[Rhodes22-list] Got Walk About Out Of My System!

[Roger Pihlaja]

Hi Everybody,

Well, I'm back from the High Adventure backpacking trip to Isle Royale National Park with my Boy Scout troop.  We had 6 Scouts & 3 adult leaders on this trip.  The 6 hour Lake Superior crossings on 06/06/03 & 06/14/03 were both very easy, waves 1 - 2 feet with SE - SW winds 10 knots or less.  We hiked 51.1 miles in 8 days.  We stayed in tents 5 nights, including the 1st night at McLain State Park on the Michigan mainland, & 4 nights in Adirondack style shelters along the trail on Isle Royale.  Day time temperatures started out in the mid 50's deg F & ended up in the mid 70's deg F by the end.  Night time temperatures were in the high 30's deg F with fog in the morning when we were anywhere near Lake Superior.  We only had intermittent sprinkles of rain one day, 3 days were cloudy overcast, & the rest were bright & sunny.  Most of the time, the temperature was too cold for the mosquitoes, no-see-um gnats, & black flies to be active.  We all still had insect repellent, head nets, & gloves; but, only had to wear them in the late afternoons towards the end of the trip.  These are pretty nice conditions for strenuous hiking.
  
At 8 days, this was the longest backpacking trip I've ever done without a midway resupply stop.  Eight days worth of food, stove fuel, gear, & other consumable supplies is pretty heavy!  My pack weighed 74 lbs at the beginning of the trip!

Isle Royale is spectacular, there's just no other word for it.

This sort of trip isn't for everyone.  The trails are well marked & it's hard to get lost.  But, the terrain is rugged & very rocky with lots of clambering up & over rocks, tree roots, & other obstacles with a heavy backpack.  On a couple of nights, we were the only group in the entire campsite.  At one point, we went entire 2 days without seeing another human being other than our party of 9.

At one point, I spent about 10 minutes hiding behind a tree talking to a full grown bull moose who was straddling the trail.  Since he outweighed me by at least 1000 lbs, I naturally let him have the right of weigh & graze by the trail as long as he wished!  But, I kept telling him how "silly" he was to be up on top of the Greenstone Ridge, some 300+ feet above Lake Superior level, how this area was quite dry & wasn't "proper" moose habitat, & that he should go on back down to some marshy area near the coast where he belonged.  I have pictures of the encounter.  The camera flash didn't seem to bother the moose a bit.  The moose felt he belonged right there & my logic didn't seem to persuade him to move on.  Finally, he grazed his way sufficiently far away from the trail that I was willing risk scooting on by.

We heard wolves at night, but didn't see any.  We saw moose with calves, moose swimming, a female fox with a litter of kits, loons carrying "loonlings" on their back, lots of rabbits & squirrels.  Newborn loonlings look like little black downy "puff balls" with tiny legs, not even really recognizable as birds.  The whole island was ablaze in wild flowers, too many different species to count!

Other than pictures, I brought back one souvenir.  I picked up a greenstone off of a Lake Superior beach.  The National Park Service rules say you're not supposed to take anything off the island, but this beach was littered with greenstones.  Seems like a pretty big resource to deplete.

I'm happy to say no one in our party got hurt.  I have one tiny blister between my 3rd & 4th toe on my right foot.  Other than that & sore muscles, I'm in pretty good shape after this trip.  Most everyone in our party got blisters, some of them very impressive & painful.  I lost about 10 lbs despite eating like a moose!

It was also pretty neat watching my son, Gary's, reaction to Isle Royale.  Lots of quality time, male bonding, father/son stuff & all that.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium