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This is my first ever trip report and attempt to post one..Bare with me.

Isle Royale Trip Report

Preface: First trip for 5 college buddies all with backpacking experience including Acadia, Grand Canyon, Pukaskwa (North Shore of Isle Royale) and Zion.

Day 1 5/27/13 (Houghton, MI)
Being that it was our first trip to the island, we figured lets just take the Ranger III because it is ran by the parks department. Little did we know it’s worth the extra hour and 20 bucks person to drive up to Copper Harbor to save 3 hours on the boat and get on the trail earlier. We pulled into Houghton at about 3 PM. This is after we drove up through the middle of Wisconsin to pick up one of our buddies in Westfield who was camping for Memorial Day with family. 15 minutes after picking him up the back seat was starting the dice games for money. Needless today some friends ended up broke, while others were dreaming of the beer they could buy at the Library in Houghton.

I am very familiar with the Houghton Area, as the men in our family go on a fishing trip there every summer, I also have attended 2 separate football games at Michigan Tech when my younger brother played the Huskies. I had talked up the Library to my buddies and we were destined to begin our night at the Library once we settled in at the Travel Lodge. Once we arrived at the travel lodge we settled in and began to do a final gear check. We unpacked our bags ranging from a pre water weight of 28-34 pounds and made a list of final things we needed to pick up from Walmart before we left for 5 days on the island. They included sun glasses, an extra water bottle, and of course…..Hard Liquor. One thing this particular group of friends doesn’t lack is booze. We purchased our particular drink of choice in a plastic bottle to save weight by the time we left we had everything we needed.

After we dropped off our goods at the Travel Lodge we walked down to the Library. For those of you that don’t know the Library is a microbrew in Houghton, with a great menu and 9 wonderful beers to choose from. There was a Stanley cup game on as well when we went in much to the surprise of my colleagues who were all Chicago Blackhawk fans. When we sat down we all ordered the particular pint of choice and little did we know it would be the first of many on this night. After finishing our meal we decide we might as well get a pitcher of every beer they serve as it was relatively early still (10PM) I knew we had a looming wake up call of 7:00 AM to make it to the NPS check in of 8 AM. I decided to throw caution to the wind. After about 2 hours (12 AM) we finished the pitchers and decided to head back to the hotel until a little bar which name seems to escape me right now caught our eye. We spent about 2 hours in there talking to the locals and being told by the Bar Tender “we were idiots” for partying like this the day before we headed to the island. Finally, at 2:00 AM we were headed back to the travel lodge to crash.

Day 2 5/28/2013 Rock Harbor to Lane Cove

The wake up came swift and fast. I hopped in the shower for my last cleanse until we returned to Rock Harbor 5 days later. 4 of the 5 were quite perky for the late night we had, but Jake (who doesn’t inhale adult beverages as frequent as the rest of us) was in rough shape. He slept until the last minute before we left for the boat. Once we arrived at the NPS dock, we parked the car and dropped off our packs in the cart. We all made sure to keep at least one water bottle with us as to hydrate during the 6 hour trip. After some milling around the dock we finally were allowed to board the boat at about 9:15 AM. The boat was empty except for 20 or so NPS employees. There was only one of other vistor on the boat. This was by design in our planning. We wanted to enjoy the island before the main traffic of the summer had hit.

While on the boat we moved about the cabin taking photos from all the decks of the passing land in the channel before we reached open water. Luckily for Jake, the lady was calm as could be today he slept the entire 6 hours while the rest of us took in a Isle Royale documentary and played euchre and hearts to pass the time in the middle deck. There was an anticipation about us as we rode the boat to the island. You could tell none of us really knew what we were in for or whether we were fully prepared for it.

After about 4 hours we could see land in the distance it wasn’t for another 30 minutes before I realized that was the Island. The Island I first learned about when I was 16 from Copper Harbor. All of a sudden it was real. I was going to have to live with what is in my pack, did I pack enough clothing did I pack a warm enough sleeping bag, and am I in shape for the climb up and down the Greenridge trail.

Once we entered the harbor we started snapping pictures starting with the Rock Harbor Lighthouse, then as we worked our way to Rock Harbor. We saw the dock and the crew who was going to unload the boat. Once the boat was docked (2:45 PM), we disembarked and much to our surprise there was no ranger there to give us a run down. I guess the quick discussion and permit issuing Ranger Greg (I think was his name) did on the boat is all we were going to get. We waited around for about another 10 minutes until our packs were taken off the boat. We grabbed our packs, filled our water bottles and camel backs, weighed our packs for the last time (35, 35, 37, 38, and 42# respectively) then started walking up the paved path to the Tobin Harbor Trail.

After we reached the peak of the path, I was leading and began to look for the Tobin Trail Marker, I lead the group down to the sea plane docks. In the back of my head “I’m thinking here I am leading the group to the beginning of our trail and I missed the marker.” After some quick backtracking we found the trail and we were headed into the wilderness. The sounds of unloading the Ranger were gone all we could hear was the occasional squirrel and loon in the Harbor. The Tobin Harbor Trail was a good warm up, we walked a long the beautiful harbor until it was time to begin the climb to Mt. Franklin.

Once we began the climb we realized that there was more up and down on the island than the map shows. Adam who had done the Grand Canyon, called the trails the toughest he’s been on because of their natural nature (rock and tree routes). Once we reached the top where the Greenridge Trail, Tobin Harbor, and Lane Cove Trail intersect it provided us with our first photo opportunities. This was before we discovered Mt Franklin provided an even better view, but we were able to see both the north and the south ends of the Island for the first time. It was getting to be about 5 oclock and we decided we needed to high tail it to Lane Cove. We began the decent down some decent switch backs which I already dreaded going back up. Once we were down in the low lands the trail was easy. In the birch forest we could hear the sweet sound of a wood pecker. After some searching we found it hammering away looking for a new home in a dead birch tree. About half way to Lane Cove we started to cross a boardwalk when just to the west of us was a large Beaver lodge. It had elevated the water level about 3 ft or so. After the boardwalk we marched up the last small ascent before we finished our hike to Lane Cove.

Once we arrived at Lane Cove, we started to check out the camp sites. The trail clean up guys had been here just recently as you could see the freshly cut logs along the trail and in the camp grounds. I found it odd that there was a high number of freshly downed trees all going the same direction in a path. The trees were also all broken off at about 6-7 feet above the ground. It looked as if a tornado or some very strong straight line winds had knocked down just a path through all the campsites. It had the strange look of a war zone. We chose the furthest west camp site (number escapes me), It was on the cove and seemed to be most protected from the winds of Canada. Since we had the entire camp ground to ourselves we filtered water on the open shore where someone had made a decent little rock stack so they could get to a little deeper water to filter water. Boy, did Lake Superior water taste good.

After we set up camp, Jake and myself decided to try our hands at fishing off the shore. Jake was using a devil spoon and I was trying a single hook with a plastic white fish tail. Much to our surprise on the 2nd cast Jake had hooked a 15” Lake Trout. Jake being skiddish and afraid to touch the fish was holding it on shore until I got there. I jumped straight into the water not worrying about how wet I would get in an attempt to secure the trout, but the line broke and the lure and our dinner swam away. About 10 minutes later I myself hooked another Lake trout about the same size and was able to get it in. We were having fresh trout for dinner.

After dinner we enjoyed our first couple adult beverages. We went to bed at about 11 PM after securing all of our food and packs from camp foxes. Little side note in the middle of the night, I heard the sound of what I believed was something large scratching it’s feet in the leaves around our tent. I thought it was a moose rummaging around I woke up my tent mate Matt in a panic “it’s a Moose there’s a moose outside our tent”. Matt responds with “where, where”, then we found out it was our travel mate Adam getting back into his hammock. Matt woke up in the morning just to rib me a little bit about the “moose in camp”.

Here is a link to a few of the photos

http://s742.photobucket.com/user/trmills85/slideshow/

I forgot to say. I am working on the rest of the trip right now and will post it by the end of the week.

Good start to a TR!!
Good to know you can catch lakers from shore at Lane Cove.

I was pretty surprised we caught "two" from shore. It does get deep quick, We must have hit them as they were swimming by, because after dinner we threw lures for about an hour and didn't get so much of a nibble.

Days 3 and 4 coming up soon.

Day 3 5/29/13 Lane Cove to West Chickenbone

I, being an early riser got up at the crack of dawn, 7:00 AM, while my camp mates didn’t start moving about until about 9:00 AM. I started my day with a trip to the pit toilet followed by some filtering of water. I knew we had a long day of ahead of us and needed to pump as much water as my vessels would carry. It was going to be 12.9 miles on the Greenridge Trail which I knew had little to no other water and little to no shade.
At 9 our camp really woke up, Adam and Ryan began making their breakfast and coffee. Jake began packing up his tent and filtering water. We were in no rush to hit the trail. We seemed to be a pretty fast paced group on the trail. Matt went up to use the pit toilet, when all of a sudden we heard him yell “guys I need a really good friend to come up here”. I immediately said, I want nothing to do with whatever the problem in that toilet is. He then said “Adam” in a lonesome cry. Adam went up to the toilet where the concern of some blood in his stool and on the Toilet paper. Matt and Adam came back to camp and we discussed the concern. In the car, on the way to Houghton, Matt was eating the shells of Sun Flower seeds. I believe that to be the cause. After we checked to make sure it wasn’t an external bleed that could lead to infection, we finished packing up camp.

After breaking camp and packing up our water. I had 2.75 L for the day we began our trek. We left Lane Cove at 11:15 AM We kept a very good pace until we reached the switch backs climbing up the Mt. Franklin. That’s about when I realized I had not drank enough water in camp to rehydrate from what I lost yesterday. Cramping in my right calf was coming on. Every step up the hill it got a little bit closer to completely tightening up. I was trying to conserve my water I had as much as possible because I knew we still had 10 miles to go. By the time we reached the top of Mt. Franklin where The Green Ridge Trail, Tobin Harbor Trail, and Lane Cove Trail meet I was in full panic mode for the rest of the day and my cramping calves. It was about 12:15 and we decided to break for Lunch.

During Lunch, I did my best to keep my feet at a 90 degree angle compared to my legs to avoid cramping. We started to talk about water. I had drank .75 L, Adam had already drank his 2 L for the day. Thinking back I might have been better off chugging my remaining water to try to saturate my muscles, but I knew we still had a long day. After about 45 minutes and finishing up my tuna wraps we started the trail.

Little did we know the view Mt. Franklin provided just 50 ft from where we took our lunch. We hopped up on Mt. Franklin boulder for a couple of photo opps and then headed on our way. I was able to keep pace with the group for about .3 miles, then the legs began to act up again. I told my group to keep the pace because we needed to get to Chickenbone west early to secure a campsite. Jake wanted to take his time and decided to stay back with me, but every step I could tell was going to be a bad one for the rest of the day. Once we could see the Ojibway Tower we saw that as a good stopping point, but before that we would have our first moose sighting. Below us was a small birch forest and deep in it was a large bull moose with what was sure to be a large rack coming in. We didn’t really have a good angle on him so Matt and Jake decided to try and get a better one, but the moose was able to somehow navigate his large rack very quickly through that forest almost effortlessly and we never saw him again. Matt gave me a few of his banana chips to try and lower my cramping. It helped for a good while, but again the cramping continued. Once everyone got their packs back on it wasn’t 10 minutes before we had our second sighting this time a cow. She was by herself as far as we could see and decided it was better just walk back down from the ridge. She moved to quick to get any photos of her. Not only did we get to see 1 moose we saw 2 in 10 minutes. As we approached the Ojibway Tower we came over a ridge and out of no where a young bull who barely had antlers growing stood up about 100 feet in front of us. We had about a 3 minute staring contest with him before he decided he was uninterested and wanted to move on.

Our arrival to Ojibway tower wasn’t very celebrated. Matt, Ryan and Adam decided to run up the tower to take some photos. I decided it was better to stay below and save my legs as much as possible. At this point, I was down to my final liter of water with 5 miles left in our day. After they returned from the top of the tower (or 2nd deck), we picked up our gear and started our final march to Chickenbone. It was about 4:15 when we left Ojibway tower, our times were very slow today due to my cramping. The guys did a good job of walking out front then waiting for me to catch up. I would just keep walking though because I didn’t want to stop. The rest of the up and down hike lead to me feeling good on the down slope and poor on the up slope. We finally reached the marker that pointed to East Chickenbone and West Chickenbone. Based on the information I read in the Jim Dufrese book, we decided to go to West Chickenbone. (Hindsight: I wish we would have gone to McCargoe Cove, all I’ve read is good things). About mid way from the last intersection to west Chickenbone we came across a small stream at the crossing of the Portage from Chickenbone to Lake Livermore. My friend Matt had pumped some water for me for the last 1.5 miles before we reached the Camp Ground.

The last 1.5 miles seemed to fly by as I felt much better with getting more water in my system. We walked down the steep path dreading the walk back up in the morning. When we arrived at the Campground the first 4 sites had been filled up already. We worked our way east to finally choose a campsite on the water side that I believe was campsite 2. That night Chickenbone was the place to be as there was only one site open (#1) when the sun set.

Our evening was filled with pumping liters and liters of water, upon drinking those liters as well. I was determined to drink 5 liters of water before I went to bed so I wouldn’t have a repeat of what I experienced today. Even though I had read about the good fishing at West Chickenbone, I was too tired to try. I would just settle on a dinner of macaroni and cheese with tuna from a pouch. It tasted wonderful. As the sun was setting we decided it was time to turn in after our long hike. I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for those 12.9 miles.

Sidenote: Throughout the march from Ojibway Tower to West Chickenbone, I had images of a pack of wolves attacking the one slow, sick human in the bunch. Needless to say that wasn’t going to happen, but I was moving so slow and in such pain I couldn’t help but think of all the nature shows I’d seen where the lion gets the sick water buffalo. Also, has anyone noticed the water in Chickenbone tastes like a Northern Pike smells. It seems to have the same taste as the slime they like to produce. I attributed it to the fact that Chicken bone must be loaded with those fish.

Day 4 5/30/13 West Chicken Bone to Daisy Farm

I woke up in the middle of the night to hear a light thunder in the distance and the pitter patter of rain on the fly of the tent. I was not looking forward to hiking up the hill over the Greenridge in the rain. I said a couple prayers for a dry day and got up about an hour before everyone else to get started on hydration and water pumping. I took a walk up to the pit toilet and all the other campers were well on their way. We were definitely against the norm on this island when it came to starting the day as no other campers were still there. After pumping and drinking 1.5 liters to start my day, I filled up my 2.75 L containers for the day.

Once I returned to the tents, at about 9:15 everyone was up and about and ready to get the day started. This would be our earliest start of the trip. I think the rain made everyone want to get going with the thought of getting a shelter at Daisy Farm. After breakfast and packing of the wet tents we were on our way. We started to climb the steep hill to the Greenridge trail and I could tell my legs were feeling much better today. We got to the top and the rain had stopped. So we took a quick break to take off our rain gear as it was already beginning to warm up. The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful we stopped for a quick break on an open rock cropping in the middle of a forest that appeared to be made for weary travels to sit down, then we began or decent on the Lake Richie. On the decent there were plenty of small streams that were picturesque ( I LOVE RUNNING WATER), there were stones placed for crossings. I preferred that compared to a board walk.

Lake Richie was a beautiful lake under the sun. We stopped for lunch and pumped some water at a rock cropping that lead into the lake. I took the opportunity to cast a lure or two in the Lake Richie with no luck. It was quite warm so I figured the Northern were in deeper water. After about an hour we packed up our gear did a final check of the area and were on our trail to Moskey.

In about 45 minutes, we arrived to Moskey Basin, I asked Adam for the time and was shocked we covered 2.3 miles in 45 minutes. Our group was burning the trail today, there was no doubt about it. We took a quick break at Moskey as it was only 2 in the afternoon and we only had 3.9 miles left. I thoroughly enjoyed the views from Moskey. I took a couple of panoramic shots. There was a swift Northwesterly breeze funneling down into the basin. It was cold, but the pictures were worth it. The original plan was to stay at Moskey, but we decided since it was so early and we had great pace that we would go onto Daisy Farm.

We got our stuff together and began our final hike for the day. We headed up into the forest and rock cropping away from the cold winds rather quickly, which then led us all to be super heated because we had put on out thermal wear. About a half hour in we stopped for a break on a small ridge that was perfect for sitting. We looked at the map and figured we were about 2 miles from Daisy farm. We again were shocked at how fast we were covering ground compared to the death march we had yesterday.

We arrived at Daisy Farm at 3:25. 3.9 miles in 70 minutes. Daisy Farm was a huge camp site so we took a quick picture of the map and started to look for a shelter. We wanted to find one near the trail that was headed to Rock Harbor. We stayed in shelter 13, because it was slightly back from the water, but we still had a direct path to the stone beach. Once we arrived it was time to unpack our wet tents and hammock. We hung the hammock outside of our shelter to protect us from direct winds, and laid the tents up on a tree near shelter 12. At about 5PM, we could feel a cold breeze sweep through camp and hear thunder in the distance. In a matter of seconds, It was pouring rain. Matt, Jake, Ryan, and myself ran over to our tents to grab them and pull them into shelter 12 to fold. This was the first time we had experienced the lightening quick weather change of northern superior. We got the tents packed up and headed back to our shelter to prepare dinner and a sip of our preferred beverage.

For dinner, we figured that the Grill in Rock Harbor was going to be open on our last night, so we made the foolish decision to eat double for dinner. We all ate our dinners we had packed for Friday night as well as any sides. This would turn out to be a pretty poor choice more to come on that. After dinner we spent the rest of the evening playing a handful of drinking games, Euchre, and Cribbage. I went to bed early as per usual and fell right asleep while the others carried on. They didn’t bother me, I would wake up roll over look at them, then go right back asleep.

My group likes to take it easy in the mornings too. It is vacation, no need to rush!

I like to get out early and do my relaxing at my days destination. I generally want to leave a little time for a short day hike to explore the area after a good rest.

Day 5 Daisy Farm to Rock Harbor

I woke up to the sound of waves crashing on the beach. The weather was rather calm, but the waves were audible. I walked out at about 9 AM and started to feel the clothing I had hung up to dry, it was still damp, but much better than the previous night. I left my fishing pole out on purpose to see if a fox would try and play with it as we had been warned about leaving boots out at Daisy Farm. Sure enough there was a small chunk of the grip that had been gnawed on. I don’t think the fox found it worth while so he left it. I sat down and decided to warm myself up some hot chocolate. The rest of my group started to arise at about 10 AM. We took our time to break camp as we knew we had a pretty easy day ahead of us and if we kept yesterdays pace we would be to Rock Harbor in a couple hours.

At about 9:30 a gentleman in his mid 50s was walking by himself along the Rock Harbor trail past our shelter, he stopped by to ask if we had a radio on us. We did not and he explained that he had someone in their party who was ill and needed some sort of medical attention back in Moskey. He left a note on the Daisy Farm Ranger house and he was headed to Rock Harbor. We told him that if we saw the Daisy Farm Ranger we would make sure to make him aware of the situation after that we parted ways and he continued to Rock Harbor.

At about 11:15 we were finishing up our breakfast, washing dishes and packing up. We got back on the trail at 12:00. The hike to Siskowit mine was pretty uneventful. We did run into the hiker with the medical emergency he said he reached someone with a Radio at Three Mile and was able to Radio Rock Harbor. We checked out the mines then departed and we could see Mott Island. Shortly after, We noticed one of the boats was loading up and pulling out rather quickly. They could see us and were headed our way, We waited for the boat to arrive, they asked if we were the ones with the medical emergency. We let the rangers know it wasn’t us, but we spoke to the gentleman about 15 minutes ago and he was headed back to Daisy Farm, then back to Moskey. They thanked us and were on their way. We would later find out that the person with the emergency had kidney stones, He was given a ride to Windigo where he had to wait for the VII to pick him on Saturday. We had later heard on the Ranger that he drove 8 hours home before seeking medical attention. More power to him.

We arrived at Three Mile at about 12:30. We decided it was a perfect time to enjoy lunch on the dock. We dropped our packs and took in the bright sun. It was by far the best weather we had enjoyed on the island. I contemplated going for a swim in the crystal clear water, but I decided staying relatively warm was better for the final 3 mile hike. While letting our lunch digest we decided to take Matt’s GoPro Camera attach it to my fishing rod and cast it into the water. Matt said he would go swimming for it if it fell off. I said, that might be something worth seeing, but I will make to tie the knot extra tight. I then cast it into the water 3 or 4 times with film rolling. It came up with some pretty interesting shots. At 1:30 we packed up and headed for our last bit of hiking.

The last 3 miles were easy. We passed Susy’s Cave, which I decided to stay behind and take some snap shots of my friends coming back down the hill. By 2:30 we were arriving at Rock Harbor. Just in time to watch the Isle Royale Queen leave and the Ranger III arrive. We grabbed Shelter 2 rather quickly and set up shop. We then went down to the Rock Harbor shop to see about the Grill and it’s hours, much to our dismay……..The Grill didn’t open up until Tuesday. Even though we could see the Sysco boxes being unloaded from the Ranger, We were stuck without dinner.

We decided our best bet was to pick up something from the shop. I bought a large bag of Vinegar and salt chips and a mountain house New Orleans and Shrimp dinner. I felt it was the only thing safe as a lot of the food appeared to be from last years stock. Jake picked up some chef boy R Dee Ravioli that was dry and crusted upon opening. It was a little late because the shop had closed, so we found a way to share our meals with him to make sure he didn’t go to sleep hungry. The expiration date on the ravioli was March 2012 we were in June 2013. There was some light rain after dinner, we just went inside shelter 1 to play our game of euchre and cribbage. There was 1 other gentleman in the camp at the time, so we figured using the other shelter wouldn’t be so bad.

A gentleman was coming into camp with his gear he had just got off the Ranger and thought about paddling in his kayak up to Daisy Farm, but the impending storm that was coming in he decided camping at RH was ideal. He was from Philadelphia and had planned on spending two or 3 weeks on the Island depending how things were going. I was pretty jealous of his ability to stay as long or as short as he felt. My slave driving father wouldn’t allow that kind of time away from the office and I could only imagine the messes I would run into upon my return. Once the rain began to fall, he was in shelter 3, it began to leak, so in the middle of the storm he was moving all of his stuff from shelter 3 to shelter 1. I felt bad for him, first his plans were changed by the weather then he ended up with a damp sleeping bag.

We had plenty of time to investigate Rock Harbor, so I grabbed my camera, and made my way around the Lodge and to the America dock. I enjoy reading information sign posts so I found as many as I could in the area and read them. After dinner we spent the rest of the evening in our shelter, playing cards and finishing up our beverages. Everyone went to bed at about midnight.

Day 6 6/1/2013

The morning came swift for some. We woke up at 7:30 to break camp and clean up the shelter. We could already hear the Ranger III crew loading the boat and preparing it for it’s voyage back. At about 8 we took our short walk down to the ranger where Ranger Greg said we could board right away. The Ranger left about 15 minutes early, because everyone was on board. We would head to Mott Island where we picked up a couple of researchers who had come in with us, then it was open water. About 2 hours into our trip, Ranger Greg (I think that is his name) invited some of the people on the boat to the front portion for some poetry and song singing about the island he had done. I regrettably was sound asleep because I was the driver for our 10 hour drive home. We arrived in Houghton at about 2:30 and our trip had come to and end.

Thanks for the report!!