TR (5/31-6/7, 2021): Ishpeming, Feldtmann---and some commuting

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[this is going to come in pieces, governed by the 3 attachments per message limit. Apologies in advance for the high ratio of words to miles.]

Background: The Feldtmann loop and the Ishpeming trail (a 7 mile spur off the Greenstone that deadends at Malone Bay) are the two major stretches of IR trail I hadn’t walked yet. And I was supposed to have a visiting gig a short day’s drive from Grand Portage this spring. Hence Plan A: Voyageur to Windigo; around the Feldtmann Loop, out the Greenstone, down the Ishpeming Trail to Malone Bay; Voyageur home. COVID scuttled the visiting gig, so I wound up starting and finishing my terra incognita tour at Rock Harbor---something that, as I’ll explain below, made more sense when I formed the plan than when I executed it.

5/30: Ann Arbor to Copper Harbor.
Between one thing and another, I hadn’t driven to Houghton (or beyond) in two years. This version of the drive seemed particularly rich in pontoon boats and cannabis emporia billboards that were probably best appreciated stoned. (My favorite: “Budz Weed—next exit. Don’t go out of your way!”) I bivouacked at the Bella Vista.

5/31: Copper Harbor to Rock Harbor to Chippewa Harbor.
Bearing around 40 wildly excited passengers, the Queen chugged across calm waters to Rock Harbor. I’ve learned to lurk toward the back of the mob during the orientation, in order to wind up near the front of the permit line. Permit secured, I bustled over to leave a bag of clean clothes and dry shoes at the lodge office, then headed down the Tobin Harbor trail. My objective was Chippewa Harbor, where I had a ferry to catch the next morning.

The 7+ miles to Daisy Farm were all bonus miles. When I’d planned the trip, I’d thought I’d start at Daisy Farm, the projected destination of the Queen during Rock Harbor dock repairs. Those repairs got rescheduled, so I got to start from Rock Harbor instead. Despite carrying 6 days of food that enabled me to set a personal IR record for pack weight (a staggering 22 pounds), I didn’t lament this. The only other occasion I’d walked from Rock Harbor to Daisy Farm, the trail had been so buried in deadfall that navigating it commanded most of my attention. This time I could look around, explore the Siskowit mines now that they weren’t obscured by a fallen forest, and generally take a more relaxed attitude toward forward progress.

Entering Daisy Farm, right around shelter 10, the trail disappears abruptly under a pond heroic beavers have created by damning Benson creek. Shelter 10’s friendly denizen (who seemed like they might be the only person in camp) explained that I could either skirt the outage by walking the beach, or follow an official detour through DF’s shelter city. I took the beach, rejoined the real trail briefly, then turned left toward Moskey Basin. The Moskey trail was faint but fun, especially for the first spell, when it climbs through and then follows a ridge across a succession of rocky clearings, before starting a woodsy descent. Near the inflection point, smelled before seen, was a former moose, well on his or her way to being a moose skeleton.

Piles of sawdust and gaps freshly-cut in fallen trees attested that a trail crew had been down the spur to Chippewa Harbor. But any human footprints they left had been overlaid by mooseprints making a trench down the center of the muddy trail---a trench that parted to diverge around boardwalk sections. This got me to wondering whether moose resented the boardwalks: “why has some idiot erected a linear trip hazard along this perfectly serviceable pathway?”

I followed the short portage to the tip of Lake Richie’s southeastern tentacle---a very pretty and peaceful spot. Decidedly less peaceful was the sand hill crane I disturbed shortly thereafter. Reaching Chippewa Harbor around 7, I set myself up in Shelter 1. Shelter 2’s occupants (not backpackers, or so I inferred from the 24 pack of bottled water on the picnic table) were off on a mission; another party had paddled a canoe named “Ramboat” from the Queen and were tenting. I was out before the sun was down—and slept well, despite the best efforts of leadfooted critters scurrying across my shelter roof to rouse me during the night.

Animals:
Loons!
Mergansers!!
Conventional ducks
Frogs, numerous
Snakes, way too numerous
Squirrels
Vole? Or maybe just an extremely ugly squirrel?
Moose, deceased
Very irate sand hill crane


(to be continued)

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6/1 Chippewa Harbor to Malone Bay to Island Mine

Reporting to the dock the next morning to await the Voyageur, I finally met my motorboating neighbors. They’d been joined by another motorboater, whose presence I detected when a heartfelt testimonial concerning “the most beeeyootiful fish I’ve ever seen!” wafted up from the dock to my shelter. While loons cruised the harbor, bald eagles flew around almost as thick as tales of lake trout. The new arrival was out for 18 days on the island, and had a small U-Haul’s worth of gear to move uphill. I tricked him into letting me carry some (his water cooler and his suburban grill sized propane tank, it turns out) by claiming I needed to visit the outhouse, which was scenically situated in a small stand of hilariously beaver-ravaged trees behind the shelters. I owed him: he’d let me know where to look for an eagle nest as the Voyageur left the harbor.

How I found the eagle’s nest: thanks to the fish enthusiast, I looked in the right general direction. Then I saw the eagle. The nest was a few branches down the commanding tree she perched atop.

I love riding the Voyageur, and the trip to Malone Bay was short enough (and the unseasonable temperatures warm enough) that I could spend most of it in the prime seats on the bow, watching the rocky shoreline drift by, and hoping, with cheerful futility, to spy moose and eagles and otter and beavers. At Malone Bay, I realized---just as I realized the year the Voyageur delivered me to Chippewa Harbor---that I’d need to come back to stay there some day. An additional reason to return is that, in an epic oversight, I neglected venture down the side trail to Siskiwit Falls (which I somehow only pieced together existed after I’d returned to Rock Harbor) before heading out the Ishpeming trail.

I liked the first part of the Ishpeming trail pretty well. It climbs to, then follows a ridge along, Siskiwit Lake, with pleasant water views. Then it drops to a terrific boardwalk crossing the river and wetlands at which the westernmost finger of the lake points accusingly. I’d meant to take what Phil Liggett calls a “nature break” around there, only someone had landed a kayak, and not knowing where they were, I was shy.

Unfortunately, shortly thereafter the boardwalk across another creek had been flooded out by beavers. Fortunately, the dam causing the flood crossed the very same creek the boardwalk had, and at essentially the same place. Unfortunately, a game trail diverted from the human trail just at the foot of the dam. Thinking this might be an official detour, and having recently had the disturbing experience of creatures scuttling uninvited across the roof of my lodging, I followed the game trail. It terminated, as game trails so often do, in the middle of a swamp. So I backtracked to the dam, which was topped by a jumble of short and rolly logs, and began to cross it gingerly. All trip I’d been trying, without success, to remember a particularly vivid phrase a ranger had used the deadfall year to describe a mishap that could befall hikers who were too cavalier about crossing deadfall. I kept coming up with “puncture wound,” but that wasn’t it. Partway across the dam, it hit me all too clearly: “impalement injury.”

I made it across without injuries, impalement or otherwise, and carried on. The trail seemed even less used than the trail to Chippewa Harbor: it wasn’t impossible to follow, but it was definitely subtle, and there were quite a few trees down, although none that were punishing to negotiate. The trail climbed a lot---there’s a ridge before the Greenstone it surmounts---but not in a particularly rewarding way. It was usually too densely wooded to really see what it was climbing, and it didn’t help to know that the climax of the route would be the downtrodden dwarf Ishpeming fire tower, which looks out at the midriffs of trees constituting the forest that surrounds it. I reckon that the Ishpeming trail would have a more satisfying dramatic structure if travelled in the other direction, culminating at Malone. It was, however, very gratifying to meet, hours after seeing the parked kayak, its operators, intrepid birders who had ventured all the way to the Greenstone Ridge.

Next came the first of two 8+ miles jaunts along the GRT between the Ishpeming and Island Mine junctions. (This was one jaunt more than I’d originally bargained for. As it hadn’t yet been announced that the Minong would be closed when I booked the trip, I anticipated returning to Queen that way---an enticing prospect because the Minong is tremendous fun and I hadn’t walked it in that direction yet.) This was one of the pieces that like commuting.

At first, reaching Island Mine didn’t cheer me up much. A colossally failed experiment with thinner socks had flayed the tender underside of the left little piggy who had roast beef. In the time it took me, upon reaching camp, to doff my pack and don my headnet, high efficiency flies had torn chunks from my neck. The creek was walking more than running with water the color of weak tea. But then a couple of Moose Watchers showed up to collect water for their team. They were staying at the group camp and making forays to GPS coordinates, compiled over the winter, of places wolves had killed moose. “It’s like a really brushy version of geocaching,” one said. Once the Moose Watchers located the deceased, their mission was to collect data, and body parts destined for further analysis, that might tell researchers not only about the health of the moose population but also about which segments of that population were succumbing to wolves. Naturally I pressed the moose watchers to tell me more about the kinds of things you can discover from a moose corpse. An astonishing revelation is that you can tell exactly how old the moose was when it died, because (showing incredible consideration for moose researchers) they add a layer to their teeth every year!

Animals:
Bald eagles!
Loons and conventional ducks
Snakes and frogs
Squirrels
Moose Watchers

(to be continued....)

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6/2: Island Mine to Feldtmann Lake
I spent part of the pleasant walk from Island Mine to Windigo worrying how the annual layers of moose tooth were arranged: in a stack, like pancakes, or concentrically, like tree rings? I had other moose worries too: I still hadn’t seen any, nor had I seen as many moose prints or as much moose poop as I was used to. Getting to Windigo just after the Voyageur, I relished indoor plumbing while the new arrivals (a number of whom were carrying bulging packs with brand-new tents still in their original packaging strapped to the outside) got permitted. Then I went to interrogate the rangers about diversions to the Feldtmann loop north of Siskiwit Bay. Alerted that quite a crowd were heading to Feldtmann that night, I set out to get there ahead of enough of them to claim a tent site.

The Feldtmann trail follows Washington Harbor before climbing to a ridge topped by rocky outcrops overlooking the Grace Creek valley as it wends toward Superior. There’s even, down a short side trail, an official Grace creek overlook, where I’d been meaning to have lunch. Only, I could make out from some distance, it was already occupied by a party whose mode of enjoying the outdoors together appeared to require one or more of them to emit noise at all times. So I lunched at an outcrop along the trail just before the overlook, and had my snickers bar at the outlook proper, after the party had vacated.

After descending from the overlook ridge, the trail flattens out and crosses a series of pretty interesting swamps and meadows, ornamented by the sorts of ferns I’m more used to seeing in the foreground of pictures of brontosaurus.
At the far side of one of these meadows, I encountered another party I’ll call the Moose Concierge, and admitted to them that when they first caught my eye, I’d taken them for moose. “Sorry to disappoint you!” they said. I tried not to let on that I really was distraught about the persistent mooselessness of this trip. Almost 50 miles walked, and all I had to show for it was one moose rumor promulgated by a child on the Tobin Harbor trail, one moose corpse, dozens of silhouettes of fallen trees I’d mistaken for moose---but no moose!

At Feldtmann Lake, I claimed the smallest and least desirable campsite, #3. It was less a site than a 10ft x 10ft patch of raggedly mowed underbrush, set a few yards from the privy and abuzz with flies. The site did have a signal virtue which I was about to discover.

But first I went to collect water. Looking to right along the shore, I saw the silhouette of a fallen tree impersonating a moose. Looking to the left, I saw one of the moose concierge who was also collecting water. He pointed to my right. So I looked that way again again. Now there were two tree silhouettes impersonating moose exceedingly thoroughly --- they were even browsing!

I can’t say how many more moose sightings I enjoyed while at Feldtmann Lake, nor how many distinct moose I saw. It seemed like, in pairs and singletons, they were taking laps of the campground. And site #3, deficient as it was in other respects, was smack dab in the middle of their habitrail. I made a point of clearing my site of moose trip hazards before turning in.

Animals:
Most of those aforementioned
Merganser leading an armada of mergansettes, but largely ignored due to . . .
Moose galore!


(to be continued . . . . )

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6/3: Feldtmann Lake to Siskiwit Bay

The moose were still out the next morning.

Before heading to Siskiwit, I walked the easy spur trail to Rainbow Cove, where I collected clear Superior water and admired the sun hitting the Rock of Ages light house.

The Feldtmann loop proper, after a brief level stretch that includes a walk atop beaver dam so old that 40 foot trees are growing in the meadows around, mounts a short but steep climb to Feldtmann ridge. At the top of the climb were the moose concierge, admiring the view back toward Feldtmann Lake. Visible, despite being submerged up to their enormous necks in waters of its eastern end, were two moose.

The ridge walk that follows is terrific, with open views of Superior and inland. In a forest-y patch, I came across the moose concierge again. They held up two fingers and pointed into the woods, where a pair of moose were playing it cool. I had an early lunch at the fire tower, which I reached just after the moose concierge, and which you can (and should!) climb most of the way to the top. The sights include a review of the trail to date, and a preview of things to come, with Siskiwit Bay shimmering in the distance.

Electing to lunch further down the trail, the concierge left before I did, saying, “we’ll see you next time you catch up with us.” “No,” I replied, “I’ll see you next time you stop to watch a moose.” Which is exactly what happened: I came across them where they’d called a lunch break, because (i) it was right by the ruin of a cabin, and also because (ii) it was one of those rocky spots with airy views, and also because (iii) a moose was blocking the trail ahead. Thanks to their instructions, I saw the moose too as I headed off toward Siskiwit Bay.

There’s a bit of an intermission after the trail descends from Feldtmann ridge----a long, basically flat, essentially straight wooded stretch. The monotonous bit couldn’t have been more than 5 miles, but it felt like it took forever to cross. A bracing highlight midway: the trail squeezes by a beaver pond populated by highly percussive frogs. I saw a perfect wolf foot print in the pondside mud.

Tent site #1 at Siskiwit has outstanding Superior views. I had it to myself. Wolves --- or a single wolf with an extensive repertoire of vocalizations --- howled overnight.

Animals: the usual +
Moose, unearned!
Wolves, heard but not seen

(to be continued . . . )

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6/4 Siskiwit Bay to Hatchet Lake
I stopped yesterday at Siskiwit, even though it was only lunchtime, in order to spread the new-to-me parts of this walk over more days. I think this was a good move. The new-to-me parts today were great fun; the repeats a bit of trudge --- but the day ended with many, many bangs.

The official (both from the mouth of Windigo rangers and from the info board at the foot of the Siskiwit dock) advice concerning the trail north out of Siskiwit is: don’t take it! It’s so beaver compromised that you’re better off following, as far as possible, the beach to the (signposted) point where the trail turns inland to start climbing toward Island Mine. So I walked down the beach in the company of picture-perfect moose tracks. I was thinking about how cool it would be to follow moose tracks until they culminated in a moose, when I saw this:

The recommended route cuts inland briefly to make use of the obsolete trail’s non-obsolete bridge over the Siskiwit River. This was easy. The next place the recommended route parts ways with the beach is Senter Point, which you’re supposed to bushwhack across before resuming beachwhacking on the other side. This is probably easy, but I blew it. I suspect the recommended bushwhack cuts across the point to the east of the obsolete trail. Enticed yet again by a suggestive game trail, I cut across to the west, and soon found myself slogging through a swamp. I don’t mind mud. I just mind not knowing how deep it is. In a few places I sunk to mid-thigh. I managed to pry myself free, though, and was soon happily beachwhacking along the shore north of the point.

I climbed toward Island Mine eager to see the steam engine, and worried that I wouldn’t recognize the pile of tailings I needed to cross to find it. I shouldn’t have worried: the ruddy, barren tailings couldn’t be more different from their lush woodland surroundings. The steam engine was just on the other side.

Pursued by the swarm of mosquitos that had noticed me during my steam engine search, I continued toward Island Mine. When I stepped across the weak tea creek, I’d walked (nearly) every footrail on the main island (exceptions: spurs to Little Todd, S Desor, Siskiwit Falls, and the loop by Edisen Fishery). I celebrated by continuing to walk, to Hatchet Lake.

This was another spell that felt like commuting. The first 8-9 miles were a rerun, in reverse, of a few days ago. This part of the Greenstone is not my favorite stretch of trail on the island --- a lot of it registers with me as a straight, flat furrow through the underbrush. (This reflects more poorly on me than on the trail!) And I was probably a little down to have finished the terra incognita part of the hike.

The fun descent to Hatchet Lake, and the other parties camping there (including a pair who’d elected to make an 8 day visit to IR their third stop on a comprehensive National Park tour), cheered me up. So did surviving the astonishing storm that broke out that night---two hours solid of rolling thunder and almost continuous lightning, complemented by high winds and rain so sustained that the ground around my campsite softened sufficiently to admit tent stakes. This was a good thing, because I sorely needed a well-pitched rain fly!

Animals: the usual + sea gull

(to be continued . . . )

[chief54]

Sounds like a great trip and as usual great writing. I will be heading out in a little over a month.

[torpified]

6/5 Hatchet Lake to Daisy Farm

Everything that mattered came through the night dry. But my rainfly was soaked and liable to stay that way for a while: thunder growled and rain kept falling. The last to leave camp even though it wasn’t yet 8, I headed up and out. The rain abated around where the GRT starts strutting its stuff along the rocky ridges of Mt Siskiwit. Elation, probably amplified by the contrast with yesterday afternoon’s grumpiness, overtook me. I could see for miles!

The damp rock underfoot precipitated episodes of boot skiing that would have been impressive if they had been intentional. And back in the woods I encountered a succession of frogs each of who was half the size of its predecessor. (This did not go on forever, but it could have.)

For a few miles after the West Chickenbone junction, there was intermittent deadfall I dated to last night’s storm: the trunk fractures looked fresh and no use trails around the snags had yet sprung up yet. Two were large birches that had fallen (not across but) along the trail as it climbs away from the East Chickenbone junction---tricky to negotiate because the trail sidehills so steeply here that it dissolves the distinction between stepping and falling off of it. I slithered by, and back on the ridge, stopped for lunch with the Sleeping Giant.

Setting out in unsettled weather, I had resolved to take the first trail down from the ridge to Daisy Farm. By the time I reached the junction, I trusted the calmer skies not to smite me with lightning if I followed the ridge to the fire tower instead. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to make a beeline for a shelter where I could start to dry out. I wound up with shelter #1, the introvert’s special, a few yards down the side trail toward the ranger’s residence. I spent the afternoon getting things, most notably me, clean and dry, and prowling camp for wildlife. I found a lot of snakes.

The dinner hour found me on the dock looking for beavers. Instead, I witnessed a mysterious episode: a motorboat loaded with cardboard boxes labelled either “trout” or “chex” puttered over from Edisen fishery. Its operator (at whom, in case it was Rolf Petersen, I was going to yell my moose tooth question, until I appreciated that, even if he were Rolf Petersen, that would be a pretty weird thing to do) left an enormous green Tupperware tub on the dock, called “see you tomorrow” to an accessory who collected the tub, and puttered off. The dessert hour also found me on the dock looking beavers, also to no avail.

6/6 Daisy Farm to Rock Harbor
I headed out to the increasingly familiar accompaniment of rain and thunder. Beachwhacking around the beaver-ravaged bridge, I met a multigenerational expedition whose middle generation told me that the beaver had put on a show for the dockside audience after I had abandoned my vigil. I clearly need to eat more desserts!

Rock Harbor (the body of water) was beautiful in the morning rain---something I could more readily appreciate knowing that warm showers and clean clothes awaited me in Rock Harbor (the nerve center). Due to slippery rocks, I took the Tobin Harbor trail in. By then the day had committed to warm and sunny. Families of loons cruised the harbor and the outbound day hikers seemed like they were walking on air. It was an especially good run into the finish.

6/7 Over and out
The Queen left at 2:45. My morning project was a leisurely Stoll point stroll. Along the way I encountered a couple who’d received instructions about how to find a bald eagle’s nest (“it’s less than 100 meters from the sign”) but who’d been stymied in their search. I joined them for a while before carrying on to the point itself. On the hypothesis that it would be more dignified to leave under my own power than it would be to be carried bodily away by a swarm of flies, I abandoned the point almost immediately. I headed back flapping my arms steadily to disperse the blankets of flies that settled on my right sleeve (which hadn’t benefited from the spritzes of picardin I’d been distributing right-handed).

That’s when I noticed something else flapping: a bald eagle, carrying a fish in its beak. How I found the nest: that’s where the fish-bearing eagle flew to next. One other mature eagle was there, and they proceeded to bicker, not totally majestically, for the quarter hour I watched them. I warned the hare I saw next to lay low. [I don't know why this picture comes out sideways!]

Back in Rock Harbor, I headed toward the store in the hopes of finding something to help a ring finger that was swelling fast from a fly bite. I wound up walking storeward a few steps behind Rolf Petersen, who’d just seen off a boatload of Moose Watchers. Hearing me crunching down the gravel path and taking me for one of his party, he turned to speak to me. It occurred to me that an excellent way to dispel the ensuing awkwardness was to interrogate him about moose teeth. Which is what I did. (“Are you a dentist?” he asked at one point in the interrogation.) The answer: the layers form concentrically, like tree rings. And no one really knows why, although a recent Harvard PhD thesis hazards that it has something to do with the difference between the winter and summer diet: the teeth gird themselves annual to take on the hardwood. As we parted ways --- me to receive a nitrile glove full of ice from Joanne, the kind and resourceful shopkeeper, and he to do whatever it is he does when inquisitive tourists aren’t pestering him --- he encouraged me to apply to Moose Watch next year. I think I agreed!

Notable Animals
Eagles, testy!
Hare
Rolf Petersen

[Hobbes]

Thank you for the great TR and photos! Excited to head back in a few months and tackle the Minong (provided it opens up on schedule).

Such an interesting route - my first reaction was how convoluted it seemed, but upon reading about your goal of reaching previously-untrekked trail, made perfect sense. And any excuse to ride on the Voyageur is a good one. Might have to steal something similar to add the Malone-Ishpeming segment to my list, and Chippewa too.

It was especially fun to read about your first experience of the Feldtmann Loop. Parts of the Feldtmann Ridge are top class in terms of views. And Feldtmann Lake itself is almost always good for moose viewing. Glad there was at least some redeeming quality to site 3. I was alone at Feldtmann a few years ago at site 2 and the moose were happy to walk around/through the campsites - so close I could smell them! It was a little spooky.

I've only ever traveled the Siskiwit Bay trail in the direction of leaving Island Mine, heading towards Siskiwit and Feldtmann (so, the opposite of the direction you traveled, I think). I do think it would be slightly more challenging leaving Siskiwit rather than heading to it, so it sounds like a good call on following the beach. Last year we were able to follow the trail OK (but again, heading in the other direction). But it is easy to lose it, as has happened to me before. And the beach is certainly prettier and easier going.

[backwoods doc]

Thoroughly enjoyable series of posts.

But I feel I must protest. As someone who spent countless hours during grad school observing the mating behavior of voles, I can definitively state that they look nothing like ugly squirrels. (By the way, those observations were research-oriented, not a peculiar pastime.)

[dcclark]

Truly enjoyable trip reports. Also truly amazing mileage.

And back in the woods I encountered a succession of frogs each of who was half the size of its predecessor. (This did not go on forever, but it could have.)

I'm a mathematician, and I approve this post.

damning Benson creek

... and also this one. Stupid creek.

[IncaRoads]

There’s a bit of an intermission after the trail descends from Feldtmann ridge----a long, basically flat, essentially straight wooded stretch. The monotonous bit couldn’t have been more than 5 miles, but it felt like it took forever to cross.

That long strait section of trail is an old road bed that the loggers in the 1930's made to harvest the trees in the Siskiwit swamp.

[Ingo]

Thanks for the great TR! Great read while sitting in a room in GP ready to get on the boat in the morning .

[torpified]

It was especially fun to read about your first experience of the Feldtmann Loop.

I'm now a Feldtmann advocate! I think it'd be a great introduction to the island. It's a got a little of many things: ridge walking, fire towers, boardwalks and swamps, bushwhacking, beaver meadows in various phases, moosey inland lakes, some superior Superior shore, short stiff climbs, mining remnants, . . . .

But I feel I must protest. As someone who spent countless hours during grad school observing the mating behavior of voles, I can definitively state that they look nothing like ugly squirrels. (By the way, those observations were research-oriented, not a peculiar pastime.)

I apologize to the creature that might have been a vole. It wasn't ugly so much as it was not-cute. Those are very different things. Can you tell me anything about vole teeth that would boggle my mind? (You know the bar is low.)

I'm a mathematician, and I approve this post.

I'm not a mathematician, and I'll confess that for some time after witnessing the initial segment of the frog supertask, I suspended my dental reflections to ponder the question of how small something could be and still be a frog. (I decided that being too small to contain frog DNA should be disqualifying.)

There’s a bit of an intermission after the trail descends from Feldtmann ridge----a long, basically flat, essentially straight wooded stretch. The monotonous bit couldn’t have been more than 5 miles, but it felt like it took forever to cross.

That long strait section of trail is an old road bed that the loggers in the 1930's made to harvest the trees in the Siskiwit swamp.

Thanks! That make sense. Back at Rock Harbor, I met someone who'd done pretty much the same oddball walk I had. He agreed that that was the toughest part. He speculated that it was an old railway bed, connected to mining efforts. Logging road didn't occur to us.

... sitting in a room in GP ready to get on the boat in the morning .

Hooray!!! Trip report, please!

[hooky]

tl;dr




Just kidding. Great report.

[MrSniffles]

There’s a bit of an intermission after the trail descends from Feldtmann ridge----a long, basically flat, essentially straight wooded stretch. The monotonous bit couldn’t have been more than 5 miles, but it felt like it took forever to cross.

What does 2021 bring on this post tower stretch in terms of overgrowth? In 2014, there was a decent length where it had fully taken over the trail and took a good deal of whacking to get through, in 2016 there was no issue, and in 2018 it was noticeable but not nearly as bad as 2014 (although the mosquitoes were another story).