Isle Royale Forums

I believe Park Officials were supposed to go to the area to evaluate whether continued closure of the Minong is required. I will post when I know more info.

I too have heard that the fire is out, but the affected sections of trail need to be checked for hazards before reopening. Hopefully this week!

The NPS has said there are unsafe trail conditions on the Minong. They need to send a trail crew there to clean up and untill the trail crew does so, the Minong section will remain closed.

Sorry to hear about the continued delays with opening the Minong for those of you who were anticipating going on the trail at the start of this month. I am sure that it will be re-opened in the next week or so. I couldn't imagine it being closed for over a month and its getting close to that point.

I just got off the phone with the park. The trail has been re-opened, as of late last night. Although, they said off-trail hiking near the Minong is not yet allowed.

Whew, I was not looking forward to re-routing my trip next week.

Good luck and let us know what she looks like Richard

More info from IRKPA:

The Minong Trail, part of which was closed by the Little Todd Fire, is now open. The lightning-caused fire that has impacted 5.9 acres is not out, however, so hikers should remain on the trail only. Several spot fires are still active. Eight fire-weakened trees within reach of the trail have been removed.

Glad to hear that it has finally reopened. Thankfully this only caused issues for a small handful of people and not the many more that have plans to visit the island in the next weeks and months.

+1 for stay on the trail. A burned out area with hotspots is interesting to see but stepping on a tiny grey ash spot can easily result in being knee deep in HOT coals! Old stumps and root systems can burn much like a cigar would for a very long time, often without any smoke or indication of heat.

Just returned from a trip to the island, and we were fortunate enough to hike the affected section of the Minong. We took the Voyageur II over on Saturday, June 9th, but were disappointed to hear it was still closed. We ended up deciding to overnight at Huginnin Cove before checking back at Windigo Sunday in hopes of good news. Thankfully, the gamble paid off, and we arrived to the visitor's center Sunday about an hour after they officially opened the trail again. Upon hiking through, it was pretty clear why they had closed it off. We saw the damage between Little Todd and North Desor campsites, and there was a significant amount of burned vegetation. I'm attaching one photo from the trail, and I think I'll have more once I finish going through all the photos. It was definitely a great hike!

We ended up deciding to overnight at Huginnin Cove before checking back at Windigo Sunday in hopes of good news. Thankfully, the gamble paid off, and we arrived to the visitor's center Sunday about an hour after they officially opened the trail again.

I love when things work out perfectly like that. Everything fell into place and plans did not have to be altered. Horray!!! I'd love to see more pictures. Thanks.