Isle Royale Forums

My father and i plan on hiking the Feldtmann trail this early June so this topic finally found
my interest.

If you look at some ancient maps (I don't know 10, 20 ,30 years ago), you will find an East Feldtmann trail
departing from South Shore of Washington Harbor connecting East Side of Feldtmann Lake.

My question is has anyone ever hiked this when it was maintained?, or recently bushwacked it?, any
insights? any GPS Tracks?.

J

There have been some threads on the subject. I don't recall any trip reports. I understand that it can be really wet. As I recall, if you get the USGS 15' topo sheets, they show the trail.

I hiked the East Feldtmann Trail a couple of times in the 80's before it was closed. It was slightly more scenic and shorter than the current Feldtmann Trail (then called the West Feldtmann Trail). Unless you are willing to get wet, I wouldn't try to bushwack it as the trail went through the swamp to the east of Feldtmann lake and if I recall correctly had a section of boardwalk over 1200 feet long. The reason the Park Service closed it was the expense of maintaining all that boardwalk. One of the more interesting parts of the trail was that it followed the steep rock face at the base of the north side of Feldtmann Ridge for a half mile or so.

I hope this helps....

I was out there last May and spent some time looking for the old trail, but did not have any luck. The area is very overgrown at this point.

As part of general planning for our IR trip last year I did pick waypoints for East Feldtman Trail off the topo sheets. If you are interested, I might be able to find them.

DonNewcomb wrote:As part of general planning for our IR trip last year I did pick waypoints for East Feldtman Trail off the topo sheets. If you are interested, I might be able to find them.

Thanks for the offer, no need to do search as i traced trail from Topo onto GPS Tracks.
It is rough, but provides a sense of trail in regards to terrain.

I would jump for joy if someone had actual gps waypoints/route for trail.

On a layover day at Feldtmann Lake campground, I plan on checking out intersection of current
Feldtmann Trail and old E.F.T. along Ridge on South East Feldtmann Lake as <iroy6> mentioned.
I will see how far I can get.

Also, having picked the trail off the topo sheets I've overlaid the route in ArcGIS Explorer and can see some spots where the trail may still be, but over most of the route I can't see much of it in the available imagery.