Isle Royale Forums

Just off the island after five days at the end of July. Rather than a formal trip report, i am offering some random thoughts. If anyone has questions about specific trail segments or sites, just ask.

Bugs were not bad at all. Of course, they were around but they were manageable. I did treat my cloths with Permetherin and that clearly helped.

Trails were in great condition. Over all the trails, i recall only a singe deadfall across the trail. By far, the best i can remember.

I was with a Scout group, so we were in group sites, but the island seemed less crowded than last year. That was a pleasant surprise.

No need for this warning for regulars to the island but others need to be aware of the board walks. Many, many were in bad shape. One person in our party slid off a loose board and fell into swampy water. No injury, but a different outcome is easy to foresee.

Great swimming in Desor; bad swimming in Hatchet, which seems to be full of leeches.

The creek at Island Mine was quite low, but it was flowing and the water is good.

We all used Sawyer Squeeze filters and these are great. Mine is quite old and the bag began to delaminate. It would be a good idea to use new bags. They are not expensive and better safe than sorry,….

I wore trail runners rather than waterproof boots. Much lighter and wet feet dried very quickly. I am a convert. The shoes were grippier than boots on wet rocks. I wore Altra Lone Peak 6’s. An added benefit is the wide toe box which helped my toes a lot.

All in all, a great trip.

Two more items: Over the past ten years i have had growing problems eating while on these trips. My appetite just disappears. This trip was the worst of all. Almost all food made me nauseous after the second day of hiking. I was not dehydrated. I know i am not alone in this but this year was pretty bad.

Finally, our Scouts were divided into two groups. The other group got to Siskiwit to find some boaters using the group site, in addition to a shelter. The boaters were less than gracious in vacating the group site. Please do not use group sites, unless officially designated as an overflow site, if you are not a “group” per park rules. Remember that groups have no choice about where to stay. I also wish the rangers would explicitly address this as part of permitting, etc. Sooner or later there is going to be a confrontation.

JerryB wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:47 pmFinally, our Scouts were divided into two groups. The other group got to Siskiwit to find some boaters using the group site, in addition to a shelter. The boaters were less than gracious in vacating the group site. Please do not use group sites, unless officially designated as an overflow site, if you are not a “group” per park rules. Remember that groups have no choice about where to stay. I also wish the rangers would explicitly address this as part of permitting, etc. Sooner or later there is going to be a confrontation.

Sorry to hear about the group site conflict. Apart from some "discussions" it sounds like things worked out. I might have been tempted to tell them they could keep the campsite, just give me the keys to the boat(s) and we'll be on our way.

Clashes sometimes between hikers and boaters have been around for decades. Both groups can infrequently have a bit of a chip on their shoulders. For boaters that sleep onboard, hikers can sometimes be discourteous probably not realizing the dock (or at least a portion of it) is the boater's "campsite". Then they hangout next to the boat, doing the various things one does when hanging out without the proper regard for the boater's privacy. Hikers would never think to enter someone else's tent or shelter site just to "hangout". Boaters on the other hand can sometimes ignore or forget their sound/noise levels (sometimes alcohol induced). My personal disgruntled attitude towards boaters, as infrequent as they were, could almost always be traced back to a jealousy of their beer & fresh fish. I became an expert at "hanging out" just long enough to be offered some, although maybe it was to simply get rid of me.

Actually, I became a dreaded (part time) boater some years ago after joining the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary but have (thankfully) never owned one. I discovered that like any cross section of people there are good ones and bad ones (although it's quite difficult to find a "bad" hiker, especially on The Island).

Sorry for the rant but your incident triggered me,

just striking a note of solidarity: I am not gifted at Eating While Backpacking either. In fact, I'm epicly bad at it, especially if altitude is involved. So IR isn't the worst case, but it's bad. Over time, I've identified a few things I reliably can get down---principally, ramen, fritos, and shotblocs---and I just eat them again and again, no matter how much that makes me feel like a caricature of a juvenile thru-hiker. It's better than eating nothing at all. And I've learned to exploit the obvious silver lining: food weighs a lot, so if you know you're not going to eat much if it, that really cuts your pack weight down!

The older I get, the less I want to eat on trips. I have to force myself to eat breakfast, then I snack a little at lunch and once in the afternoon. Once camp is set up, I really don't want to eat at all. If I force myself to eat in the evenings, sometimes I'll get a little nauseous. I didn't have this issue until my late 40s.

torpified wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 6:52 pm just striking a note of solidarity: I am not gifted at Eating While Backpacking either. In fact, I'm epicly bad at it, especially if altitude is involved. So IR isn't the worst case, but it's bad. Over time, I've identified a few things I reliably can get down---principally, ramen, fritos, and shotblocs---and I just eat them again and again, no matter how much that makes me feel like a caricature of a juvenile thru-hiker. It's better than eating nothing at all. And I've learned to exploit the obvious silver lining: food weighs a lot, so if you know you're not going to eat much if it, that really cuts your pack weight down!

I like the idea of Fritos! I thought i liked the idea of Ramen, but that failed me on his trip. Thanks!

I'm intrigued. Is this loss of appetite only after long days of hiking? Does it persist on "zero days" too?

can't speak for others, but for me it's out of the gate, and doesn't seem to vary much as function of how much walking I do. Even more surprising, if you know me, is that I'm not interested in drinking (adult beverages --- I'm OK with water, tang, and so on, and in fact get a lot of my calories that way) either. It's worse at altitude: on IR, it's disinterest; at altitude, it's more like revulsion. The appetite comes back with a vengeance once the walk's over. I suspect there's a psychological component to all this, but I can't work out its mechanism. (Seems like a good puzzle for a backwoods doc!)

I am very similar to Torpified, except i experience revulsion at the thought of eating. The moment i hit Windigo, I was fine, even after a quick seven mile hike.