By John Keefover of Keefography
Isle Royale National Park
Backpacking Trip Report May 24 - June 1st 2021
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DAY 3 - MAY 26 2021
Lane Cove to McCargoe Cove: 13 miles
Though it was cold I slept great besides waking up a couple times including minutes before my alarm went off to get up and check for moose before sunrise. I scouted the whole shoreline to no avail and it was too overcast for a sunrise so I went back to bed for a bit. I woke up a few hours later when everyone else was moving about. I ate one of my more hearty breakfast meals to get ready for our big 13 mile day and big climb out of Lane Cove.
Oof! Took us about an hour to hike the 2.4 miles out of Lane with the steep elevation and downed trees. Definitely a good way to start the day though! At the trail junction we took a snack break and met the father/daughter pair that had been camping in site #3. We talked a bit in between catching our breathe. We also had to conserve our water because there’s no water source until we hit East Chickenbone in 8 miles.
Climbing one of the many ridges after Lane Cove.
Once we got going again we soon got to a beautiful overlook at the top of Mount Franklin. It provided amazing views of Canada to the north including Thunder Bay, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park and the impressive rolling hills further East.
Onward and along the Greenstone Trail until we reached Mount Ojibway and the fire tower. It’s the junction to a few trails and at lunchtime it was a popular spot! Around 10 people showed up while we were eating and climbing the tower. It was cold and windy up at the top, but it provided great views of the surrounding landscape, especially of Sargent Lake.
We continued on the Greenstone from there to find an area with fresh beaver activity that flooded the trail with water. This wasn’t one of the flagged off sections the ranger told us about either so we had to pay attention to where we were going and where the trail started up again.
Not having a reliable water source was starting to get to us as we were dwindling our water supply going on almost 11 miles. We finally got to E. Chickenbone which we thought was a pretty crappy campground as far as Isle Royale goes. It’s just tucked into the woods and pretty far away from the water source on Chickenbone Lake. Once we finally got to the lake we drank lots and lots of water. There were 2 Trumpeter Swans off in the distance. I watched them for a bit and the peaceful scene was interrupted by the sound of Chad farting. He made sure I wrote that down in the journal as I caught up on the days adventure .
Nick hanging out on Chickenbone Lake while we filtered more water.
We loaded up on more water and moved on to McCargoe Cove. In the 2.2 miles to the campground we saw 2 moose! One was swimming across a pond and another was on the shore across from a river. There were both pretty far away and disappeared into the woods quickly, but I managed to get a picture of both of them. That was cool but once we got to camp we were a little disappointed.
The whole place was packed! All the shelters were taken and we got the last tent site luckily. Crazy with how early it is in the season there’s so many people here. One couple in a shelter even said some random person put all their stuff in their shelter without even talking to them. People can opt to share their shelter but not to ask is pretty dang rude. The tent sites we were in were also really close to each so there was no privacy. Didn’t really feel like a wilderness experience.
We set up camp and were looking forward to an easy day tomorrow. I went back to the areas we saw the moose a couple of times in hopes of seeing more again but no luck. I’m honestly surprised we saw any at all with how many people there were around. We ate our dinners by the dock while Nick and Chad played some cribbage. The sun set somewhere behind us in the woods and then we went to bed, tired from our long day of hiking with full packs.
A boardwalk curves through the forest on the way to McCargoe Cove.
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.