Welcome!

"Backpacking is the art of knowing what not to take."

- Sheridan Anderson

In the last 5 years I have gone from a modern campground goer, to an in-progress ultalight backpacker. Completed trips include Pictured Rocks, Isle Royale, Hoist Lake, Manistee River Trail, Nordhouse Dunes, Porcupine Mountains, Red River Gorge, and Big South Fork. And next week the Coastal Trail at Lake Superior Provincial Park in Canada.

My aim with this blog will be to compile posts of my past trip reports here, and as a future stomping ground for to be completed adventures. Both for my reference and to assist any would-be backpackers out there who might be looking for some information regarding these places. To see my gear list, check out the About Me section. Feel free to ask any questions, always fun to talk backpacking. Thanks for looking and happy trails out there.

Nordhouse Dunes - 2013

By now, I'm a Nordhouse expert. I drive in, I park, I hike 1.8 miles out of the northwest facing trailhead, I no longer try to cut a straight line across the dunes I trust the winding trail (even when the lake looks RIGHT there), I stay at MY site. This if my 4th time to Nordhouse, what could go wrong?

Friday night is relatively uneventful. I arrive at the parking lot around 4:30pm and promptly head out. My site is untaken (always a worry, though I'm 4/4 camping here). I set up, take a quick dip, not some dark clouds way way off in the distance and decide I have time to lay on the beach and read a bit before I cook dinner (hobo pie- angus beef patty, sweet potato, onions and carrots wrapped in tinfoil). Well I get a bit absorbed in my relaxtion, and am startled by a thunder boom that rattles the across the lake and crests on the shoreline. Uhoh, I snap up and can definitely see some dark rain clouds coming at me. I figure I've got maybe 30 minutes 'til I get soaked. Unable to tell if it will be a quick or long storm, I fear that I might struggle to make a fire after, so I go all in on dinner. I build a fire and as soon as I have some coals I have my hobo pie in it. I continue cooking at this normal pace for about 5 minutes, but man, that rain is coming. I secure all of my other stuff and come back to the fire. This is taking too long. The next step is turbo cooking, I just start piling wood onto my hobo pie and make it the center of the fire. All with the terror that half of my meal is going to be raw and the other half is going to be ashes. Finally I hear the meat sizzling and rescue my hobo pie from the mini inferno. I tear into it, and nothing is burnt. I cut open the burger patty, a soft soft pink at the center, medium well, nice! I warily try a potato chunk, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, perfect! I somehow made the best hobo pie of my life, and then had to shovel the mouthburning food as fast as I could into my mouth. It started sprinkling on my 3rd to last bite, with no time to wash the foil, I threw it over the hot coals in hopes of burning off the food, stuck my titanium spork into the sand and retreated to my hammock. I read maybe 3 sentences of my book...and fell asleep for a 2-hour nap. Oops, when I awoke, the rain had long since stopped and daylight was fading. But in a complete accident turned brilliant move, the foil I threw over the fire not only kept the coals and remaining wood dry, it kept them hot. I didn't need my firestarter, I just threw some wood on and started blowing. I will be adding a sheet of tin foil to my backpacking gear list.

Saturday is a warm and blustery day. The waves are huge. I spend it swimming, body surfing, reading, repeat. Mid-afternoon I finally force myself to actually accomplish something; I'll go for a beach run. South. For a mile or two, then I'll hike until I see the Ludington lighthouse and snap a picture. Then I'll hike back, and run the last mile or so to camp. I execute my plan, carrying a gym sack with just my camera in it, snapping pictures here and there and of the lighthouse along the way. I hit my marker on the way back signaling it's time to run. Beach running is hard. I'm tired and thirsty and excited to go collapse back at my site. I snap one last picture of a neat peace of driftwood, toss my camera into my bag and take off.

Twelve or fifteen minutes later roughly I'm back. Exhausted, and deciding if I should hike up to my site for water of just plop into the lake. The lake is closer and the lake wins. I take off my gym sack and...hmmm. It is very light. With dawning horror I squeeze it, empty. And a neat hole in the bottom of the sack. Anguish. I don't go get water, I don't jump in the lake, I'm too tired to do much of anything besides start walking back from the way I came, hopelessly scanning for my camera. It was windy, the waves were big, and I ran most of it on the waters edge since the sand was hardest there. It'll be a completed hail Mary if I find my camera. But I can't not look. I never find it.

The beach where I was running and the hole in my bag. 

At least I catch a nice sunset, and have my phone to take pictures with.

For the record I saw zero wildlife that was not in the bird family from Friday through Saturday when I went to bed. Still, I did a pretty crappy job hanging my food. I fell asleep feeling falsely secure. RIIIIPPPPPPPPP! I wake up well after midnight, disoriented. I hear it again, RIIIPPPP! What the he-, oh my food, the COFFEE! I'm out of my tent in record time with my headlamp, knife, mace, and hiking pole turned spear. The culprit, a large raccoon, has my remaining whole gym sack pulled up on the branch and is trying to tear into it. He freezes and stares at me. I do the only logical thing I can at 2am, I pick up a semi-burnt log with some embers still on it and heave it right at the raccoon. Even as my arm is on the backswing my brain wakes up enough to say no, wait, oh no. Too late. Sparks explode above my head like a tube mortar on the Fourth. Thank you rain, no forest fire starts, and the raccoon retreats to the top of the tree. I rescue my bag (still intact, just a lot of really small holes) and hang it properly. And still angry, I fill an empty bottle with sand and take one last aim at the raccoon. No dice, but it was still satisfying. This time I properly hang my food and go to sleep with a real sense of security. And in the morning the only thing that was ruined was my crackers, coffee was safe and delicious. 

Red River Gorge - 2012

The last weekend of March my brother and I headed down to Kentucky to backpack the Red River Gorge Geographical Area. The Red is just a little southwest of Lexington, from Kalamazoo it’s about a 7 hour drive. Neither of us had ever been to Kentucky before, or really heard of the Red, but I had been tipped off to it’s awesomeness by a co-worker, and the more I looked at it, the more excited I became.
The Red is a huge area, with trails spread all over the place. Alas to see as much as possible in 4 days, it was not feasible to start hiking at any one location and end at the same spot in 4 days. Instead we resorted to more of a day-hike approach. We would wake up, pack up camp, hike to the car, drive somewhere for a couple of shorter hikes, then drive to a smaller loop we could partially complete that night. Hike out in the morning to the car, and repeat. This provided several advantages. We didn’t have to carry all of our food with us. We could just restock everyday. This greatly reduced weight in our packs. And by going to a parking lot everyday, there was always an outhouse. I never once had to dig a hole in the woods, yay! Also we got to do a lot of hiking without packs, which is always bonus. Especially considering there were at least 2 trails we did specifically that would have been suicide with packs. There are a lot of cliffs in the Red.
It must be mentioned that there is no way Tyler and I would have close to the phenomenal experience we had without the book Hinterlands: Unofficial hiking in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge by Jerrell Goodpaster. There are hundreds of unofficial trails in the Red, many of them go nowhere of significance, but many lead to great vistas or hidden treasures. Without this book and our detailed topographical maps from outrageGIS we would not have enjoyed the Red half as much I suspect. Below I will list our itinerary with what I thought of the trails.
Day 1:
Without packs-
Whistling Arch Trail- After sitting in the car for 7+ hours, it was great to finally hike. Our first arch and a fun boulder to climb up onto. Nice intro to the Red.
Castle Arch Overlook Trail (unofficial)- Our first taste of the Red’s amazing vistas, a short little 0.14 mile hike off of Sky Bridge Road to a neat look at Castle Arch way out yonder.
Buzzard’s Roost South Trail (unofficial)- A good intro to what our hiking will be like. This semi-challenging quarter-mile hike featured a little bit of navigating and one neat chimney-like climbing sequence to get down a slot. From there we saw our first of many rock shelters and were able to climb out onto another point with a great view of the area.

Sky Bridge Trail- A neat 0.8 mile loop, the first part of which you don’t even realize you are walking over a rock bridge until you loop back underneath it.

With packs-
Douglas Trail (unofficial)- A 0.78 mile hike along the Red River, a gorgeous trail. Good campsites abound.
Day 2:
With packs-
Eagle Point Buttress Trail (unofficial)- Sigh, this was supposed to be a challenging but rewarding 1.45 mile hike up through the gorge to 2 sweet overlooks. In reality, due to storm damage, this trail might no longer exist. At least not that we could find. If we hadn’t of been hiking with packs, maybe this wouldn’t have been as bad. But man, this was our only terrible hike of the week. Literally all we did was climb over/under fallen trees with no discernible trails (the beginning was marked with pink flags on tree branches, but they abruptly ended at a rock wall) and gain about 350’ in elevation while whacking through the brush. When we finally scrambled up a steep slope and found a faint trail after some wandering we had no idea where we were, and wound up missing out on both overlooks. Sure we could have backtracked half a mile, but at this point the trail was dead to us, time to move on.
Osborne Trail- A relief after the brutal trek up to Eagle Point. Interesting scenery and nature  for the 1.6 miles we were on this trail. We were very grateful when we got to our car in the parking lot and could ditch our packs for a bit.
Without packs-
Bison Way Trail and Sheltowee Trace Trail- 1.1 mile hike to our prize trail.
Indian Staircase Trail (unofficial)- Flat out awesome trail and experience. One of the requirements when visiting the Red, this 0.94 mile trail is a must-do. Indian Staircase features a gigantic rock shelter (at least 500’ long), great views, and of course the staircase! For this, I have to add a picture, which will only be slightly less of an injustice than words would be for this indescribable journey. Photo of Tyler coming up.
Adena Arch Trail (unofficial)- This trail was on our itinerary, but we didn’t realize we had hiked it until we were past it. I still don’t understand where the Sheltowee Trace Trail began/ended/intersected/went?
Adena Arch Direct Trail (unofficial)- This was a steep trail back to the parking lot from Adena Arch. Again, we didn’t realize we had passed Adena Arch until we found ourselves scrambling down a ridge on this direct descent to the parking lot.

With packs-
Rock Bridge Trail- Descends quickly from the Rock Bridge Picnic Area via stairs and then follows Swift Camp Creek for a mile. Waterfalls and Rock Bridge await.

Swift Camp Creek Trail- Follows along the Swift Camp Creek. We had a cool campsite here that was only accessible by rappelling down a couple of short walls to get to the river. It was fun…though I’m not sure how legal our site was. Good thing we practice strict “leave no trace” principles.

Day 3:
Without packs-
Turtle Back Arch Trail (unofficial trail)- Turtle Back Arch was very cool. And it looked like a turtle (see below)! Lots of mini climbing obstacles to reach the overlook above it. Fun trail.


Swift Camp Creek Overlook Trail (unofficial trail)- Not a hard trail by any means, and it went to an overlook. But by this point we had been spoiled with great overlooks. After reaching the end of this we backtracked to our campsite, put on our packs, and hiked back the way we had come to Rock Bridge.
Chimney Top Rock Rock Trail- Short official trail out to a great view of Half Moon. We were unsuccessful at finding Chimney Top Road H and Half Moon on the way out to the end. Luckily we were able to find Half Moon on the way back.

View of Half Moon
Princess Arch Trail- Another short and nifty official trail. Complete with arch (with bonus bear graffiti, see picture below) and overlook. And no, I did not know how little rock separated my butt from a 300’ drop!
 


Half Moon Trail (unofficial trail)- The single coolest thing I have ever hiked. There are 2 spots leading out to Half Moon where one slip and you are dying after you plummet 350’ into the forest.  And that’s referring to the 2 exposed climbing sections (the book describes one as a 5th-class climb… I don’t know what that means). Now I am afraid of heights, and I was able to do these climbs fine (never looking down of course). Though having a spotter is nice as you are unable to see where your feet need to go at the beginning. I dare say Tyler would not have proceeded without me. Coming down is a little more tricky, as the 1st climbing section required us at least to slide down it on our butts…and the 2nd section required a jump down, about 6’ onto a rock landing. Way cool. This trail will for sure leave you with a sense of accomplishment.

Leading out to Half Moon

Above (Tyler) and below (Me) pictures are the first part of the climb.


Jumping down at the end.

The 2nd climb. Below “gracefully” descending this section.

With packs-
Pinch-Em-Tight Trail- Uneventful trail. Kind of reminded me of the beginning stretch of the Kal-Haven Trail off of 10th Street in Kalamazoo. Most of the trail is up on a ridge, and the trail was a bit wider.
Hanson’s Point Trail (unofficial)- This was an out and back scenic detour on our route, so like the upcoming Veranda Trail, we ditched our packs. Lot of storm damage, probably used to be a really easy trail to hike, but now there is a lot of debris to maneuver around. Two fantastic views on this trail!


Rough Trail- Fun and rugged official trail. We camped halfway down it along the Rush Branch Stream. Probably my favorite campsite. Secluded down in a valley with running water babbling all over. Relaxing.

Day 4-
Veranda Trail (unofficial)- After hiking up the gorge from our campsite, we were presented with this short detour of a trail to yep, another sweet vista! God this place is amazing!!
 
Rough Trail (to Gray’s Arch)- Grey’s Arch is impressive, it’s situated off of a cliff which makes it seem all the larger as you are hiking the base of it.

Whatchamacallit Trail and Classic Crag Overlook Trail- By now we were tired, the Whatchamacallit Trail was much closer to Grey’s Arch than we had anticipated and we were almost back to our car before we realized we had passed the trail. With reluctance we went back to try and find these trails. Sigh, and our first attempt was a fail. We found what we thought was our trail and descended out to the ridge. In our haste, we were almost running. In a related note, we had not seen a snake all weekend and thus I had assumed they were still hibernating for the winter. Final note, the copperhead snake (poisonous) is prevalent in Kentucky, for whatever reason we thought it was a type of rattle snake. It is NOT. Now, to our fruitless hike out on a trail that was not a trail. So scampering over fallen trees and flying down this trail, I am about to step onto one more fallen tree and jump off it. As my foot is descending…something on the tree moves. Snake! About 6’ long and black. I throw myself backward and the snake slithers off into the woods. But no rattle, so at least I didn’t almost step on a copperhead (Chris had a great time telling me that no, in fact copperheads do NOT have a rattle…but fortunately they are brown, so this snake was not a copperhead). Snakes do not scare me…but by no means did I want to step on one. Carefully dissecting my steps, soon after the snake we realized that this trail didn’t go anywhere. Frustrated, we backtracked and decided to look for the real trail for just a few more minutes.

The snake slithering away.
Well we did find the trail. But still shaken from almost stepping on the snake and just generally being tired with a 7 hour car ride awaiting us, we only did the first half of it. Our final view of the Red.

Nordhouse Dunes - 2011

Located about 4 miles north of Ludington State Park (by hike…NOT by car), I was pumped to revisit this isolated beach with my friends Chris and Ryan and my brother Tyler.
Of note, Michigan in June can be hot…it can also be Michigan. I mean cold. Weekend forecast:
Friday: 62/51 (about 55 when we arrived at 7pm) cloudy with rain at night.
Saturday: 59/46 cloudy and windy
Sunday: 65 sunny
Of course this meant Ryan (who by the way STARTED packing when Chris and Ty got to his apartment to pick him up) did not bring a sleeping bag…instead had a sheet and a think blanket stuffed into a trash bag. Anthony Weiner is to Twitter what Ryan is to packing.
It was COLD both nights (like seeing our breathe with the sun still up). Friday night it rained…I had a brand new never been used tent we all slept in…there were a couple small but significant assembly errors (in my defense Ryan and Ty setup 100% of the tent while Chris and I rushed to build a fire and get dinner going) that led to Ryan, Ty and I getting soaked, Chris was on the highest ground of our not quite flat site and remained dry. Tyler retreated to his hammock, Ryan shivered. My sleeping bag held tough despite being wet and I was never cold. Not warm exactly, but never shivered. Saturday night was dry, but even colder. I didn’t dare crawl out of the tent until 10:30, and even then I had to be in the sunlight or it was too cold.
Despite Sunday being our only nice day, we had a great time. Epic 2-on-2 football, frisbee, cold Lake Michigan (“I have an ice cream headache…on my balls!”), saw only one other person, only a 1.7 mile hike from the car, opening the tent door to Lake Michigan, hiccups and remedies, remembering we should hang our food about 3 seconds before the raccoons got to it, and cards.
Yeah, Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness is the best part of the lower peninsula.

Card break on Saturday for a group shot. Lake behind us = happiness

Our first glimpse of the sun…at sunset.

Ty shivering I mean sleeping.
Another group shot.

Same campsite I used last time with Devon. Nostalgia.

Isle Royale and Montreal River - 2010

Sunday was day 1 of my epic 8 day Upper Peninsula excursion. My brother and I left Kalamazoo a little after 8am and drove straight to his house in Houghton. Well with a minor stop at Canyon Falls for a roughly 35' cliff jump into the ice cold river (as seen on youtube here...note this is not actually us, I just have some pics). Other than that nothing too major, got some pizza at the Ambassador, grabbed several drinks and went back and I kicked ass in Mario Kart on the N64. Here are some of my experiences.

The Story Of Not Going To Isle Royale

So after waking up at 6am to drive to Copper Harbor to catch our boat, we pull into the parking lot where the attendant informs us due to gale force winds the Queen IV was not able to run Sunday and could not run yet this morning. We should check back at 2pm to see if the wind has subsided and if we can go. Motherf&*$er. We chill/nap/hike at the convenient Fort Wilkins State Park and go back at 2pm. No boat today. They will try again Tuesday morning, but all of Sunday's passengers will have priority and the rest of the seats will be up for lottery. Great. We set up camp ON the beach of Lake Superior in Betes Gris, which as it turns out is kind of a stupid place to spend your afternoon with gale force winds. I totally understand and respect the force that is wind erosion now. Sand is great...but it belongs on the ground.

Tuesday morning, we wake up at 5:30am and drive to Copper Harbor...high winds, no boat again. Check back at 2pm. Balls. We nap and explore Copper Harbor, and come back at 2pm...and YES, the boat is going out! Only problem, we didn't win the lottery, we are Wednesday's boat. After some arguing I convince my brother we should rent some mountain bikes and experience the Copper Harbor Trail System. Best idea I had maybe the entire trip. They were awesome and intense. Big climbs, huge downhill sections, and stairway to heaven has to be ridden to be believed. Sadly I didn't have my mountain bike shoes and couldn't attach my feet to my peddles, so I had 2 huge crashes that probably could have been avoided (well maybe not the 2nd one, I never even saw the rock/ledge I biked off of until I was already upside down).

Splattered with some fresh blood, we made the drive south again, this time heading to the Montreal River to set up camp on Lake Superior. Beautiful spot, but I was a little ticked that my bro's estimated 10 minute hike was in fact 30 minutes. This meant we would need to wake up at 5:10am Wednesday. Ugh. And after being sunny all day...it clouded up like 20 minutes before sunset. Lame. The UP wasn't done f^&#ing with us yet though, that's right, when we got up at 5am it was POURING!! And of course stopped raining right when we got to our car. If we didn't go out on the boat at 8am I was going to murder someone.

Well storms are rolling through Copper Harbor, but the boat braved it and we were off. In super choppy water. Wet and exhausted, it was a weird 4 hours. I fell asleep a couple of times, but we went through a massive storm and I woke up when I was airborne out of my seat going over a gigantic swell (thankful yet again that I suffer no form of seasickness). But cleared all the storms about 45 minutes out of Isle Royale and were greeted by the island with a cloudless day.

The Sad Sad Story Of My Bite Valve

One of the most essential items to any backpacking experience is water; both a filter and a means to store it. When I hike I carry a travel coffee mug (duh!!), a 20oz water bottle attached to my pack (usually with a tea bag soaking in it all day), and a 2-liter reservoir to drain while on the actual hike. Of course I didn't forget any of these essential items. I however failed to account the bite valve to my reservoir...you know the thing that stops my water from pumping out all over me with every f*&%ing step. I tried unsuccessfully to buy a valve in both Copper Harbor and at the store on the island. Sold out. Apparently I'm not the only dimwit. Anyways, so how did I deal with a janked reservoir? By drinking a liter of water in the first 10 minutes to back the pressure off of it, then keeping my thumb over the tube opening. Absolutely sucked. On our 2nd day I rigged up a plastic bag with our only rubber band and that actually worked pretty well (despite being a little inconvenient to actually move on and off to drink from, but at least my hands were free and I stayed dry). Of course I somehow frickin' lost the rubber band that night, and never saw it again.

The Story Of Not Catching Lake Trout, But Eating Them Fresh Anyways

We stroll into our site at Chippewa Harbor, pretty standard. Beautiful waterfront, but the campsites have some forest in between them and the water. My bro takes a nap in his hammock, so I wander with my camera out to the dock to get some pics. A fishing boat has just pulled in, and they are pretty hardcore. They're filleting and rinsing these fresh lake trout off in the time I would need to brush my teeth. Impressive to watch. I chat them up, turns out the one guy doesn't fish very often, but had some vacation days from the Baraga State Prison where he is a guard, so why not? Pretty cool, and then he offers me some fillets if I can find a bag. Awesome! I run back to our camp, and after some quick deliberation when I don't find my brother I dump out some of his food and take his now free ziploc ('cuz why would I dump out my food??). Boom, 4 massive caught-that-day fresh fillets! Easily the best meal I've ever had backpacking!!

The Story Of The Beaver That Was Not A Moose

Despite the island supposedly teaming with moose...we never saw one. *tear. Granted due to our shortened trip all of campsites were on the shore of Lake Superior, and we missed out on 2 inland lake sites that were supposed to have moose around. But I was really hoping to see a moose. My coolest wildlife experience came (well besides the 4 snakes I encountered, I really didn't think they were on the island, luckily I don't mind snakes) on our 3rd morning at McCargoe Cove. I woke up at 7am and was kind of just laying in my sleeping bag, not quite ready to crawl out of it's warmth (nights and morning are chilly that far north), but I kept hearing this pretty punctual loud splash in the cove like every 20 seconds. I figured it was the sailboat parked out there maybe clearing water. But curiosity got the better of me and I grabbed my camera and my book and headed down to the water to read for a half an hour or so before I made coffee/breakfast and woke my brother up. I get to the dock and hear the loud splash sound, and this time see that it is not emanating from the boat, but was like 5' off the dock. A beaver is swimming all over the cove and putting on a big show of splashing his tail. And I was his 1-person audience. He played around for a cool and way too fast like 15 minutes, then left me to eat or sleep or whatever the hell beavers do at 7:30 in the morning.

The Story Of A Rock, A Freaking Walking Stick, And My Poor Leg.

On our 4th day, we have a massive 13.2 mile hike up and along the Greenstone Ridge. No water and hot on the ridge. Around the 8-mile mark we came across a cool overlook right before Mt. Ojibway. We snap some good pics and return to the trail. Only now there is a group resting on the path down. One of the girls moves her pack...but leaves her walking stick in my way. No biggie, me and my 30lb pack can just jump down off the rock over that. I'm agile if not graceful. I jump, no problem, hike on. Well within 5 minutes my shin is screaming at me. Shin splint. Massive. Left leg. If I move my ankle up or down, it hurts. I have 2.5 miles of up and down ridge followed by a huge decent down to the shore of Lake Superior in Lane Cove that is another 2.5 miles. Feats of strength. Well somehow I one-leg it to Lane Cove....which is BEAUTIFUL!!! Site is right on the lake, tons of cool looking rocks in the water, Canada in the distance. Alas my leg is not allowing me to explore. The ibuprofin and killing the rest of my whiskey don't dent my shin splint (for the record I'm calling this a shin splint...though I've never had one, it was my shin that hurt, but not to the touch, just when I had to move my ankle. Confused? Good, me too). Also in there I took my brother behind the shed and ran him over with a tractor in cards. It was a massive beatdown, making up for some lame losses earlier in the week. We finally go to bed for our last night, and when I wake up in the middle of the night to pee, my leg still kills. Our last day is only supposed to be about 7 miles back to Rock Harbor, but I'm already dreading the climb out of Lane Cove on one leg.

Well miracles do happen. I wake up in the morning...and my leg is way better. Not perfect, but not shooting pain either. In fact I feel pretty great relative to last night. I haul ass up our ascent and get a nice 10 minute break while my brother catches up (he was taking pics....right).

The Story Of Our Rock Harbor Surprise(s)

My parents were also on the island for the weekend (but stayed in a cabin). We ran into them chilling by the harbor. Turns out my Mom had fallen and broken her wrist on their 2nd day there while hiking on some rocks in the rain. But she is a nurse and knows how to properly care for and baby it. Also waiting for us was an ice cold Keystone Light (which is like my Dad's fave beer), which was absolutely delicious. Then began the 4.5 hour boat ride home, the 10 hour car ride, the getting home at 6am, the having to get up for work at 7am, the working all day in a brand new school in a new (to me) classroom, then I moved into my apartment that night. Ask Kyle, I was delirious and incapable of thought when we went to the grocery store, but I survived. The point is, experience Isle Royale, it is the coolest, most beautiful place in Michigan!!!

Porcupine Mountain State Park - 2009

Day 1: 9.4 miles total

Government Peak Trail- M-107 to Trap Falls. 4.6 miles round trip but sans packs

The trail was neat and the falls were cool, but I'm glad we did this first because we saw things that were way cooler.

North Mirror Lake Trail- Lake of the Clouds overlook to Mirror Lake. About 4.8 miles

Starting out at the overlook offers a beautiful view and we can see the valley we're about to descend down to the lake...and then the massive climb we make back out the other side. We'd rise 650' in about .75 miles. Again massive.

Our campsite was on Mirror Lake, about 10' from the water's edge. A gorgeous spot, but probably our least favorite of our 3 campsites. That's how sweet the next 2 were. We also had a "storm" at night...but if this was a storm then the next day was a hurricane.

Day 2: 9 miles

South Mirror Lake Trail to Summit Peak Tower Trail. 2 miles

Two always ascending miles as we climbed to the highest hikeable point in the park. And 2nd highest peak in the state! At the top is a small observation tower which on a clear day offers sweet views of the park. We naturally hit it on a super foggy morning.

Summit Peak Tower Trail to Beaver Creek Trail. 1.7 miles.

Beaver Creek is a nice mild downhill trail that runs down through a gorge and out into a vast marsh/wetland.

Little Carp River Trail- Beaver Creek to about 1 mile past the Crosstrail Junction. 5.3 miles

Starting from the marsh this trail wraps around Lily Pond and then cuts through the forest. Finally about 3 miles later meeting back up with the Little Carp River around Overlooked and Greenstone Falls. Really this entire river is made up of falls...it's just the larger ones have names.

We set up camp literally on the river it seemed as the flowing water flooded our ear drums with its calming pulse. There was another tent set up next to ours, but it was their last day and they were gone by the time I got up from my nap. The sun finally broke through the haze in the afternoon and we were able to soak in the river (ice cold, but refreshing) and lounge. As the sun headed towards the western horizon the clouds came rushing back, but no sign of rain. Alas at 1:30am I was awakened to rain hitting my tent, but nothing major other than the relief that I had ultimately decided to attach my rain fly and I went back to sleep. Around 2:30 I was woke up again as the rain had reached torrential strength and the wind was howling. Frantically I felt around my tent and was relieved to find the interior dry. It was LOUD outside. Then the thunder and lightning came on for the main event. Pretty much every time I have backpacked I have experienced some kind of storm from inside the tent. This was easily the most insane one yet. The lightning seemed to start from within my tent, with every flash even with my eyes closed I felt like I'd been blinded by a strobe light. The thunder was not a rumble but instead the roar of a lion mated with a megaphone . This went on for hours. I was in and out of sleep until about 4am with this storm. Needless to say Tyler and I were both tired when we finally crawled out of our tents (cloudy, but no more rain) in the morning.

Day 3: 5 miles w/ packs plus 2.5 sans

Little Carp River Trail- Campsite to Lake Superior. About 5 miles

Shortly after leaving our now soggy campsite we came to our first true river ford. Meaning no bridge or easy rock path across. I grabbed a couple of discarded walking sticks and semi-gracefully ventured across sticking to mostly dry rocks with success. Feet dry. Ty also made it across without incident and we were rewarded with the beautiful Trappers and Explorers Falls. After this was another river ford, and here Ty and I disagreed on the best way across. My way was wrong. I made it about halfway across when I came to a log that was supposed to allow the rest of my safe transit. Nope. Just tapping the log with my toe sent it spinning shifting in the water. All that would accomplish is me plummeting into the river with my pack, no thank you. I briefly considered turning back after seeing the success Tyler was having downriver, but part of me wanted to test out the quick-drying ability of my hiking shoes and wading across knee-deep water was the quicker solution. I'm still not sure if this was the correct choice, as my shoes felt damp the next morning? But when I put my feet in them they remained dry even after walking several miles.

Lake Superior and part of the Big Carp River Trail. Round trip 2.5 miles

Lake Superior is easily my favorite lake in the world. Our campsite could've been on an active volcano and I still would've picked it as our favorite. That being said our site was fantastic. Someone long ago had built a couple of walls from driftwood to block the fire pit and a flat area for tents if it was blustery. There were also various chairs and benches made from rocks around the fire pit. My personal highlight was finding a flat spot about 5 feet from the shoreline that was protected from waves/wind (well as long as a huge storm didn't come in) by a granite wall (no beach here). After setting up camp Ty and I set up the Big Carp River Trail about a mile to a spot unofficially called Bathtub Falls. Here there is just never ending small falls and rapids, perfect for crawling into and soaking in various whirlpools. After this we headed back to Lake Superior to soak up the sun on the shoreline and swim in the lake. Life was rough that day :)

Day 4: 9.7 miles

Big Carp River Trail- Lake Superior to Lake of the Clouds overlook

As everything must do, our trip came to an end with a 9.7 mile hike out. We'd also be gaining almost 1,000' of elevation today, 450' of it coming on a brutal 1/2 mile stretch. The beginning of this trail up to the astounding (and the park's biggest) Shining Cloud Falls was gorgeous, as were the last couple of miles walking atop the bluff to the overlook. Maybe because we were tired, the end was in site, and Ty's backpack strap broke, but the middle 5 miles seemed extra grueling and dragged on.

Nordhouse Dunes - 2009

I commend my friend Devon for introducing me to Nordhouse, now my favorite place in the Lower Peninsula.

Backpacked Nordhouse Dunes north of Ludington. This was beautiful...and it really wasn't backpacking. I went with my friend Devon and her brother (Dillon) and girlfriend (Cassie). Of course I was picturing a weekend of backpacking and packed accordingly; Kept my pack weight to 30 pounds, didn't pack a beach towel, etc. We get out of the car at Nordhouse and I pulled Dillon's bag out to discover it weighed like 50 pounds and had a full-size STOVE inside I grew skeptical. Then I saw Cassie pack big iPod speakers and iPod (with ONLY country music. I'm a somewhat convert in that I don't mind some country inter-mixed with my non-country tunes...but a weekend of just country into her pack and I was ready to take Jason Aldean's Big Green Tractor and run over Rascall Flatts, over and over until I ran out of gas) and frowned. The last straw was when I realized they were carrying a DUFFEL bag with an axe, huge propane stovetop and other heavy equipment that wouldn't fit in Dillon's 50 pound pack (though I admit the pancakes were a pleasant and tasty morning surprise)! Exasperated, I was forced to ask how long we'd be hiking. Answer: about a mile with a question mark?

I can definitively say it is 1.8 miles now. Also after various trips back, I have only ever hiked northwest out of the parking lot and taken the dune trail. More people seem to take the southwest trailhead. Probably shorter and less elevation, but I have my favorite spot I have to have on the northern end of the dunes. :)

Hoist Lake - Huron National Forest - 2009

Tyler and I set out from the cabin to backpack part of the Huron National Forest, specifically the Hoist Lake area. Was our trip a success? Kind of depends on your definition of failure.

Coming from the mid-90's and humid weather of Kalamazoo we were relieved to experience low 80's with ZERO humidity in Alcona County. I almost shivered. Our 5.3 mile hike in was beautiful and exceeded my expectations. Marshes, rolling hills, pine forests, small ponds all bathed in sunshine. Our spirits were high. We reached our destination at Byron Lake and set up camp at a designated (and isolated) site on a hill overlooking the lake (really a large pond that was NOT stream fed, more on this later). Despite the "cooler" temp, Ty and I were both hot and tired, so jumping in the lake was the first priority once our tents were up. Now while I know bears do occupy the northern Lower Peninsula (my friend Dave even came face to face with one a few years back at my cabin!) and we'd be hanging our food that night, I didn't see any problem with leaving our packs on the ground for the 15 minutes we'd be swimming. Oh naive Lee.

After a refreshing dip in the lake (not nearly as cold as the Au Sable River...but still felt good), we hiked up our hill to our campsite and everything seemed in place. Only as we drew nearer to our packs...Ty's started to move! And his pack contained all the food...and coffee! We both stopped with jaws unhinged as a chipmunk wiggled out from the drawstring opening and ran off. Horrible images flashed through my mind of a destroyed coffee bag or half-eaten cookies. Ty threw open his pack and pulled out 2 apples with several bites out of out each. What the hell chipmunk!?! You couldn't eat just ONE apple at a time, you had to desecrate both?! Relieved that all of the other food was still sealed we tossed our wasted apples deep into the forest while cursing our new campsite buddy. Yep, that's right, this chipmunk was bold, he never left until we hung our food after dinner. We threw many a rock at him, but he always came back. I called him herpes, or The Herp.

Keeping a weary eye on our pal, we attempted to boil some water on Ty's wood stove. Alas the supports were as flimsy as a kayak in a hurricane and our boiling water tipped over right BEFORE we added our dinner, thank God! Perhaps this was a sign that something wasn't quite right with the water and we should bust out our legit filter instead of just relying on tablets. Oops, hindsight is a bitch. I didn't get sick, but Ty spent a few miserable hours the next day puking constantly after we'd gotten back to civilization. 

Pictured Rocks National Park - 2008

Note this trip took place August of 2008, and was my brother Tyler's and mine first backpacking trip.

Day 1
Ty's pack weighed in pre-water at 35lbs, I came in at 29lbs. Ty was carrying most of the food, so by the end his pack was less than mine.
Waved farwell to Kalamazoo at 8:30am, arrived Grand Marais about 3:45pm. Plotted our backcountry routes and campsites at the visitor center (that's right, we really had no plan going into this! Thank you Brody for being incredibly helpful and patient!). Left Ty's car (loaded with ALL of his school stuff minus some valuable stuff (computer, projector) we threw in my trunk) there and then we beelined it in my car to Munising to begin our 42.4 mile hike BACK TO Grand Marais (PR is not really a place you can loop, its a straight line). We began hiking at 5:40pm with 5.1 miles to race to before dark to reach our first campground, The Cliffs.
We reached The Cliffs about 7:45pm and found we had the entire campsite (well there were only 3 of 'em I guess) to ourselves. We pitched our tents and made a hurried dinner of some old old old instant stew (from about '99, but it was still good) my Dad had given us. Not the best thing I've ever eaten, but we didn't die. Dark hit us as we were cleaning up and we didn't really inspect the bear pole well enough to get our bag hung properly in the night. If a bear HAD come along, I think he could've had a feast. Exhausted, we fell asleep.
5:10am, I wake up to distant thunder and some flashed of lightning. Grumbling a little I got out of my tent to pull my pack inside just in case it rained (I wasn't sure of the waterproofness of it, and didn't really want to find out). I fell back asleep until about 6:15am when the sky opened up with what had to be a monsoon! This tought me a valuable lesson: Just because the tent fly is attached does not mean it will stop water unless it is pulled TIGHT! I decided since I was only getting sprinkles in from splash damage that it wasn't worth it to wade outside and evaluate my error. The storm let up around 7:30am and I was able to fall back asleep (I enjoy storms, but the thunder was too irregular to get used to, I couldn't tune it out, apparently Ty couldn't either).

Day 2:
Crawled out of my tent at 9:30am to a sunny sky and still wet and dripping trees. Hung a clothesline and we threw our tents on them to dry up while we leisurely had breakfast. Today we only had to hike 6.4 miles to reach our next campground, Mosquito (despite the horrible sounding name, Mosquito was actually an awesome campsite along a little river mouth off of Superior, this and Chapel are the two most popular campsites in the park, and the only two with legit outhouses). From our tents we could hear the waves crashing (they were ocean size huge our first two days)

Lake Superior with Grand Island in the background.














Miner's Castle used to have two "towers" but one collapsed in April of 2006.














The beautiful (and miles long) coastline

Tyler stopping to enjoy the view.

Mosquite Falls. This is unfortunately a regrettable story. Day 2 taught us the value of "pacing" and that it is basically a human law that after every hour of hiking, a 5 minute (minimum)sitting break is needed regardless of how fast we were walking. We were not good about stopping in a timely manner until we learned the hardway, by feeling absolely wiped when we got to Mosquito. I personally felt worse on this day than on our 13 mile day 4. The last 1.5 miles was grueling and I think my feet were crying. So naturally we set up camp and feel a little better and Tyler really wants to hike up to Mosquito Falls which is 1.6 miles away! Granted without packs, but I was still skeptical and really just wanted to go read or something on the shoreline. Eventually I felt that I could not let him gain an extra hike on me so I agreed to go and we set out at a fast trot. 1.6 miles (uphill) later we got this view. Totally dissappointing! We do see that the trail continues in a loop down the other side of Mosquito River so we trek on hoping this way will be shorter. False! What would turn out to be 0.3 miles later we find a sign that says it is NOW 1.6 miles back to our campground. [Insert profanity]. Ty decides to jog back to get in shape for club soccer while I stare incredulously at his fading form. [Insert much more profanity] I realize I can't let him run back while I walk, so I set off at a trot with protesting feet in hiking (aka walking, NOT running) shoes. Once I'm loose it briefly felt good to run, so I stupidly increased my pace (I should point out this isn't some high school track, this is a very up and down trail full of roots, boardwalks over swamps, rocks, and sand). About half way back I catch up to my walking brother (who claimed he rolled his ankle) and passed him. Sweating, tired, feet feeling like if they had a gun they would shoot me, I entered the home stretch and promptly kicked (nailed, blasted, hit at killling speed) a rock/root that stubbed my toe, broke the toenail, and made my foot go briefly numb before the pain set in. I walked/hobbled another 100 yards and found myself back at camp! So close! The toe would be fine, but I would battle a blister the size of a 50 cent piece on the back of my heel the rest of the trip. Stupid Mosquito Falls!

I'd like to clarify a few things that I could've worded better. There are 2 different ways to camp at the park. There is your basic rustic campgrounds (of which we hikeded through a couple), no electricity, but outhouses (very nice ones, for outhouses) and a water pump. These had all sorts of campers, RV's, and tents set up at and seemed very nice (plus they were on the beach!). What we did was camp at the backcountry sites. For instance our first night was at The Cliffs. We reserved this site at the visitor center, and their were 3 different camping sites at The Cliffs. These go on a first come, first serve basis for the people who have registered for it. So first one to each site has first dibbs on location. We were never the last people at a camping site, so we usually had a couple of different options.

Day 3
The day started sad when I realized that my camera had been left "on" all night and my battery was about dead (limiting my picture taking for the remaining part of our trip, but it never did die). Stupid switch location. Today Ty's camera also broke down when for no reason his zoom become dysfunctional (until mysteriously returning to function on our last day) and all of his pics up to this point were erased.

Camera setbacks behind us we set out and hiked 10 miles from Mosquito to Beaver Creek. This was our last day of cliffs, but also our best day. We hiked past Chapel Rock, Grand Portal, and Spray Falls (see pics below) and spent a lot of time 200' above the water. Beaver Creek was an awesome backcountry site, easily our favorite! It's located near the beginning of 12-mile beach (really, it's at least 12-miles, we hiked the whole thing on our journey) where the creek runs out to the water. The sites all filled up, but they were seperated enough where we felt alone with the lake. I even washed up in the nude in Superior and never saw anyone. Very peaceful and relaxing, plus at night there wasn't a cloud and we were treated with a collage of stationary stars (way way way more than you can see in Kalamazoo) and shooting stars.

Tyler resting and enjoying the view

Grand Portal

Another arch before Grand Portal

Spray Falls. We hiked up right to where the water pumps out over the edge, very cool.

A tree gone for a swim, making a break for Canada. Reminded me of the tree-things in Lord of the Rings.

Our campsite at Beaver Creek. Lake Superior is just over the sand hill!

The cliffs fading into 12-mile beach. The point way out on the left is what we had to go around to reach our last campsite.

Day 4

Long day, hiked Beaver Creek to Au Sable East. Total of 13.3 miles. Most of it is across 12-mile beach, so there wasn't much need to stop and sight see every 10 minutes, so we actually made really good time and it only took us 6.5 hours (including breaks and a swim).

A very old deck of a ship that crashed. The "graveyard" is a huge underwater mesa-like form that is 6' deep and over a mile from shore. Many ships have been claimed by it.

Day 5

Only 7.1 miles to go! Au Sable to the Visitor Center in Grand Marais. Of course we had to hike up the side of the 300' sand dunes which proved strenous, but for the most part we flew threw the hike.

Grand Sable Dunes, rising 300' out of the water. This climb was intense!

Sable Lake, only a mile or so left in our journey! The end was kind of a bummer as part of our hike was by way of road, and then when we finally made it to Ty's car it had a flat tire. Not our happiest moment.