Trail Conditions 2011

[Jesse]

I was on the Queen's second trip out. On the trails May 16 - 20. Awesome trip. Unbelievably lucky with the weather.

The trails: lots of impressive damage. The Tobin Harbor and Rock Harbor Trails are completely clean, which was a lot of work. The amount of debris along the trail is pretty wild. We could hear chainsaw crews at work on those areas several days last week. The rest of the island, from what we saw, will provide some interesting challenges for hikers in the weeks to come.

The interior trail conditions were bad enough to add substantial time to our days. They also made things a little more bloody, and a lot more fun. The ridges had minor issues, but others were rough.

Portaging, in a lot of these areas, will be extremely difficult.

Have a great time, everyone!

[jerry]

Thanks Jesse! I think Trail Conditions needs to be an annual topic.

[johnhens]

We just got back. We cleared the trail from the dock to the campground on Belle Isle. I brought a Sven Saw. Also cleared the
Stokley Bay to Duncan Bay Portage. I think the NPS finished a few larger diameter trees I could not get. We went to clean the Duncan Bay to Tobin Harbor portage, the NPS was in front of us cutting away!!!.
Hikers I spoke to said the Tobin Harbor side of the Stoll Trail was bad. As were the "inside" trails.

[Ingo]

We just got back. We cleared the trail from the dock to the campground on Belle Isle. I brought a Sven Saw. Also cleared the
Stokley Bay to Duncan Bay Portage. I think the NPS finished a few larger diameter trees I could not get. We went to clean the Duncan Bay to Tobin Harbor portage, the NPS was in front of us cutting away!!!.
Hikers I spoke to said the Tobin Harbor side of the Stoll Trail was bad. As were the "inside" trails.

Hey John, looking forward to a trip report. Thanks for the work!

[greg]

I just got back from a five-day hike on the eastern portion of the island and trail conditions varied greatly from place to place. The Park Superintendent indicated that on a typical year about 1000 trees would be down in early spring. She estimated that up to 6000 trees were down this spring and the trails refle3cted that fact. The Rock Harbor Trail up to 3-Mile and the Tobin Harbor Trail were cleared with a large number of downed trees scattered about the cleared areas. My 20-year-old son ended up straining his left knee and then spraining his right ankle crossing deadfalls near Daisy Farm and Moskey Basin. I would recommend caution on the trails as these are the worst conditions I have seen in my 22 visits to IR.

[fonixmunkee]

I as well just got back from a 6-day trip. The downfall is bad along the Greenstone and Indian Portage. We took it upon ourselves to make paths through as much of the downfall as we could to help others out. Whether this is OK or not is unknown, but we figured it was better than making a new trail around something that would eventually be cleaned up.

The NPS told Inca_Roads that there is ~160 miles of trail to be cleared, and only ~20 miles is done. Also, the trail-clearing crew has been reduced from nine people down to four. That's not helping progress.

Overall, the downfall on a 42-mile hike slowed our normal ~2.2 MPH pace down to ~1.8 MPH. Essentially, any trip you can add about an hour onto the total time you'd estimate it'd take to get from point A to point B. It's not brutal disaster downfall, but it is annoying. Plan accordingly, and you'll be fine.

I'm going to sticky this thread, and make the first post globally-editable, so people can add and update the main post with trail reports. Thanks, Jesse & Jerry for your suggestions.

[Mr Blister]

Just got back June 19th. Greenstone was o.k. at first from Windigo. You could tell where they stopped as the amount of deadfalls increased. The worst that we encountered was on Indian Portage from Chickenbone to Chippewa. There were alot of deadfalls there. The bugs were attrocious. The mayfly's hatched at Chickenbone which killed any chance of getting a fish. A good trip overall. Tip O' the hat to the crews trying to clear the trail

[jerry]

Got back about 2 and a 1/2 hours ago. On Thursday (6-23) I day hiked from McCargoe Cove to the junction of the Greenstone and the Daisy Farm Trail and back via the E. Chickenbone Trail. I counted 33 trees down on the 1.6 mile East Chickenbone Trail. On the Greenstone from the E. Chickenbone Trail junction out to the Daisy Farm Trail junction there were 40 trees down on that 4.2 mile portion of the Greenstone.

On Friday (6-24) I hiked the Indian Portage Trail from McCargoe to Chippewa Harbor (10.6 miles in 7 hours 37 minutes). From McCargoe to the Greenstone there were 18 trees down. From the Greenstone until Lake Richie there were 80 trees down. Many trees required you to climb over them, under them or through them. Some you just had to go around. I got my boots full of water too many times to count. On one boardwalk (I think before LeSage) a huge tree made me use every cuss word I ever heard. I wouldn't go into the water except to get back my water bottle. So I had to break branches and guide my gear and backpack through as best as possible, branches were trying to do all kinds of things to me. It took maybe 5 to 10 minutes to get through. It felt like Basic and Infantry training all over again. Something happened between LeSage and Richie I'll share in my Trip Report when I can get to it. I figured I average 1.2 mph from McCargoe to L. Richie. The remaining portion of the trail was totally cleared when I went on down to Chippewa Harbor. The trail crew were there finishing up that portion. I thanked them for a wonderful job. The crew chief told me they were a little more then half way finished. So far 2500 trees had been removed. That breaks the previous record that he said was 1900 trees. He thought that maybe 4000 total will be cut up by the time they are done.

Due to the storm(s) that hit Isle Royale early last week a large portion of the trails seem to be covered by water/mud and some were like a small stream.

[JerryB]

I was on the Feldtman 6/23-26 and downfalls were pretty minimal. A few required a bit of a limbo dance to get under and a few left no choice but to go around.

[Vandy]

I left Rock Harbor yesterday. On Jun 25, I did the Feldtman and really can only think of one tree I had to crawl under. On Jun 27, I was on the Greenstone between Ishpeming tower and Hatchet Lake where I encountered the most significant blowdown that hadn't been dealt with. The trail was really overgrown, too. I hiked up E Chickenbone trail on Jun 28, and it was clear. Rock Harbor trail had a ton of blowdown between Daisy and 3 Mile, but I'm sure that was some of the first to be cleared.

[zims]

Hi Vandy
Did you hike out to huginnin cove also? Is it open yet? I want to do a day hike out there, was wondering how that trail is right now.

[Vandy]

Hi Vandy
Did you hike out to huginnin cove also? Is it open yet? I want to do a day hike out there, was wondering how that trail is right now.

Zims, Huginnin Cove was closed during my visit, so I didn't go that way.