I’d been planning a thru-hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail for almost a year, but that all got derailed by a clusterfuck of covid restrictions & wanting to recreate responsibly, obnoxious tourists trashing the Tahoe Basin (& everywhere else–see Max Patch for an appalling example), and then of course the entire western U.S. was literally on fire, so… Tahoe was obviously out of the question.
CK and I wracked our brains for alternate trip options that felt exciting but still ethical, and five days before our scheduled PTO was supposed to start, we came up with a solid plan: Let’s do Isle Royale!
Isle Royale National Park (indigenous name Minong) was closed until mid-June, and the ferries remained shut down all season due to concerns about crowding and covid. I.e., the park was open *if* you could get to it. The only option, unless you happen to have a private boat, was to snag one of six seats on a floatplane, and as soon as I said this aloud to CK we were sold.
We drove up to Houghton, Michigan and took the floatplane from there to Windigo on the southern end of Isle Royale, and then flew out of Rock Harbor on the northern end of the island 11 days later. There were no services on the island at all this year (normally there’s a resort open at Rock Harbor with a restaurant, as well as groceries/sundries, showers, etc at the Rock Harbor campground), so we had to pack food etc for 11 days knowing we had no chance for a resupply or a bailout, which is darn heavy, man! Holy smokes. Also, the weather in September can start to get a little dicey for floatplanes, and we were warned to bring a day or two of extra food in case the planes couldn’t fly. We arrived on August 21st, and Windigo was full of bedraggled campers who had been stranded there during the last few days of rain and high winds. Normally I’d kick myself for ending a trip with extra food left over, but hey if it’s that versus Donner Party, rock on man. Heavy carry it is.
This was what our trip ended up looking like, although in a normal year where there’s more trail maintenance and more use in general (read: not as much crazy bushwhacking through overgrown trails), an average hiker could cover more ground than this pretty comfortably. The trails aren’t hard or technical, although mud can get pretty gnarly everywhere except for up on the ridgelines.
Days 2-4: Feldtmann Loop, skinny dipping in freezing Lake Superior, MOOSE IN CAMP, and a begging fox. We camped at Feldtmann Lake and Siskiwit Bay.
Day 5: Who needs trail markers when you can follow fresh moose tracks up the beach? Camped at Lake Desor South
Day 6: Camped at Hatchet Lake
Day 7: Camped at Todd Harbor
Day 8: Camped at McCargoe Cove
Day 9: Camped at Daisy Farm
Day 10: Back to civilization… kind of: the campground at Rock Harbor. Also the best trail of the entire trip, 3m roundtrip to Scoville Point
Day 11: An exhilarating floatplane ride back to the mainland, the Vault Hotel, steak & whiskey and an action movie marathon in bed
This was an incredible trip, and we lucked out massively by getting to experience the island in a year when it was almost empty of humans. Final tally: 10 moose, including two calves with their moms and three giant bulls, two shameless foxes, wolf tracks, many many loons, owls, curious red squirrels, and lots of impressive beaver dam action although no actual beaver sightings. And no otters this trip, womp womp 😦
We fantasized the whole time about buying a Boston whaler and basically living here, so yeah, we’d probably come back.
Cairns and Cócteles (and Frances) 