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.
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