Isle Royale
Are we there yet…?
Prologue
This blog is a special one, not only is it the first one that I wrote – It also represents a memory that marks the beginning of the story I want to share with you and really part of the essence of this website; the baby steps into photography, hiking and conquering my dreams. As such, it will be longer than my average blog, but with good reason.
Preparation
It was the summer of 2015. School had been out for about a month, but I was still at Purdue taking summer classes – trying to get ahead a little bit. It had been a while since I had a proper vacation, so when my roommate asked me if I wanted to go somewhere I said yes without hesitation (at the time, I didn’t know what I had signed up for!).
Without putting much thought into it, I told him to plan something for a couple of days to get away from school and the daily monotony of attending classes.
My roommate got back to me after a couple of days: “Isle Royale!” he exclaimed.
“You mean, like a burger?” I said back, not knowing what he said.
“No, Isle Royale! We should go to Isle Royale for our mini-break, it’s a National Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, close to the border with Canada, only accessible by boat!” I remember him saying.
My first thought after he said that was that they must have really nice hotels (this was because of the name of the island) – little did I know that I would not be staying in any but rather backpacking through the island.
“Where would we be staying?” I said.
“We could hike around the island and camp as we go” he replied nonchalantly.
I didn’t think much about what he said other than I would need to buy some gear if that was going to happen. I would also need to watch videos about hiking and camping as I had done neither of those things.
“Alright! That sounds fine – let’s do it” I harped back, refocusing on my homework.
I was unaware at the time that such a simple reply would set a motion of events that would have lasting consequences to this day… It really is strange how small decisions can become big ripples later in life, changing that way we view it and the way we want to live it.
The Road
After buying all the gear I thought I’d need, I was ready for the trip!
Backpacking backpack? Check.
Map? Check.
Hiking clothes? Double check.
Oh, and I can’t forget the very interesting sandals recommended to me by my more seasoned friend.
“They’ll be great!” I remember him saying.
It was around 5 pm when we left West Lafayette. We had a 10-hour drive ahead of us and we had to make it before 6 am to catch the boat into the island. My friends' trusted Volkswagen was already packed with all our gear and topped off – ready for the road ahead. And as we left town, I couldn’t help but feel excited.
The drive towards Michigan was quite uneventful. With a couple of pit stops along the way for gas and food, we were making good time and shortly before 6:00 am, we found ourselves close to Copper Harbor, the town where our adventure would start from. We quickly parked our car and took a short nap before taking the boat. After 10 hours with not much sleep – we deserved it.
The sound of a man screaming woke us up, the boat was about to leave and we were still in the car… Talk about a wakeup call!
We grabbed our belongings and sprinted towards the boat, making it in just the nick of time. We found a small booth in the lower deck of the boat and we huddled together around a small table as the boat set sail.
It would be around 3 hours before we made it into the island but we were already busy going over our checklist and discussing the things we were going to do once we made it there. We would be staying in the island for 3 days and as we looked in the map we discussed all the locations we would stop at for the day, I don’t remember much from the conversation but there are 2 details that stood out to me. The first one was that we would hike around 10 miles during the first day to get to a campsite close to the shore. This seemed like a daunting task for me at the time! Mind you, I had no hiking experience let alone walking with a heavy pack for such long distances. And two, the names of some of the areas in the island like: West Chicken Bone. I don’t understand why it was named that way but it gave me a good chuckle!
Happy with the plan we had, we decided to nap again.
The sound of the boat’s horn woke me up. I looked around to see that I was the only one left in the lower deck and as I made my way up I quickly found my friends looking at the imposing island that lied ahead of us.
Isle Royale, from what I could see lived up to its name. It had this air of mystery about it, with not many buildings near the dock. The only big one that I could see was what I assumed to be the hotel. As the boat docked, we were quickly greeted by a National Park Service (NPS) ranger. The ranger gave us a brief speech about leaving No Trace (if you have not heard about this, feel free to read more about it here). The ranger then called the leader of each party in order to provide him with the party’s schedule. That way, if we were not back in the time we stated, the rangers would know.
While one of my friends went with the ranger to provide the information, my other friend and I went to the small “visitors center”. My friend and I browsed around and I picked up a short collection of scary stories to keep me busy at night while in the island.
Once we were done we met with our third friend, who had finally gotten the logistics down with the Ranger. After some small talk, we were ready to set out. We looked at our map and found the trailhead that would eventually lead us to our first stop.
The Island
Day # 1 – Are we there yet?
We hit the trailhead around 1:00 pm, fully committed to reaching our final campsite 10 miles ahead before the sunset. As we went through the trail we made some small talk, wondering what the island had in store for us. With cairns spread out throughout the trail, we followed curves and climbed over small rocks, hastily making our way towards the campground.
As the trail went on, I couldn’t help but notice the calmness and beauty of the section of the island we were currently on. Fields of daisies covered each side of the trail and complimented the golden sky. I wanted to stop every few minutes not to rest, but to take in the view. Unfortunately, time was not on our side and even though I thought we were walking very fast we still had some miles left before reaching the campsite.
Heading to our first campsite.
It was now close to 6:00 pm and the sun was about to set and the sky was stunning. I stopped to admire this momentarily... that is until I felt a sharp pain in my neck. Something had stung me! I instinctively reached behind my neck and swatted. It was a mosquito, quite bigger than what I was used to seeing. I told my friends about it and said that we needed to hurry. One of them quickly started running and told us he’d meet us at the campground.
Sunset taking before the mosquitos took over.
As my other friend and I made way with the last miles, we stumbled upon a small waterfall along the trail – usually a site to restock with water and take a break. But not this time… Let me share with you one very simple piece of advice, if there is ever a time in life in which you must run about 3-4 miles in the middle of a dense forest in a remote island without much light is when you’re being followed by a small army of hungry, giant mosquitos. And boy were these ones hungry!
My friend and I ran, trekking poles in one hand and the other one free to smack the beasts away. But it was not enough, the deeper we made it into the island, the more water sources and clouds of mosquitoes we encountered – it never seemed to end. Exhausted from running and smacking away at mosquitoes, I wanted to stop but knew that I’d be an easy prey so I had to press on… the only thing I could think of at the time was: “ARE WE THERE YET?!”
After what seemed like ages, we finally saw light at the end of the tunnel. About 500m after a turn, we saw what we had been longing to find. The campground and small pier, we had made it! Looking for our friend, we quickly spotted him sitting in the farthest dock from the island, sitting as if he were meditating, his jacket was buttoned all the way up and his head was covered.
We ran towards him and as we got closer we noticed the mosquitoes thinning out, until only a few remained. After telling our friend about what had happened, he looked at us while still holding the pose.
“Why do you think I am like this, huh?” he exclaimed while laughing. “I ran so fast trying to get away, I’ve been waiting for you guys for almost 30 minutes! So, let’s get to the shelter quick”.
Without much convincing, I nodded and we looked for one of the pre-made shelters to camp in. Part of the ‘Leave No Trace’ policy in the island was to camp in the pre-made shelters in the campground – a relief for us as that meant we did not have to endure the mosquitoes.
As we approached the shelter, my friend told us he had a surprise. We quickly turned to see him as he pulled out a giant bottle of Off! A miracle, I thought.
“Let’s spray the air around the shelter and try and minimize the amount of time the door is open, once I open it, I’ll spray and you guys get in!” he exclaimed.
A fantastic idea, but probably very silly to look at, we huddle by the door and as soon as he flung it open we jumped inside. I turned around just in time to see my friend letting the Off loose as swarms of mosquitoes tried to get in.
Luckily, the Off won that battle. We quickly set up the tent inside the shelter and my friends started to cook. I was too tired to bother cooking and tried to stay up to give them company but quickly succumbed to my sleep. It had been a draining hike and I couldn’t wait to recover some energy.
Day # 2 – Chicken Bone Sucks!
I woke up to the sound of small birds chirping away at the distance. As I stood up in the tent, both of my friends were still sleeping. I got out as fast and quietly as I could and started making my own breakfast. As this went on, I also attempted to count the many bites I had all over my body from the mosquitoes… I think I lost count after 20, it was not very wise to wear a short-sleeve shirt and open shoes.
Rule # 1 of backpacking: Don’t be me. Do your research and dress appropriately!
After a quick breakfast, we packed everything away and got ready for the new day. My hair was a mess so I headed out to the nearby dock to try and clean it. While one of my friends was getting water for the day I asked him to pour some of it on my hair to clean it up. I should have tested the water temperature before, because I was not ready for how cold it was! But it did make me feel refreshed.
Once we had packed everything and we were all fresh, our second day in paradise started. We had a goal of reaching our next campsite before sunset so that we did not have to encounter the horrible mosquitoes again. We left our campsite shortly after 9:00 am and headed back into the trail.
Up until this point the trail had followed the coast of the lake fairly well – we were always close to water sources and could see Lake Michigan as we made our way forward. But today, the trail started taking us deeper into the island, with every twist and turn we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by grass almost as tall as us. And as we inched our way forward under the blazing sun we could see that a lot of parts of the trail were deteriorating – wooden bridges were rotting and downed trees made the trail more interesting.
It was close to noon and we were just a couple of hours shy of our final destination when we decided to take a short but well deserved lunch break in a campground by the name of West Chicken Bone (trust me – it sounds much cooler than what it actually was). As we sat on West Chicken Bone eating cliff bars I couldn’t help but think why on earth it was named Chicken Bone… a thought that actually didn’t last too long when I realized I was out of water already. I asked my friends if they had some but they had both ran out as well. The only water source close to us was a damp and stagnant lake by the campground. But, even with the water filter the water did not seem safe to consume and we decided to just push the last 2 hours without water onto our last campground (which was by a dock, conveniently enough).
The last 2 hours of the hike for that day were quite uneventful, a couple of turns here and there, using the machete a bit to clear some of the foliage that was covering the trail and before we knew it we had made it to our campground.
Although the name escapes me at the moment, this was the best campground we had encountered throughout our journey. The dock was beautiful, the shelters were just outside the forest (so those feisty mosquitoes were not much problem) and the scenery was just stunning.
Taking a break at the dock.
We set up our tent and decided to cook by the dock. As I got some of the food items ready, my friends were setting up their cameras to try and capture the calmness of the lake when I heard one of them yell: “MOOSE!”, I looked up and sure enough there was a Moose swimming across the lake trying to get to the other side of the island. As my friend’s took pictures, all I could do was just stop and enjoy the moment.
After the moose left, we sat at the dock, eating, trading stories about the day and cleaning up. This was also the perfect moment to prank one of our friends. As you can see in the video below, we had a good time pushing him into the frozen lake! But once it got dark, we went back into the tent and dozed off for the night.
Day # 3 – My feet… they HURT!
My alarm woke me up this time… I guess I was too tired to listen to the birds chirping away in the distance. It was the same routine as the last day, pack up, make breakfast, clean up and off we were to the trail once again but this time with home in sight.
We got to the final campground close to 5 pm and finished setting up everything around 6 pm. We were drained, but still needed to eat. My feet hurt more than usual and when I finally had the chance to take those shoes off I noticed both of my feet had at least 3 blisters on them… No wonder they hurt!
I looked at my friend and without hesitation jokingly told him I would not take gear recommendation from him again.
As we finished our dinner, we came across a fellow hiker who we spent some time talking to about our day and what we were doing in the island – we traded stories momentarily and wished him luck as we headed back to our tent to sleep.
But not even an hour into our sleep we were woken up by the fellow hiker we had met earlier, he was yelling for us to come out of our tent. Reluctantly, we did and he informed us about a family of otters and moose that he had encountered a couple of minutes back in a creek very close to our campground.
Upon hearing this, both my friends got their cameras ready and sprinted with the hiker to try and get the animals. Me on the other hand, limped as fast and graciously as I could to try and get a glimpse of them.
After what seemed an eternity, I finally found my friends, the hiker and another group camped on the other side of the trail, I approached as quietly as I could and my friend showed me the otter family.
We spent around 30 minutes photographing them and sharing stories with the rest of the group. After the last group left, we decided to head back and sleep – this time for sure.
Day # 4 – I could eat that whole thing myself!
My friends woke me up this time. Apparently, I had slept through the alarm. I panicked a little bit but quickly realized I was only past my wake up time by about 10 minutes. We got ready, ate our breakfast and set off for the last stretch.
We hit the trail around 7:30 am and with 6 miles left, we needed to make it before 1:00 pm to catch the boat. As I limped away one of my friends decided he’d meet us at the Ranger Sation because he wanted to take a shower before the boat left and off he went. It was just my other friend and I for the remainder of the trail. Although it took us a while, we eventually made it back to the docking area.
“What took you so long guys?” was the first thing we heard him say. I just laughed and pointed at my feet. He told us about the shower and how it was the best one he'd had in a long time and let me tell you he was not kidding. When it was my turn to shower, it was an amazing experience – cleaning up after 4 days with barely any contact with water, this shower was on a whole new level. I was actually very disappointed when my 5 minutes were up, but I was clean enough that it didn’t matter in the end.
We had about 40 minutes before the boat departed and we decided to go to the hotel to grab some food. We ordered an extra-large pizza and 2 hamburgers each as we were starving for some real food. The waitress assured us the food was going to be out in time for us to catch the boat, but with about 15 minutes left – there was still no food. Worried, we thought we might have to ditch the small feast we had ordered if we wanted to catch the boat.
Once the food came, we ate as fast as we could, grabbed the leftover pizza box and ran (read: limped for me) for the boat. Fortunately, we weren’t the last ones in this time and found the same seat we used on our way to the island open.
As we sat, and finished the pizza we couldn’t help but laugh at all the things that had happened to us during the trip, and we relived some favorite moments once again in that round table in the bottom side of the boat.
Coming Home
After the three hour ride was up, we made our way up and exited the boat. Grabbing our packs along the way we slowly walked to our car which was just across the street in a parking lot. A trip for the books, I thought as we hopped in the car and headed home.