Isle Royale Forums

I will be heading to the island at the end of July. Any word on the condition of Chickenbone Lake? I saw a passing reference in a trip report about a hiker warning another hiker about the water there. I have not seen any formal warning from NPS. Thanks

This is a long way from recent, and it's speculative: When I walked the E Chickenbone trail about a month ago, signage from last year warning about blooms was still posted. It was very careworn and frazzled: clearly a relic of the previous season. I wonder if that's the source of the report you mention?

Current alerts don't include anything about algae blooms at specific locations or in general. With the current weather trends, it may rear it's head yet this month.
https://www.nps.gov/isro/planyourvisit/conditions.htm

You'll get the most current condition updates during your LNT orientation.

torpified wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:26 am This is a long way from recent, and it's speculative: When I walked the E Chickenbone trail about a month ago, signage from last year warning about blooms was still posted. It was very careworn and frazzled: clearly a relic of the previous season. I wonder if that's the source of the report you mention?

Yes, and then word spread.

funny how rumors spread!

Speaking of algae blooms, after our experience last July, I'm inclined to take the official pronouncements with a grain of salt (okay, maybe more aggressive electrolyte replacement).

Paddling and portaging our way from McCargoe, we had planned to spend a couple of nights at the Lake Richie canoe campsite. The park service warned of an algae bloom in Lake Richie. We saw zero evidence of this, but dutifully paddled across Richie, made another portage and settled down at Intermediate for a couple of nights (where there were no algae bloom warnings).

A party behind us actually carried enough water from LeSage so that they could spend a night at Richie. By the time they met up with us at Intermediate, there were the first subtle hints of a possible algae bloom there. I was skeptical, so we filtered water from the shoreline. That night I had several bouts of profuse watery diarrhea. Quite memorable. Happily, my son was unaffected.

Lessons learned: Official warnings can be helpful for trip planning, but from here on out we'll make our own assessment. We'll avoid water from a lake with any visible algae along the shore (but in a pinch, might consider getting water from the middle of a lake that seems to be minimally affected). In retrospect we probably would have been safer using the water from Richie than from Intermediate.

And yes, we'll continue to pack Imodium and electrolytes.

I just got back and there are no current NPS warnings about any blooms. Intermediate lake still had an old sign up from last summer so those might be causing confusion. I would monitor each inland lake yourself. I have been inland when warnings were issued, unknown to me, and when warnings were lifted.