A ROYALE DISAPPOINTMENT – BUT NOT ENTIRELY
By Mark Neikirk
If we were told once, we were told a thousand times that Isle Royale is the least visited National Park. Sounded appealing.
If only it were so.
First of all, even if it were the least visited, what reasonable person would compare Isle Royale to such household names as Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion? That is a bit like comparing the Rabbit Hash General Store to an Amazon warehouse. Yes, they both stock merchandise — but come on.
Secondly, Isle Royale is not America’s least visited park. It ranks sixth from the bottom and, with 29,000 people per year, is well ahead of Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic’s 12,000. You want isolation? Leave the lower 48. Three of the least visited parks are in Alaska.
Admittedly, 29,000 is still a low number. Something like 14 million people a year visit the Smokies, the nation’s most visited park. So even though Isle Royale isn’t the least visited park, it still might reasonably be expected to deliver privacy on the trail. Instead, it seemed at times that all 29,000 visitors were on the island on the same week as us — and that most of them camped at Daisy Farm, where we had reserved a group site for one night on the way in and another on the way out.
We booked our backpacking trip to the Isle imagining a wilderness experience of untamed woods and waters. Daisy Farm has a boat dock of sufficient size to tie up several yachts, a gazebo worthy of a small suburban park, and several first-come, first-served screened in shelters with picnic tables and great views of Lake Superior. They are probably nice enough to warrant a ranking on Hotels.com. Five stars for the view. One star for the bedding (there is none; you bring your own).
Isle Royal also has wolves, but these Canister lupus wannabeshave lost their “Call of the Wild” mojo by turning into camp pests. Instead of terrorizing or mesmerizing humans with their howls that vary in pitch from hellish to operatic, they now slither into campsites to snatch and drag backpacks into the woods. This is not the kind of behavior that served as a muse to Jack London.
To top it off, Isle Royale’s wolves are so inbred now that their gene pool is fouler than a neglected aquarium. Islands do that to a species population. New wolves used to come each winter over an ice bridge from the mainland, but global warming has put the kibosh on that. Scientists, who have been monitoring the island’s wolves for decades, imported some wild Canadian wolves a few years ago in hopes of cross-breeding and improving the gene pool. Instead, the new wolves, bigger and badder, ate the others and then began their own inbreeding. And that story ends with wolves the island hosts today.
There also are moose but don’t expect to see one. The wolves ate all the babies before developing a taste for Ospreys, Keltys and Gregory’s. Not so long ago there were 2,000 moose on the island. Now there are 500. They are inbred, too. So here’s the question: Should we mourn the consumption of inbred moose calves by inbred wolves? Another question: Who’s better at species diversity: evolution and biologists?
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When we did get to a more remote campsite at East Chickenbone Lake, a gaggle of hikers were having lunch on one of the tent sites we had reserved. They were textbook examples of dissocial personality disorder. That is, antisocial, making no effort to chat, and seemingly determined to extend their lunch hour. They showed the same enthusiasm for moving along as a black fly — those notorious ankle-biters that, once they discover un-Deeted flesh, stick around to relish being a nuisance.
Once the lunch bunch finally left, a measure of isolation finally settled upon us. The group site at East Chickenbone is well-segregated from the several individual sites on the other side of the trail, so that helped. Also, the water source—the lake—was a quarter mile away and downhill, making East Chickenbone less desirable as an overnight destination than sites right on the lake. A quarter of a mile downhill to the lake means it is a quarter of mile uphill with full water bottles back to camp. No one enjoys that.
One young couple was counting on isolation. They trekked down to the lake to skinny dip, passing me as I headed back to camp, and were happy to hear that the lakeshore was free of onlookers. I didn’t know that others in my group would soon be headed down for water. The couple heard them coming and called out a request, “Could you wait a moment?” They needed to dress, and were permitted to do so.
We were one night at East Chickenbone and then back to Daisy Farm. Back to the hoards congregating on the yacht dock.
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I don’t want to exaggerate the crowds. It is typical on an Isle Royale trail to encounter people coming and going, but most of the time you are alone on the trail and among the island’s beautiful, boreal forest. And this is the park’s essence and its essential charm. Its trails wind gently through a mix of balsam fir, white spruce, paper birch, aspen, mountain ash along with a sprinkling of sugar maples and yellow birches and the occasional northern red oak. Birds sing. Gentle breezes blow. There’s more shade than not. Most inclines are short and not too steep.
Many of the trails pass through incredibly lush fields of thimbleberry bushes with their large leaves reaching across the trail toward each other, sometimes so thickly as to obscure the trail. They have a gift for those who pass through. Their bright red berries look much like raspberries and taste similar. To walk through them is to be provided with this bounty at your leisure. It’s trail magic at its finest. Nature’s own.
A word about trail magic and trail angels. Where there is one, there usually is the other. A trail angel is someone who shows up unexpectedly with a gift, freely given, to hikers, including hikers who are complete strangers. The gift is the magic. Normally, the angels are human but why not a plant? So let’s just stipulate that the thimbleberry bush, Rupus parviflorus, is an angel and its berry is the magic, the gift.
But Isle Royale has its human trail angels, too. Somewhere between our first campsite at Daisy Farm and our second one at Lake Ritchie, John Curtin was losing the sole off of his Keen boot. As it turns out, this is a common problem with Keen’s after a couple of years of use. Their glue gives out.
Walking up yet another granite knob, which are hell on soles, we encountered a couple and their kids hiking south to our north.
“You wouldn’t by any chance have some duct tape, would you?” I inquired, explaining the issue.
“We do,” said she.
“We have some Gorilla Tape,” said he, digging it out.
We wrapped the tape around the boot, wishing there were more so we might loop it around a couple of more times but grateful for what they had provided.
We pressed on, and five minutes later we heard a woman’s voice behind us.
“John! John!”
There was our angel, jogging toward us.
“We found some more tape in the medical kit. Here, take it.”
“Are you kidding me! You guys are awesome!” John told her in near disbelief.
Consider the situation. It was dire. Day Two of six on the trail with more granite ahead and a sole nearly half off already. These two angels gave John a shot at finishing the hike. Such moments can feel heaven-sent. Maybe they are.
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There were nine of us on this trip: John Curtin, Bob Pauly, Leo McCallen, John Hennessey, Bill Ankenbauer, Mark McGinnis, Brandon Zembrodt, his son, Mitchell, who is 21, and me. The Patio Boys go on a big trip about every five years or so, usually to a distant national park. Glacier was the first and, until this one, Yellowstone the most recent.
Isle Royale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula had long been considered and was, for some among us, a bucket list destination. A place to go before we die. And let’s face it. We’re on our bucket lists as something to do before we die. And let’s face it, we are, most of us, now at an age where the lyric in Pink Floyd’s 1973 song Time, are no longer meaningless:
You run and you run
To catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around
To come up from behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way
But you’re older,
Shorter of breath
And one day closer to death.
We drove 740 miles from Fort Mitchell, Ky., to the little UP town Copper Harbor, taking two vehicles. We had motel rooms booked at Fannie Hooe Lake Resort & Campground in Copper Harbor before catching the ferry to Isle Royale. The lodging had all the charm of your Uncle Ferguson’s bachelor pad. Why update the furniture if it’s only worn not broken? Let me put it this way: Room design by Hitchcock in consultation with Oscar, the Walter Matthau half of the Odd Couple.
Each room had a vintage 1990s entertainment center but where the TV once sat now sat an oscillating fan. A bare bulb lit a bathroom the size of a phone booth and last updated when phone booths were still in use. At least the sheets were clean.
The charm of the place — yes, it had charm — was the municipal park across the street. A wedding reception was in progress. Party time!
.
We found a picnic table on the edge of the festivities, cracked open a few cold beers, and enjoyed the joyful scene and the music. The wedding party had a live band that barely took a break, working its way through a jukebox song list from “Johnny B. Good” to “Night Moves.” One hour. Two. This band had stamina. If there’s a little blue pill to keep you rocking hard, they took it.
In time, the inevitable occurred. Our wanderers, Bob Pauly and Brandon Zembrodt, wandered. And as you might expect, they made friends. One, Michelle, came over to say hello and, when asked if any food was left uneaten in the tents (they were now empty; the wedding guests were on the park lawn in a semi-circle around the sheltered stage where the band was set up), she said indeed there was. She disappeared and returned with cupcakes. Big puffs of icing atop each one and each dolloped with a fresh strawberry. Trail magic and we weren’t even on the trail yet!
And remember Michelle. Her time on stage was not yet over.
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Next morning it was raining as we boarded the Isle Royale Queen IV. The ferry was full, and our vision of a remote island where we would not see many people was taking an early hit. We passed the time — about three and half hours— playing poker for imaginary money.
Three and half hours later and 54 miles of Lake Superior later, we docked at Rock Harbor, disembarked, got cold drinks and final supplies at a small general store, and listened to a mandatory talk by a ranger lady. The park was having a wolf problem, as previously described, and it fell to her to alert us. “Never leave your pack unattended. Keep at arm’s reach,” she warned.
Some campsites now had wire pens for packs. You can take that one of two ways. Pens to hold the wolf packs to keep them from snatching the backpacks? Or pens to hold the backpacks overnight to keep them from the wolves? Trained in stoicism, the ranger was not inclined to appreciate such sarcastic questions. She simply said: “If there’s one at your campsite, use it.”
The rules received, we departed for the trail.
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The trails on Michigan’s Isle Royale are easy. Unless you’re over 30. Which we are, times two plus 10. Do the match. So there were some struggles. Don’t judge unless you’ve done it as John Curtin did, for example, with a fully loaded pack at an age north of 75 and with a detached boot sole.
This is why he thought about it on our next to last night when a retired guard at a women’s prison — she could not have looked the part any more — visited our camp and told him there was shuttle boat arriving the next morning at 9 and would take him to the next campsite, six miles away. She had a bad ankle that was scheduled for surgery soon, so she needed the ride. John declined. But when she came to camp the next night to tell him the shuttle would be back the next morning, he decided, “Why not? We’re done after all.”
And so John met us at the harbor, had himself a shower, and found himself in good spirits. We youngsters (age range 21 to 72) walked those last three miles.
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A word about the actual hiking in Isle Royal: Despite my snide remarks about the park, the hiking is good. The trail alternated from low and boggy stretches, usually made easy by boardwalks over the mud, to long stretches of woods walking in the shade, to slight inclines over granite balds. Sometimes the trail followed the shoreline of Lake Superior, offering a continuous view of its vast, oceanic waters. Magnificent.
Other than the lake views, this is not a trail of grand vistas. It is pleasant, well-maintained, and rarely strenuous. It is not without risk. In one tricky spot, mini-boulders that ranged in size from softballs to bowling balls lined an edge of the trail beyond which was a steep hill. Nearly a cliff. Brandon took one misstep and tumbled, reaching out to a tree truck to arrest his fall.
To help explain this further, I need to back up to the harbor where an old-fashioned scale allowed you to weigh your pack. It was a gathering spot and had sort of the vibe of a fair where a carny guesses your weight. The ultralight hikers are trying for 20 pounds or less, and there are cheers and/or jeers when a pack gets under that. Cheers: “Awesome, dude! I’ll trade packs with you!” Jeers: “Pussy! I’ll trade packs with you.”
Up steps Brandon for his weigh-in. His pack is massive. Think bale-of-hay sized. Or maybe a beer keg. A crowd gathered. You could hear the whispers: That has to be over 40 pounds, right? 45 maybe? There are audible gasps when the scale is tipped to 54 pounds. More than twice mine and at least 15 pounds heavier than everyone else’s except his son Mitchell’s, which was 48. You gotta give it to the Zembrodts. They can carry the weight.
So when Brandon tumbled, he did so with a considerable burden on his back, increasing the danger of his fall. Fortunately, nothing broke or bled. One very sore shoulder. And a story to tell.
Our best campsite was at Lake Ritchie, our second night. The campsites were set back into the woods, but a short walk from a long stretch of granite shoreline that provided a panoramic view of the lake. Mitchell fished and caught a pike or two. The rest of us set up camp chairs to read or just relax and enjoy the beauty. We had the gift of great weather—trail magic? And, despite the island’s reputation, we had only a few mosquitoes or black flies (“I get more bug bites in my backyard,” is how Bill Ankenbauer put it.). And there were no people to speak of other than us. “Primo” is how John Hennessey described it on the drive home as we reflected on our five days, four nights on Isle Royale.
Daisy Farm, despite its almost KOA feel, didn’t fare too badly in the end, especially for the night spent there on the way back. By then, we knew what to expect and the yacht dock was more asset than backcountry shock. We took turns diving in. Mitchell impressed everyone with a back flip reminiscent of his time on the Covington Catholic track team as a high jumper. As the dock was just a great place to relax. As John Curtin put it: “I don’t know about you all, but I’m not sure what I think about this trip. I guess I’d give it a give it 6.5. Sitting on the dock after people left was great. He was reading, and I was just looking at the sky, watching the clouds.”
Bill Ankenbauer was more positive overall about the Isle Royale experience: “I thoroughly enjoyed it. It got easier each day. I had cramps the first day, but they went away. Great weather, beautiful place — but the campsites sucked.” He added that he wished we had seen a moose but was glad we didn’t see a wolf.
We did see one mammal on the hunt. We’ll call her “Miss Michigan,” probably c.1999. She was stunning in a black bikini sunning on the dock. And equally stunning when she returned in yoga pants and a quarter zip that over one breast had the name of a wealth management firm in Grand Rapids and a Patagonia logo over the other. I’ve never worked at a place that handed out Patagonia pullovers as company swag. But I’d like to. That is, were I to come out of retirement and work, which I don’t intend to do.
Blonde and coiffed, she showed zero signs of someone who had sweated under the weight of a backpack to arrive here. Not sure what her pack might have weighed but the diamonds on her right index finger—i.e., not the wedding ring finger—would be weighed in carats not pounds, and tip the jeweler’s scale at a big number. She looked less like someone who just came from her tent and more like someone who just came from make-up on a movie set.
Why did it seem she was scoping us out to see who had the most disposable income? Whatever the answer to that, rest assured Miss Michigan was not an example of the usual scenery on a backpacking trip. Still, the encounter was pleasant in its own special way. And quite interesting.
The next day — the final night— was at Three Mile, named for its relative proximity to the harbor. The collective charms of Lake Ritchie, Daisy Farm, and East Chickenbone were absent here. The group campsite was a circle of gravel. Most of our tents fit on the thin circumference of gravel that surrounded the gravel, but John Curtins slightly larger tent did not.
“I’m looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed. I may have to put some rocks in my bed to get any sleep,” he said, the sarcasm dripping from his tongue.
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I want to say a word about Isle Royale’s particular history. It was once mined for copper, first by indigenous people at least 4,500 years ago and maybe longer. Archaeologists have found 1,000 of their pits, mined over a period of 1,500 years. By the mid-1800s, white Americans has discovered the island’s copper. The largest mine, the Minong Mining Company’s, extracted over a half million pounds of copper in less than a decade from 1874 to 1883.
The remains of some of these old mines are adjacent to the trail we hiked. Nature has mostly reclaimed them, and today they look more or less like caves and cliffs. The park service had erected some modest fencing around them, and signs suggest caution if you intend to have a look, which we did.
They are, it seems to me, reminders that if we quit exploiting our beautiful places and let Mother Nature have them back, she will do her best to restore our damage. Maybe our Kentucky coal country will one day be restored in this way.
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Remember me telling you to remember Michelle from the wedding reception in the park next to the Franny Hooe Lake Resort & Campground? This is why.
Returning on the ferry and disembarking, a voice called from the crowd on the landing, “Brandon! Brandon!”
It was Michelle who had just driven 45 minutes from her home in Calumet with her husband, her children, and her mother to bring us a cooler full of pasties, a celebrated local food. They look like apple turnovers but the insides are meat, potatoes, and vegetables. Hearty and filling, miners carried them to work up here. Today, they are a culinary curiosity to most of us but locally loved in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They are to the UP what Skyline Chili is to our Cincinnati. Or maybe what bourbon is to our Kentucky.
There’s a Pasty Trail linking the best restaurants serving examples — Suzie’s, Jacks’s, Barb’s, Slim’s, and, perhaps the most famous, Lehto’s. There’s also a Pasty Fest in Calumet every August. We just missed it by a day, but Michelle brought us a cooler full from last year’s champion, the East Fork Pasty Co. As it turned out, East Fork defended its title, becoming the champ again.
That’s the quality of patsy Michelle delivered to us. A true trail angel and some top-of-line trail magic.
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Here is our itinerary, compliments of Mark McGinnis:
Day 1, August 9: Daily Farm. 7 mile hike. First Lake Superior Views from the trail.
Day 2, August 10: Lake Ritchie. 8-9 mile hike. Terrain slows (some mud and roots). Fewer people, more isolation. Beautiful lake and forest.
Day 3: August 11: Chickenbone Lake East. 6-7 mile hike. Mentally the toughest day. Quiet, rugged, report. True backcountry experience.
Day 4: August 12: Back to Daisy Farm. 7-8 miles. Moral boost day. Back to the shoreline. Great Lake Superior views.
Day 5: August 13: Three Mile. 3 miles there, 3 miles back to the harbor and the ferry ride back to the mainland.