or head south to 3 Mile. Since there were so few hikers and we knew that 2 of them were trying to make Chickenbone that night and a third was going to Lane ahead of us, I felt pretty good about getting a shelter there. A shelter would let us regroup, dry out and get things back on track. To my son's credit he did list out pros and cons of each and logically come to the conclusion that 3M was probably the best bet.
We turn left and headed south to 3M. We scored the shelter behind the 2 waterfront tent pads, got out of our damp clothes and started preparing for the evening. I was disappointed that we weren't going to Lane, but in hindsight, it was the best decision we could have made. I took no pictures on the trail today.
DAY 2
It was overcast and COLD as we awoke. We purposely hadn't talked about today's destination when we settled in the night before. As we ate breakfast, I threw out some options and it was decided we would spend the night at Moskey after all. We knew this would mean backtracking most of the RH trail, but we were in good spirits.
As we left 3M, the skies slowly began to clear. By the time we hit Daisy around noon, the skies were blue and they would stay that way the rest or our trip. We couldn't have asked for better weather over the next 3 days.
We hung out on the dock, ate some lunch and soaked up the sun. After getting out of our rain jackets and fleece, we took off for Moskey.
Between the locations of those 2 pictures, I took a couple of more.
This was our first moose sighting of many for the trip. She looked a little ragged. Her coat was mottled and looked to be mangy. I couldn't pull the camera out in time to get a picture of her out in the open.
The walk to Moskey was the first time we were really challenged with heat. What a difference your location relative to the water made. Lesson learned and applied for the rest of the trip. We made a few stops to take pictures and drink plenty of water.
We got to Moskey around 3 and there were only a few open shelters. As a kayaker, it was hard for me to hold a grudge, but the fact that people had paddled in and soaked up all the shelters pushed me closer to holding one as we stood there sweating with our packs on.
We ended up in shelter 7 and again, it turned out to be a great situation with this view from the steps.
After getting the shelter set up, we walked onto the rocks that sloped down to the water and enjoyed the rest of the day.
DAY 3
Beautiful clear day again. We had decided the previous night that we would head to Daisy, stash packs in an open shelter and then take Ojibway to the fire tower before returning to spend the night.
The hike to Daisy was uneventful. I had led most of the hike the day before because my son wasn't comfortable with all the rock that the trail traversed. He had made a couple of wrong turns and decided he was going to get us hopelessly lost. I had made sure I was explaining how I was keeping the trail and today he was confident and led the entire way out. Strange the things that a dad can find to be proud of, but that was one of them.
We got to Daisy, grabbed a shelter to dump packs and headed back to the OT trailhead. The pace was pretty brisk as Ben took off. The scenery was great and this was probably my favorite hike of the trip.
While talking about the size of that clump, we almost walked into 2 more moose on the trail. We backed off and they meandered off the trail and began to browse.
It turned out to be about 15 minute break. We finally got underway again, made the firetower and climbed up to take pictures.
We met our new friend Paul for the first time here. A retired naval doctor, Paul provided us with several interesting conversations over the next couple of days.
When we got back to Daisy, my son was delighted to find what he called tiger butterflies. I'm not knowledgeable on butterflies, so I'll take him at his word. We had seen singles throughout today's hike, but what we saw capped his day.
We spent the rest of the day knocking around Daisy and ran into Paul again. We also met Alfred who was from a town within 30 miles of where I grew up. Alfred was going from Windigo to RH and back to Windigo. We would run into Alfred again.
Around 7, Paul decided it was time to head to 3M. He was headed to Copper Harbor the next day. We all said our goodbye's and then it was just Alfred and us at Daisy.
DAY 4
Today would see us head to RH on the trail. I realized that I had yet to take any sunrise pictures, so I did what I could this morning and kicked myself for not taking any at Moskey.
The ducks in the second pic caught my attention as they swam across my field of view back towards the dock. As luck would have it again, my choice to take pictures this morning after missing chances the day before led me to a pleasant suprise. As I watched the ducks make there way to the dock, movement caught my eye. First one, the a second moose came into view.
I watched them and took a few pictures. Soon they made there way back up the slope and out of view. Curiousity got the best of of me and I walked back to the footbridge and was rewarded with these shots.
Busted, I slowly backed up and slipped behind some brush to break up my outline. I watched for a little longer and then turned to go wake up my son. When I got back to the shelter, he was already up and had begun breaking down camp. I told him what had happened and showed him the pictures. We fixed breakfast, ate and put our packs back together. As we were doing a quick once over to make sure we'd left nothing inside, he whispered - "Moose on the trail".
Sure enough, here they came down the trail.
One of those will probably end up framed on his bedroom wall. We hung out for a while and then walked down to check out the trail. Still not clear, but they saw me step out into the trail and moved up the trail and I lost site of them.
After another 15 minutes, Alfred passed by and we told him what had happened. His shelter wasn't far from where I had taken pictures from the footbridge. he had watched them a long time that morning too. Alfred took off down the trail after our short conversation. We ran into him again about 3/4 of the way between Daisy and the mines. He hadn't ran across the moose after leaving our camp.
The walk to RH was uneventful for us. We took a bunch of pictures along the way and just enjoyed the day. Way made RH around 1:00, grabbed lucky 13 and started poking around RH.
We ran into Paul and showed him our pictures and shared the story. He had ran into Alfred earlier and knew we had seen more moose. Poor Paul didn't see a moose the entire time. That just showed us how lucky we had been. I related that I had been to Yosemite and never saw bears. It wasn't until last year with my son that I saw my first bear, and then we saw 4. Paul decided my son was the good luck charm and the nickname "Magnet" was coined.
We watched the boat leave for Copper Harbor as the Ranger made it's way up the harbor. After the ranger docked, we decided to go do Scoville point. Much to my chagrin and embarrassment, I managed to not get a single decent pic at the point. for some reason, nothing got saved to the card or I accidentally deleted them somehow when I transferred to the PC. We did get a few on the way to the point though.
After a hot shower, a hot meal and a warm good night's sleep, only interrupted by the howl of wolves, we were on the Ranger headed home. We had a wonderful time and I've decided that I'd like to go back in the September/early October timeframe and do a canoe trip on the inland lakes. Maybe Moskey to Ritchie and finish up at Chippewa. Duncan bay as a base camp also has some appeal though. Now it's just a matter of figuring out if it happens this fall or next.
You can find the above pictures and a few more here: http://s1097.photobucket.com/albums/g34 ... le%202012/
If you're reading this, thanks for hanging in their until the end.
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Rafiki
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Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
HOOOOOOKKKKYYYYY =)
Glad to have you back brother and even more glad Ben (Magnet) and you enjoyed your trip. For starters, your trip report blows mine out of the water. I loved it. Nice and short, but not too short...with plenty of pictures. I am going to take after you on my next report.
5 moose!!! Lucky! I know many people that do not see any moose at all on their entire trip. Take for instance my last trip in September of 2011. My girlfriend and I hiked from Rock Harbor along the Minong to Windigo back on the Greenstone to return to Rock Harbor. About 110 miles and NOT ONE MOOSE!!! I saw 3 on this past May trip. But man oh man, 5, you lucky SOB =) Not only did you see them, but you actually had the opportunity to observe them rather than having them just running past you.
The thing I enjoyed hearing most about your trip was the quality time you got to spend with your son. Seriously, that warmed my heart. I do not have any kids of my own yet, and I don't know if I ever will be blessed with any given certain life circumstances, but it put a smile on my face to hear you taking charge there for a little bit between Moskey and Daisy when your son thought he might lead you astray.
Anyways, glad you both had a great time and that you were able to get a photo album full of wonderful memories. My girlfriend and I are going together in Mid-September of this year, so if you decide to return, hopefully Ill have the pleasure of meeting you. Awesome trip report once again!
Glad to have you back brother and even more glad Ben (Magnet) and you enjoyed your trip. For starters, your trip report blows mine out of the water. I loved it. Nice and short, but not too short...with plenty of pictures. I am going to take after you on my next report.
5 moose!!! Lucky! I know many people that do not see any moose at all on their entire trip. Take for instance my last trip in September of 2011. My girlfriend and I hiked from Rock Harbor along the Minong to Windigo back on the Greenstone to return to Rock Harbor. About 110 miles and NOT ONE MOOSE!!! I saw 3 on this past May trip. But man oh man, 5, you lucky SOB =) Not only did you see them, but you actually had the opportunity to observe them rather than having them just running past you.
The thing I enjoyed hearing most about your trip was the quality time you got to spend with your son. Seriously, that warmed my heart. I do not have any kids of my own yet, and I don't know if I ever will be blessed with any given certain life circumstances, but it put a smile on my face to hear you taking charge there for a little bit between Moskey and Daisy when your son thought he might lead you astray.
Anyways, glad you both had a great time and that you were able to get a photo album full of wonderful memories. My girlfriend and I are going together in Mid-September of this year, so if you decide to return, hopefully Ill have the pleasure of meeting you. Awesome trip report once again!
343.1 Miles Hiked: 2004 (3 Days), 2010 (11 Days), 2011 (13 Days), 2012 X 2 (8 + 12 Days), 2013 (9 Days/Paddling), 2019 (30 Days/Paddling)
Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
Thank you Hooky for the wonderful photo expose'!
I'm scheduled to hit the island, with my sisters, the beginning of August.
Good job on the pictures!
Dusty
I'm scheduled to hit the island, with my sisters, the beginning of August.
Good job on the pictures!
Dusty
"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit." NWP
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hooky
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Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
Glad that the report was so well received.
Rafiki, my son hasn't stopped talking about it. It's been a big hit with him so far. I really enjoy the time we get to spend together like that.
Rafiki, my son hasn't stopped talking about it. It's been a big hit with him so far. I really enjoy the time we get to spend together like that.
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jerry
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Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
hooky, Great report and pictures. Makes me want to return again this year.
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fonixmunkee
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Re: Trip Report 5/29 - 6/2
Dude, you got some great pics. Love the sunset with the ducks. And you got to see a lot of moose!
Also, I updated your thread title to include your trip locations, as per the request for threads in the Trip Reports forum. Feel free to modify it as you wish.
Also, I updated your thread title to include your trip locations, as per the request for threads in the Trip Reports forum. Feel free to modify it as you wish.