The best part of a great trip

Upon leaving Coves the next morning, it pretty quickly became clear that I was about to enter the area with the best rocky highlights of the trip. First there were rock formations in the woods.

Life in the north woods is hard. Summer is short and winter is long, so life tries to find a foothold wherever it can, and hangs on for dear life.

I stumbled into a snowshoe hare that was either wounded or scared $hitless. I’m fairly certain I could have captured him with my bare hands.

Snowshoe hares are a largely northern species, found in boreal and upper montane forests. Their coat turns white in winter to provide camouflage against snow, but in summer they look like any other rabbit. Their range extends into the major mountain ranges of the US as well, including the Rockies as far south as the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico. They also occur in the Appalachians (which was news to me), where they are found in small disjunct populations as far south as the Smokies.

As the trail veered back towards the shoreline, sandstone outcrops became frequent. The sandstone was often in thin layers that created interesting patterns as it was eroded by the endless wave action from Lake Superior.

Wind and rain also have similar effects on land, as some of the nearby trees could attest.

Finally, the “pictured rocks” themselves came into view.

I found an interesting promontory that hung over the lake, but couldn’t muster the courage/stupidity to cross the narrow isthmus of sand. I looked at it for a long while, but kept coming back to….

I found a nice breezy overlook and stopped for a snack of chex mix. A seagull flying overhead spied what I was up to and came to check things out, hoping for crumbs.

I started to encounter two kinds of watercraft- cruise ships and kayaks. The so-called cruise ships are from a tourist business known as Pictured Rocks Cruises. I’d say roughly a dozen of them came by during the day, with their rumbling engines and loudspeakers with guides talking about the sights preceding them.

Two miles into the morning I reached one of the highlights- Spray Falls.

Spray Falls plunges 70 ft. directly into Lake Superior. Further down the trail you cross the creek that feeds it.

On the other side there’s a limited view back towards the falls. The footing here is iffy, and I strongly advise not trying to get a great pic from here.

Further west, the trail passed over some exposed sandstone slabs that were sometimes covered with sand. It was almost like having a beach suspended above the lake.

The buffet of great views was never-ending.

A little over 3.5 miles into the morning I reached another highlight- Chapel Rock.

I think it was right after this that you crossed the stream that drained from Chapel Lake. It seemed to flow straight out of the woods to disappear into the sand.

Chapel Beach has a couple of nice access points. I took advantage of one of them, and ended up taking another snack break while I warmed up in the sun.

I later hunted down the privy in the adjacent Chapel campsite.

It wasn’t long until I reached the yet another outstanding rock formation- Grand Portal.

Next I stumbled onto the best “beach above the beach.” I took a long break here to enjoy the sun and breeze.

Looking back to the east from here, you could see the effect of the waves slowly eroding and undercutting the sandstone- periodic rockfalls. In fact, somewhere in this general vicinity 2 days prior there had been an impressive rockfall that nearly nailed some kayakers.

Link to YouTube video of rockfall

This is a good place to remind everyone that the trail is often literally on the edge of these cliffs. It never felt unsafe, but you definitely don’t want to get lackadaisical. And don’t even think about leaning out over the edge while holding onto a tree. Those trees are rooted in sand and give way easily.

Chipmunks continued to bedevil me.

Next up was Lover’s Leap, possibly the most photographed sight in the entire park.

Here I ran into a super cool older lady who proudly introduced herself as Bernadette. She lives in Florida very close to the Ocala section of the Florida Trail that I hiked in February. We spent about 15 minutes chatting. She comes here every year to hike, and shared a lot of her knowledge of the area with me.

Finally after about 8.5 miles I reached Mosquito Beach. To call it a beach is somewhat misleading. Actually, it’s a gently scalloped area of thin sandstone layers.

I spent a bit of time exploring the “beach” before heading off to select my spot at the nearby campsite, which was adjacent to the aptly-named Mosquito River. The river was only a few inches deep and flowed over more of that layered sandstone, which resulted in some really interesting patterns.

While I was getting water from the river, Willow and Emma crossed the bridge on their way to the next campsite and waved me a final goodbye.

I was fortunate to find a campsite with a makeshift picnic table.

I cooked up a scrumptious chili dinner and then killed time in camp watching a host of frustrated day hikers stumbling around and through the various campsites. Apparently the main Mosquito River trail passes right through the campsites on its way back to a parking area a mile or two away. Like all of the other campsites on this trip, Mosquito River was a maze of interconnecting trails that completely bumfuzzled the day hikers. Luckily for them I happened to know the way out, so I played traffic cop for a while. By the time things quieted down, it was nearly dark and time for sleep.

Day 4: 8.7 miles.

I forgot to mention that I saw two mature bald eagles yesterday to go along with the ospreys that I had seen on a daily basis.

This was the one morning I got up early. Yes, I was that well rested. I took advantage of this to cook up some surprisingly good Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy for breakfast. Packing up took me less than 10 minutes, so I got an early start on the trail.

The kayakers were up early as well.

The woods near Mosquito River were obviously a wildflower hotbed. Some of them still remained late in the season.

I made really fast time, and before I knew it I had covered the 4.5 miles to Miner’s Beach. There was a large parking area there that had bear-proof garbage cans and a porta potty. These are two of a backpacker’s favorite things, because each allows you to offload some weight.

A short paved path led from the parking area to the beach, which was not overly crowded with day visitors. Miner’s Beach had a lot more driftwood than the other beaches, and it seemed to be a thing to stack it up vertically as if in preparation for a bonfire.

The trail followed the somewhat wooded edge of the beach for roughly half a mile. The sand here was quite a slog to walk through. My gaiters did a noble job of keeping sand out of my shoes.

There was a creek that flowed in somewhere along the western side, I think. Miner’s Creek is the outlet for the nearby Miner’s Lake.

The next stop was Miner’s Castle, aka Castle Rock. But in order to get there, you had to tackle the biggest climb of the trip. It was only 300 ft. or so of elevation gain, but I saw it make a 12 year-old boy cry.

Once at the crest the trail leveled out for a short while before reaching the visitor center- the Miner’s Castle observation deck path was road-accessible.

You could tell that there was a crowd of people as well as picnic tables at the information center, which gave me false hope that there might be a store there (think Gatorade) and possibly even real food. But first, I headed right to descend the walkway to the observation deck. It wasn’t a long walk. Miner’s Castle was neat, but I’m not sure it was worthy of all the infrastructure dedicated to it.

I excitedly returned up the path to the visitor center with visions of goodies in my head, but I was to be sorely disappointed. The visitor center was indeed a large and nicely-constructed facility, but it basically amounted to merely 2 restrooms.

I commandeered an empty picnic table and sat down for a snack of trail mix and water. Meanwhile, multiple groups of real picnickers were around me with coolers, and of course nobody offered me a beer. Or any other cold beverage. I wouldn’t have been picky at this point. While I was eating, I watched a small boy mess with the bear-proof garbage can over and over and over. Noisily. I am not ashamed in the least that I laughed when he finally got his hand stuck in it and cried for his mommy.

I packed up and left the crowds to return to the woods. It seemed that I had left the sandy soils behind me for good, to be replaced by stretches of this black sticky mud. I found a living fossil growing out of some of this mud.

Equisetum was once one of the dominant understory plants of the late Paleozoic, but it is much less abundant today, although still widely distributed.

Because of the mud, the trail maintainers had built boardwalks in some of the worst stretches.

Despite their best efforts, it wasn’t enough. Fortunately I was hiking during a relatively dry period. This stretch of trail is notorious for sucking off hikers’ shoes during wetter times.

I almost missed the sign to the Cliffs campsite. Everything else so far on the trail had been marked by posts with signs. Not Cliffs.

The trail to Cliffs was overgrown. In fact, it almost looked abandoned. But eventually it led to a small campsite with a fire ring, privy and 3 separate camping spots. I took campsite #1, again, because that is the king’s campsite. I quickly set up camp and set about looking for a water source. There wasn’t one- there was no creek, and there was no access to Lake Superior. It wasn’t called Cliffs for nothing.

The privy was wide open to the world, but nobody else was in camp yet so it didn’t matter. Sadly, there was nastiness on the trail a mere 10 yards from the privy. Some loser couldn’t hold it 10 more yards. There is a special ring of hell for people who have shat on a trail.

The Foxes arrived a little bit later, and I learned from them that for water I had to hike back a quarter mile to a very small creek. So I did what had to be done and returned with 5 liters. I then called the Altran shuttle and was fortunate to be able to arrange a shuttle pick up at Munising Falls the next day at noon. This was a huge relief.

I had a special dinner of turkey with stuffing and mashed sweet potatoes (review to come), and then helped pere Fox gather some firewood for a nice campfire. It did a good job of keeping the mossies at bay. Sundown- hiker midnight- was around 9:30, and that’s about when everyone turned in.

Day 5: 7.3 miles (including side trip for water)

I wasn’t about to risk missing my Altran shuttle, so I was up, fed, packed and on the trail by 8 AM. I only had 5 miles to go, and outside of the mud it was easy trail.

Oh, yeah, about that mud.

After an hour I reached the junction to Sand Point, which was where the Foxes were hiking out to. I thought about dropping down to check it out, but it was steep and I decided the hike back up would have a moderate suck factor, so I continued on.

I kicked up several more deer, one of which you can see (kinda) in the photo below.

For much of the next couple of miles the trail was wide, gently graded and had double duty as a winter cross country ski trail.

As I neared the Munising Falls Visitor Center I saw signage that I didn’t want to see.

I expected worse. The detour took me downhill to the Sand Pt. Rd., from where a short roadwalk to the left brought me to the visitor’s center.

It turned out that this road was in the process of being repaved, which accounted for the Road Closed sign I had encountered on my first day.

I arrived at the visitor center a little after 10 AM. With a lot of time to kill, I browsed their gift shop and bought some stickers for my bear can.

I went back outside to take a nap under a birch tree. As I was falling asleep, I heard a little girl’s voice. “Daddy, is that man a homeless person?” “No sweetie, he just looks like he is. That’s a backpacker.”

I smiled.

By 11:30 I was bored to tears. But at that moment, I heard people shouting at me from a car. I was confused at first, but then I recognized that it was the Foxes. They had swung by on their drive out from Sand Point and saw me. They whipped into the parking lot to bestow a gift- the remnants of some Captain Morgan’s! Finally, at crunch time no less, I manage to yogi some booze. I poured it into an empty SmartWater bottle and thanked them profusely and said goodbye. I then returned to my birch tree and furtively sipped from my bottle. If I was going to look homeless, I was going to act homeless.

Noon arrives, but a shuttle does not. I call them at 12:05 and oops, they forgot me. Luckily, one of their minibuses wasn’t far away and diverted to help me out. A nice lady picked me up at 12:20. She already had a lady onboard who cussed like a sailor. After dropping her off at Beartrap, we headed to Beaver Lake campground to pick up a brother/sister hiker pair and dropped them off at Log Slide. Finally at 1:30 I was back at Grand Sable Visitor Center. I took the advice of my driver and drove 3 miles into the little town of Grand Marais. SCORE!

She had directed me to the Dune Saloon of the Lake Superior Brewing Company.

A waitress quickly appeared and took my order, and over the next hour several beverages might have been consumed.

Yeah, the pizza was pretty good too.

I don’t need to tell you what 5+ days of hiker hunger did to that poor pizza.

The beers, particularly the Puddinstone Wheat, were quite tasty. And had an unexpectedly high ABV.

I waddled out and drove back to Munising, where I got a room at the Pictured Rocks Inn and took a long nap. I went back out after 7 PM in search of the Fish Basket, an allegedly hard to find but worth it local legend.

The address was 231 1/2 E. Superior. That 1/2 should’ve been a clue; it WAS hard to find. I finally found it on the west side of an alley off of Birch St.

Get the fresh local whitefish basket. You won’t be disappointed. Since it was raining, I couldn’t eat at the outside tables and had to retire to their “garage,” which doubles as a sort of restaurant eating area.

Oh, on the way out of town the next morning a wolf ran across the road in front of me.

Day 6: 5.1 miles. Trip Total: 43.8 miles.

One of the best sections of the North Country Trail

I have just returned after a 2-day drive back from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and one of the best hikes I’ve ever done- the 43 mile Lakeshore Trail segment of the North Country National Scenic Trail that passes through Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It was worth every bit of the the 18 hour drive from Alabama.

I happened to hit this one during a period of splendid weather, generally sunny with highs around 70 and lows around 50. And with only light bug pressure.

True to form though, I almost bungled the whole thing.

I arrived in Munising Michigan a week ago on a Saturday evening. Check in at the Sunset Bay Motel was a breeze. I killed some time in their backyard gazing out over Lake Superior while I awaited dinner time.

Munising is a small town of 2,300 on the south shore of Munising Bay, aka the South Bay of Grand Island Harbor. As a town that is heavily reliant on tourism, it has a disproportionate number of quality places to eat. I chose Taco Primo.

Considering where I was, it was only appropriate that I order the local specialty.

After dinner I retired back to my motel room, where I still had a lot to do, mainly repackaging my meals. This resulted in a big box full of empty packaging and wrappers. Hopefully housekeeping was used to this sort of thing from backpackers. I then went through the final packing of my pack. This was easily the lightest my pack has ever weighed (view my LighterPack HERE) at a mere 7.1 lbs., which was the source of much envy on the trail.

Satisfied with my preparation, I set my alarm for 6 AM and went to sleep.

I was up, caffeinated, showered, fed and at the Munising Visitor Center to await my 8:00 shuttle by 7:15. This is where things briefly went very bad. At 7:50 I suddenly realized that my pickup was actually supposed to be at the Munising FALLS Visitor Center. In a panic, I loaded up the car, found the correct address, plugged it in to my GPS and hauled ass….only to encounter a ROAD CLOSED sign! I was unable to find a different route in time, so in desperation I took off for the Grand Sable Visitor Center (where my shuttle was supposed to take me to). I reasoned/hoped that I could find a shuttle back to my car when I completed my hike.

I arrived at Grand Sable at 9:20. The ranger-type person on duty showed me where to park and offered encouraging thoughts about my chances of shuttling back.

The trail began off the backpacker parking lot across the street.

I was a bit bummed to see the hike begin through an overgrown grassy meadow that looked like tick heaven, with the trail easy to feel but difficult to see at times.

Before long though the trail dipped into the woods, and the trail was easy to follow. Almost immediately I saw the densest patch of Canada Lilies ever. I guess they were happy to be so close to Canada.

After a little over a half mile, you hit a road (H58) and turn left for a little road walking. The road borders the Grand Sable Sand Dunes on the right and Grand Sable Lake on the left.

Right about the time you’re starting to wonder if you missed the trail cutoff, signage saves you.

The trail then briefly darts in and out of the woods around the edge of the lake before committing fully to the forest.

I found this little guy in the woods.

I made great time through the largely deciduous forest, as the terrain was very level. Eventually I was aware that the wooded back side of large sand dunes were off to my right.

Just before reaching the Masse Homestead Campsite roughly 5 miles into the day, I kicked up 2 does with vivid burnt orange summer coats that really stood out among the greenery.

I met some folks at the Masse Campsite that had packed in a whole heap a shizzle, which they were now taking out via Log Slide nearly a mile away. Using a wheelbarrow. Multiple trips too. Oh, they also had a cooler that I am sure still had some beers in it. But they didn’t offer. This was to be a recurring theme on this trip.

I popped out of the woods at about 5.8 miles at Log Slide, a STEEP and LONG sand dune. Supposedly back in the days of logging, this steep sand dune was used to slide the logs down into Lake Superior for shipping.

It’s considered a challenge to “walk” all the way down the slide to the lake and then to laboriously climb your way back up. It’s apparently really hard. I was told that occasionally a city cetacean gives up and has to be rescued by water.

While the Lakeshore Trail is generally one of the most level footpaths you’ll ever have the pleasure to hike, there ARE some ups and downs. Just when you get complacent, it goes all AT on your ass.

Just before reaching my campsite I had to cross a sketchy-looking bridge. It turns out that many of the footbridges up here look like this. I guess the winter weather doesn’t treat them too kindly.

At around 1:30 I wandered into my campsite- Au Sable East- set back in the woods a short distance from the lake. I decided to go fill up on water before setting up camp. Lake Superior was the water source for this campsite.

So you’re probably thinking, EWWWW, lake water, how gross. Here in Alabama lake water is only one short step above a cow tank. Well, think again. Lake Superior is absolutely crystal clear.

You do of course filter the water.

Back in camp I selected campsite #1 because that’s the king’s campsite. And I did a MUCH better job of setting up my Tarptent Aeon than I did on my last hike. I think it helped reading the set-up instructions this time.

The National Park Service has wisely installed bear-proof food storage units at all of the campsites on this trail. They haven’t had trouble with bears and aim to keep it that way.

I settled in for a big afternoon nap. I mean, I had a ton of time to kill, I had to do something.

Eventually over the next 4-5 hours the campsite filled up completely, and it was possibly the best social group camp ever. There were 7-8 students from Michigan Tech, a young female couple, and a pair of ladies a little older than me. Each and every one was very friendly. We ended up building a campfire and having some excellent fellowship over dinner that lasted until hiker midnight.

Most of them were Yoopers- denizens of the UP. Yoopers are a lot like Canadians, and they finish a lot of their sentences with “Eh?”

The Yoopers enlightened me as to what they do during the long winter- “We drink beer, eh?” It should be noted that ice-fishing, cross country skiing and snowmobiling are also popular. Snowmobiles actually are allowed on paved roads in winter, but they have lower speed limits.

They taught me that the dreaded stable flies that plague the area when the winds are southerly don’t bite. No, they CUT you so you bleed. These are the OG’s of the fly world. Oh, once you bleed they then suck your blood.

I also learned about what happens if you’re driving and hit a moose- “You don’t hit moose, moose hit you!” These are all good things to know as a Southerner if you venture into the far north woods.

Day 1: 7.1 miles.

I slept kinda late since I didn’t have to make many miles on Day 2. I took the time to cook a hot breakfast (Peak Refuel Breakfast Skillet, review coming soon). I chatted a bit longer with Monique and Susan, and finally took off around 9:30. Several tenths of a mile later I reached the first highlight of the day.

Au Sable Light Station was built in 1873 and includes a lighthouse as well as quarters for the keeper and assistant. The light itself was originally fueled by lard oil and then by kerosene before becoming automated in the 1950’s. There are tours, but apparently I arrived too early.

There were quite a few tasty treats growing nearby as well as some late season wildflowers.

The trail follows the sidewalk around the lake side of the light station. And behind the light station, there is something amazing.

Wait, you say, I only see two things- a porta potty and a bear-proof garbage can. Aye, ’tis true, and a sweet bounty they are. But the TRIfecta only becomes apparent once you’re in the porta potty….when you discover that it is stocked with actual toilet paper!

This was certainly a better option than the open-to-the-whole-wide-world privy back at my previous campsite.

About a half mile later (maybe less) the trail turned into a long beach walk.

Eventually though you start to wonder if you missed the spot where the trail cut back into the woods. The answer becomes readily apparent when you near the end of the beach.

After a very short climb back into the woods the trail follows a gravel road to Hurricane River Campground, one of the places for drive-in campers.

There were a few groups of people with pop-up campers, all of whom had coolers and none of whom offered the poor weary dehydrated hiker a beer. The cruelty was breaking my spirit.

The trail dove back into the woods just beyond a picnic table at the far edge of the campground. I believe that there was signage directing me that way. More beach soon appeared.

Chipmunks periodically exploded from holes right at my feet and scurried off to a safe vantage point from where they cursed me with their chirps and whistles. I managed to catch a pic of this one directing foul rodent verbiage at me from his refuge.

I started seeing a lot of bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) plants full of red berries. This plant is in the same genus as our dogwood tree.

The trail then followed the edge of Twelvemile Beach, unfortunately often through some heavy sand at the edge of the woods that slowed my pace considerably.

The Twelvemile Beach Campground was huge, seemingly a half mile stretch of tidy campsites in the trees near the lake, most of which were occupied by SOBs with coolers who once again were stingy with the beer that I KNOW they had. C’mon, these are Michiganders, I know they’re not teetotalers! Two separate older gentlemen stopped me for some friendly conversation. Neither offered up a cold beverage though, and it was beneath my dignity to whimper an “un cerveza, por favor” at them. I was resigned to my beerless fate.

I took advantage of a nice empty campsite at the edge of the dunes under some pines to take a snack and water break.

While I snacked on some jerky and Babybel cheese, I watched a large sailboat cruise by.

After hiking another mile or mile and a half I crossed into a special place.

The 11,740 acre Beaver Basin Wilderness was signed into law by President Obama in 2009 (Thanks, Obama!). The wilderness encompasses a 13 mile stretch of shoreline and extends up to 3.5 miles deep from shore. Notable wildlife that it protects include native coaster brook trout, timber wolf, pine marten, black bear, fisher, bald eagles and peregrine falcons. It also features several lakes, including the 762 acre Beaver Lake, as well as an old growth cedar swamp. Eminently worth protecting.

You enter the wilderness after crossing Sevenmile Creek.

You would think that it would be 5 miles between Twelvemile Campground and Sevenmile Creek. You would be wrong. More like half that. Probably the people who named those places had beer, large quantities of it, in their systems when they named things. Unlike myself. Not that I’m bitter.

It wasn’t long before I wandered into Sevenmile Campground. I met the Foxes, a family of four that I would leapfrog with during the remainder of the week. Willow and Emma were already there as well. We had another good group campfire, and I had a tasty hamburger skillet dinner (review soon come). Soon it was hiker midnight and we were all asleep.

Day 2: 7.3 miles.

I wasn’t really feeling it the next morning. I slept late and didn’t cook breakfast, merely eating a Snickers while I quickly broke camp.

The first few miles of the day were lovely flat trail, part of which may have been on an old roadbed.

Several miles into the morning I passed the infamous abandoned car.

The miles flew by quickly. At around 3.5 miles I reached the 0.5 mile side trail to Trappers Lake and its campsite. I skipped this side trip and continued on.

Shortly thereafter I returned to the sandy edge of a beach, possibly the continuation of Twelvemile Beach.

A half mile later I reached the Pine Bluff campsite, which I decided to visit since I needed to offload some cargo in the privy. There was a maze of trails that seemed to connect all of the individual campsites, and it took me a few minutes to locate the privy. When I finally did, I was sorely disappointed.

The reason the privy is hard to see in the above photo is because it has no friggin’ walls! These people are uncivilized barbarians. You are apparently expected to do your business in full view of multiple campsites. Nobody wants to see naked man butt in the wilderness.

Luckily for me nobody was there at the time.

I left with a feeling of shame lol.

The next mile and a half weaved around the edge of a beach.

I then reached the tangled mess of the Beaver Creek outlet. The trail was pretty sloppy through here, and mosquitos made a rare appearance. I quickly DEET’d them into Bolivia.

After crossing, the trail turned left and followed Beaver Creek upstream for a short distance. The creek was crystal clear, with an entirely sandy bottom. I suspect there are some trout in the deeper holes.

Having made good time, I decided to take the 0.5 mile side trail up to Beaver Lake. The lake itself was pretty enough, but the main attraction was its complete seclusion.

There was a nice sandbar that curled around near the shoreline to the west. I walked along it until I discovered that this was apparently where everyone walked their dog. Land mines everywhere.

On the way back to the Lakeshore Trail I found one of my forest buddies, Mr. Bufo.

In another mile and a half or so, I reached The Coves campsite, my home for the evening. It was tucked a short ways back from a nice beach. I went down to enjoy it before setting up camp, and ended up taking a LONG nap in the sun. It was glorious. When I woke up, I filled my water bottles and bladder, which involved having to wade out into the surf of Lake Superior. I should’ve just gone ahead and taken a swim while I was at it. Goodness knows a bath would’ve done me good at this point.

Familiar faces in camp included the Foxes and Willow and Emma. However, we didn’t do the campfire thing this time. Everyone cooked an early dinner and went to bed before dark. I was personally excited though, because I knew the really good stuff started tomorrow.

Day 3: 8.3 miles.