By John Keefover of Keefography
Isle Royale National Park
Backpacking Trip Report May 24 - June 1st 2021
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DAY 1 - MAY 24 2021
Delayed…
I stayed the night at the Hungry Hippie Hostel up north past Grand Marais, Minnesota. I wanted to be up in the area and ready to go for our early flight on the seaplane out to the Isle. I knew I made the right choice when I browsed their book library in the community room to find an older guidebook from 1991 of Isle Royale written by Jim DeFresne. I read through the useful, albeit somewhat dated, book as one of the local dogs came to say hello. I packed my things and headed into town to refuel at the Java Moose for breakfast & coffee. After that it was off to the Cook County Airport to meet with the guys who just drove up from Duluth this morning. We were feeling good and excited for what’s to come!
Unfortunately we had to wait quite awhile... There was a fog delay that prohibited the Isle Royale Seaplane from getting to the airport. It was actually stuck in the Grand Marais Harbor when it had to make a water landing to get out of the fog. Eventually the little Cessna 206 arrived at the airport. We loaded up all of our gear and donned the life jackets as we prepared for take off. After flying up the shore for a bit though we realized the fog bank is still too thick to get out to the island safely… We turned back around to the airport to wait out the fog once again.
Loading up the Isle Royale Seaplanes Cessna 206 with our backpacking gear.
There was a TV inside the airport where we ended up watching the movie Sully almost in its entirety. If you don’t know that movie it stars Tom Hanks acting as the pilot who makes an emergency landing of a commercial plane in the Hudson River after it struck a flock of geese, and he saved the lives of everyone on board. At one point during the movie our pilot, Stuart, came out and laughed that this probably isn’t the best movie to watch as we’re about to make a water landing on Lake Superior! I’d argue it is though since everyone survived after all…
Anyways the fog cleared a bit and we tried again. The second attempt looked even worse than the first once you got out on the water. Again we retreated back to the airport. We pulled up the webcam for Windigo Harbor on the Island and it looked absolutely beautiful and clear there! Unfortunately the great lake was an entirely different story.
One of the other pilots for Isle Royale Seaplanes communicated with us that his flight from Houghton, Michigan to the Rock Harbor side of the Island was completely clear. We decided to give it a go again thinking third times a charm, right? Nope! Again the fog skunked us and we turned back to the airport.
It was getting too late now to make another attempt so we unloaded all of our gear. The company said we would try again at 3 PM the next day. That was disappointing having to wait so long the next day but it is what it is. It was kind of nice getting three flights to take moody pictures of the foggy Minnesotan forests, lakes and rivers.
We decided to go stay the night at the Devil Track Lake campground just down the road from the airport. I had scouted it out just a couple weeks ago and found that site #10 was the best. While we set up camp Ben was struggling to put his brand new MSR tent together. We all looked at it and came to the conclusion that they actually packaged the wrong size poles with it! We had asked him before we left if he set up the new tent yet and he said no but he’d figure it out when we got to the island. Well it turned out to be a good thing we got delayed and he was able to find that out before getting there!
We ran back into town to hit the Lake Superior Trading Post to see if we could fix the issue there. On our way to Grand Marais we finally got service again and got the call from the Seaplane company that they moved our flight up to 8 AM tomorrow morning! We were relieved to be able to get out there earlier and not lose almost another whole day!
Once we got service we also realized the trading post already closed... Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply was still open for a few more minutes though so we checked there. Unfortunately they didn’t have what Ben needed. They did say he could rent a tent, but at $25/night that was a hard pass over 8 nights. The new plan was for Ben to drive back to Duluth and get his old tent set up... He said he would meet us back at the airport the next morning. That was all kind of a bummer but we’re thankful that we figured it out before actually getting to the island and him having to share a tent with one of us while hauling around that useless weight. It was also Ben’s birthday... Happy Birthday!
He left and the three of us went to Voyageur Brewing Company for some much needed beer- and tacos! I brought a crowler back to camp with me too. There we started a campfire and watched the nearly full moon rise over a misty and completely calm Devil Track Lake. We went to bed early, waking up occasionally to rain gently falling on our tents. I drifted back to sleep and dreamt about actually getting out to the island.
A nearly full moon illuminates this scene of a foggy and cloudy Devil Track Lake.
I know this is a story about Isle Royale, and we didn’t even get to it in this blog but you know what? Getting to the Island is an adventure in itself! It’s only accessible via the Seaplane or Ferry. The seaplane is obviously the faster way there, but it’s more prone to weather delays and is more expensive. The ferry is cheaper though it takes a few hours to get there, but it is more reliable unless there are gale warnings on the big lake. The ferry also just started running again this spring after a season off due to Covid. When we planned and booked our trip it wasn’t announced it would be running yet so the seaplane was our only option.
We’ll get to the Island in the next blog where there will be many more photos and stories to come!
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Trip Report from backpacking the 42 mile long Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Trail. It follows sandy beaches and dramatic cliffs along Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.