TR: July 6-10, 2020 Hiking the Greenstone [RH-LC-McC-SD-WC]

[chippy]

Hello all! I’m not much of a poster or a writer, but since many of you can’t make it to the island this year, I feel it’s my duty to give you an overly detailed account of my recent trip. Bear with me and enjoy 

History: This is my third trip. A friend and I went in August of 2017 and did the Minong Ridge: Windigo-ND-TH-DF-RH (boat to/from Grand Portage). In June of 2018 my husband and I did Feltdmann/Hugginin figure 8: Windigo-SB-FL-HC-Windigo (boat to/from Grand Portage). I have been itching to go back ever since. I have not yet done the Greenstone from end-to-end and wanted to check that off the list. I’m not the most patient person, so I didn’t really enjoy sitting on the boat from Rock Harbor back to Grand Portage back in 2017, so I thought this year would be a good year to try out the seaplane service. Then it turned out that was the only option, so it was meant to be.

Day 1: July 6, 6.9 miles RH-LC
I left my home in northern MN around 7:15 AM and headed towards Grand Marais. Made it there at about noon. There was some construction just south of Grand Marias that slowed me up about 20 minutes. Tried to go to Sven and Ole’s for a slice, but they didn’t open until 3, so had some Dairy Queen instead. Walked around Grand Marais for a while and had some eye opening experiences. I hadn’t left my own county since March 1 and didn’t realize how lax we are about mask-wearing. Every single business in Grand Marais had a sign outside mandating masks and/or a person making sure you had one on at the door and also applying hand sanitizer to you. It was a different world from where I live, but good to see it first hand. Planned to meet my 3 friends at the airport at 2 for our 3PM flight, so left Grand Marais and got up there with plenty of time to spare. We went through our gear and made sure we had everything. At about 2:30 our pilot Billy started yelling at us from across the parking lot- “ANY OF YOU GUYS FEELING SICK? ANY SYMPTOMS? BEEN ANYWHERE? NO? GOOD. LET’S GET OUT OF HERE EARLY, THERE’S A STORM BREWING!” After that we enjoyed Billy’s 30 second safety talk, he stuffed our bags into the plane and by 2:40 we were in the air. I sincerely appreciated his efficiency. Although later on, we did laugh about how he never even asked our names, we never signed anything, he never even asked where we were going. All fine by me  The flight was easy, we landed in Tobin harbor about 3:45. Billy again was awesome- while we were still 20 feet out from the dock, he had the door open and was bellowing at the 2 people sitting on the seaplane dock, “YOU GUYS GOING TO HANCOCK? OK WE’RE GONNA MAKE THIS REALLY QUICK- WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE THIS STORM HITS!” We landed at the dock, Billy threw us and our bags (not really) off the plane, and (seriously this time) he spent a total of less than 2 minutes on the dock unloading us and reloading 2 new folks. Before we had even crested the hill over to the Rock Harbor visitor center we heard him take off behind us. Amazing. Thank you Billy. Anyway, we get over to the visitor center and, unlike any of my prior experiences at IR, it was completely empty and locked up. No one there. They had our fuel labeled with our name outside the door and some instructions for us on the white board. We filled out our own permit, filled up on water, and headed out on the Tobin Harbor trail. Saw one other group of 4 that had just come in from Michigan and one group of 2 that had just finished up their hike. Pretty uneventful hike to Lane Cove- saw one Moose in a beaver pond. Some downed trees, some swamped boardwalks, but totally do-able. In the last few minutes as we hiked into camp, (around 7 pm) it started to sprinkle. We selected site 2 (we were the only people there) and set up our tents first thing, then decided to take a swim. As we were wading into the water, the sky opened up into torrential downpour. It came down so hard and fast that the sandy soil in which we had just staked our tents turned into mushy river in a matter of seconds. One of the tents literally started moving- it was floating away. The other tent collapsed as all its stakes floated up in the sandy soil. Panic mode set in- we spent the next 30 minutes running around in our swimsuits piling every log and boulder on our stakes that we could find. We had to dig a trench through the middle of our camp to act as a river to carry the water away from our tents. It was a mess. After stabilizing our tents, the downpour continued. We stood under some trees for a while shivering. We eventually gave up on cooking dinner. We took turns sprinting to the privy with our dry bags to “dry off” and “put on dry clothes”. The four of us huddled in the bigger of the two tents shivering and sadly eating salami/cheese/tortillas/peanut butter. At about 9:15 it finally started to let up. We put our rain coats on and went out to filter some water (none of us had any left). By about 9:30 the rain had really stopped. We assessed our “water damage”, tried to collect ourselves, and got situated for the night. Boy was that stressful.

Day 2: July 7, 13 miles LC-McC
After a stressful and somewhat soggy night, we slept in a bit. We had originally been planning to go to West Chickenbone this day, but after the terrors of last night, we were all very intrigued at the idea of a shelter and an opportunity to dry things out, so we changed plans and set our sights on McCargo Cove. Got up around 7:30, wrang out all our stuff, ate some hasbrown/egg/ham breakfast thing from Cache Lake, and slowly got ready to go. Left Lane Cove around 9:30. Early on in the day we came upon a moose on the very top of the Greenstone Ridge. We were all surprised- we were used to/expecting to see them down in the swampy stuff. Stopped for a long and beautiful lunch at the Mount Ojibway fire tower. Saw 3 ladies there who were headed for Moskey. We decided to eat the hot dinner that we had missed out on the night before. It was delicious and filling, but unfortunately used up a lot of our water- something we would regret later on in the day. Beautiful sunny hike along the ridge, except we all got very very thirsty in the stretch before East Chickenbone, so when we finally dropped down to EC, we had to make the long trek to shore to get water and take a final break before pushing on up to McCargo Cove. Arrived at McC around 4:45 and selected shelter 4 for its superior water/moose viewing abilities. We had checked out shelter 7 and someone had left a “Shelter Log” in there so we stole that and brought it over to shelter 4 for some reading/entertainment. Lots of funny stuff in there. Had an almost continuous parade of moose passing in front of our shelter all evening. Went for a long swim off the dock and soaked up the sunshine. It was a beautiful day and we were all very thankful to be there instead of West Chickenbone for the night. Ate what I call “backpacker’s thanksgiving” for dinner and we all went to bed dry and happy. It was a good day.

Day 3: July 8, 17.7 miles McC-SD
Since we had enjoyed the spoils of shelter life and McCargo cove the day before, it meant that we had to have one really long day and this was going to be it. 17.7 miles to South Desor. One person in the group was particularly displeased about that, but oh well  It wasn’t me. Anyway, knowing we had a long day ahead of us, we got up earlier and were on the trail by 8:05. Hiked the Indian Portage trail back up to the GRT, and stopped for a nice lunch somewhere about 3 miles east of the Hatchet lake junction. After lunch, our pleasant ridge hike got a lot less pleasant. Basically from about 2 miles east of the Hatchet junction all the way to Ishpeming tower was walking through scratchy neck-high brush. We have been told this is not normal and a result of Covid-year-lack-of-trail-maintenance. It was exhausting and very slow. I legitimately thought we had missed the Hatchet lake junction because we didn’t get to it for more than one hour after we expected to, based on where we thought we were on the maps. We took a break at Ishpeming tower (which was very disappointing after seeing the Mount Objibway fire tower- what no views??) at about 4 PM. and talked to a Father/son duo there who was headed to Hatchet Lake. After the fire tower, the trail got a lot less brushy so that was greatly appreciated. Got to the South Desor intersection around 6 on tired legs and sore feet. Right when we walked into camp, we ran into this nice dad who told us he had been to IR 22 times! He said there were already at least 3 other groups there (we had barely seen anyone for 3 days!) He told us to go take the group camp site #1 (not really any groups in covid year…) because it was next to a nice BEACH. Our ears really perked up at the word BEACH, so we took his advice. Set up our tents (with lots of rocks on stakes this time) and got swimsuits on. Swimming at the South Desor beach after a 17.7 mile day was an absolute slice of heaven. The water was warm and clean. The sand was soft. It was glorious. We ate what I call “Mexican mush” for dinner and went to bed around 9 pm full and sore. Life was good. Then it started raining around 9:40. No chaos this time- we had learned our lesson about rain and had fully reinforced everything out of fear. We all slept well.

Day 4: July 9, SD-WC 11.1 miles
Got up a little later again. Had some “scrambled egg/ham bits” stuff again for breakfast. Got packed up and left camp around 9:30. Ran into a nice couple at about 10:30 that was coming from Island Mine the night before. Trail conditions this day were a complete 180 from yesterday- very easy and very clear. My friends were all suffering from lots of blisters and generalized soreness from the day before so the pace was very very slow despite the easier conditions. We made it to the Island Mine junction at noon, and I decided after that to carry on at my comfortable pace and the sore people would continue on at their comfortable pace. I went on ahead solo- passed two groups that had gotten off the planes (one group of 3 men and one Father/son duo) both who were headed to South Desor, and I rolled into Washington Creek at 2:15. Enjoyed the use of a privy, took my dirty shoes off, and walked up to Windigo to see what was open- unfortunately nothing. No store at all this year at Windigo and the visitor center was also buttoned up tight. Went back and scoped out the campground- there were three other groups there already. Watched a moose in the creek for a while and my friends finally rolled in around 3:45. We snapped up shelter 13, and decided to have a little “pre-dinner” chicken and dumplings while resting our feet. After our first dinner, we put on swimsuits and walked up to Windigo and enjoyed diving off the main dock and cleaning ourselves up. Eventually walked back to WC and made second dinner (pesto noodles) and watched some more moose. Relaxed and slowly got into our beds but were kept up late by several very noisy moose splashing in the creek right outside our shelter.

Day 5: July 10, about 1 mile 
I got up around 7:30 but my sleepy head friends slept in until after 9. We VERY SLOWLY made blueberry pancakes in our pot (not the ideal cooking device for pancakes) and got packed up. Waked over to Windigo with all our gear. Found a ranger who let us into the visitor center so we could at least look at the exhibits and stuff. We did the nature trail and looked at the moose exclosure. Had some lunch (ate up all our remaining food) and relaxed in the picnic table pavilion. Our flight out was set for 2pm, but the plane didn’t show up until about 2:10. We didn’t have Billy this time, but a super nice older gentleman pilot named Doug. He did a slightly more thorough safety and Covid talk with us before we climbed in (along with 2 other passengers) and took off around 2:25. The flight was a little bumpier than our previous flight but still easy and beautiful. Landed a little after 3pm. I got on the road by 3:20 and was in my driveway around 7:50 PM. Unpacked all my stinky clothes and wrote this trail report. I hope you all enjoyed it 

Overall:
Weather: comfortable in the shade, hot in the sunshine. I brought a 30 degree sleeping bag and it was more than enough.
Trail Conditions: More downed trees than usual and Ishpeming tower to 2-miles-east-of-Hatchet-junction-on GRT was absolutely brutal. Other than that section, it was really fine.
Trails themselves: the west end of the GRT is pretty boring- I probably don’t need to do that again.
People: significantly less people than usual. It was kind of sad to not have the stores open and enjoy a nice cold beer after a long hike.
Transportation: seaplanes are awesome. Fast, easy, smooth.
Footwear: I used my tried and true combination of Altra trail runners and Injinji socks and had zero blisters or hot spots despite my feet being soaked the majority of the trip. My three friends wore more traditional Keen hiking boots and smart wool socks and they all suffered with many blisters.
Clothing: I really hate being hot so I stubbornly wore shorts the entire time. This was a BAD idea on the stretch from McCargo Cove to South Desor (via GRT). My legs are very cut up. Bring pants...and actually wear them.
Tents: MSR Mutha Hubba and Zpacks Duplex. Both suffered in the torrential downpour, but the freestanding Mutha Hubba took it much better.
Other gear (for me, can't speak for everything my friends had): Hyperlite Mountain Gear Southwest 3400, Sea to Summit Etherlight insulated w/ Aeros pillow, Sawyer Squeeze w/ CNOC Vecto and a Katadyn pump-type filter, MSR 2 person cookset with a couple extra spoons and bowls, MSR pocket rocket, Enlightened Equipment Enigma 30 degree.

[dcclark]

Excellent trip report. Thank you so much for sharing it with those of us who are stuck far away from the island. A rainy day is part of the Isle Royale package, but it sounds like you got the deluxe version.

I am one of those "traditional boots and socks" people who is starting to think very hard about trail runners instead. Your report is one more nudge towards making it happen...

[Kelly]

Thanks for the trip report! I'm headed to Lane Cove for the first time this summer, so it's nice to hear fresh info.

[thesneakymonkey]

we had one of those types of rain storms right after finishing the minong in washington creek. The soil there held our stakes just fine but boy did we have a lot of water that afternoon. I was thankful for the bathtub style floor on our zpack triplex, and glad that the stakes held. It was SO LOUD in that tent.

Sounds like you had a great trip. I have to hear more about these food choices: mexican mush and backpackers thanksgiving!

Also for what its worth, I have always worn trail runners on the island (and most of my other adventures)..blister free and happy feet! Love it. : )

[torpified]

THANKS SO MUCH for the report, and congratulations on your extensive swimming and on weathering the storms! It sounds like a tremendous trip---for one thing, moose are mentioned more frequently than insects. Were the latter in evidence? And did you keep a running tally on the former?

[chippy]

Torpefied,

I think overall we saw more than 10 moose:
1 on the trail to Lane Cove in a beaver pond
1 on the trail on top of the Greenstone somewhere around Mount Ojibway
Approximately 5 at McCargo Cove
Approximately 5 at Washington Creek

Insects: there were lots of mosquitos, especially in the dense brushy stuff on the Greenstone. I used Sawyer Picardin heavily throughout the trip.

[chippy]

Backpackers thanksgiving:

One packet instant mashed potatoes
One box stuffing mix
One packet turkey gravy mix
One can or packet of chunked chicken
A couple handfuls of craisins

Fill a 2 liter pot approximately half full of water (just add up the total amount of water required by the instructions on the potatoes, stuffing, and gravy packaging), bring to a boil, then turn off heat. Dump all ingredients into pot. Stir. Allow to rehydrate for 1-2 minutes. Stir again. Serves 4 hungry people or 3 starving people for less than $10 total. Enjoy.

[chippy]

Mexican Mush

Adapted from a recipe on Andrew Skurka's website (Beans+Rice w/ Fritos & Cheese): all the glory on this goes to him.

For 4 people:
8 oz dehydrated refried beans: I used Santa Fe Bean Company from Amazon
6 oz Minute Rice
One packet taco seasoning
One package Laughing Cow cheese wedges (or a block of whatever kind of cheese you like to carry)
One medium size bag of Fritos

Distribute the beans,rice, and taco seasoning equally among 4 bowls (I had mixed them all together at home and put in one bag, then divided up that bag at camp). Place 2 cheese wedges in each bowl. Bring water to a boil in a separate pot, then pour it over each bowl until desired consistency and add more water as desired. Stir each bowl. Give it a minute or two to rehydrate. Then divide the Fritos evenly among each person ( I like to stir mine right into the hot mush) and enjoy. Also a very cheap recipe and very satisfying.

[newb2019]

Great info!