Day One on Isle Royale

Here we are fresh off the boat.  The ranger is nice enough to take our picture and some door knob in red clothes tells us he is going to photo bomb us.

On our way from Grand Portage to Isle Royale Captain Don showed us a couple interesting things. The first thing we saw was the Little Cedar Spirit Tree on the shore.  I have seen the tree before but from land where the view isn't nearly as good.  This tree is over 300 years old and quite impressive.  As we sailed into the Washington Creek harbor we passed over the top of a shipwreck. The SS America sank in 1928 and is submerged about two feet under the water.  The spot is marked with a buoy.  Luckily no  one was killed although one dog did die because it was tied to the railing. When we arrived on the dock the park rangers divided us into two groups: day hikers and back packers.  We were in the back pack group. The day hikers had only a couple hours to explore. We had 4 days to live on the island.  We were given instructions and off we went.  We had a plan to camp nearby and go on day hikes. Did we stick to the plan?  No, we did not.  Did we regret not sticking to our plan? Yes, at times we severely regretted our impulse to come up with a new plan.  My left knee still regrets not sticking to our plan. We thought we could hike to a campground on a lake 8 miles away. What were we thinking? We didn't start until noon and we severely overestimated our ability to hike. This is no walk in the woods.  The path is hilly and treacherous.  Sometimes the path was not even visible because the vegetation was five feet high and bent over the path. Sometimes the path was bare rock. Sometimes we walked over flat boards. Along the way Offspring #2 asked, "Should we turn back?"  I kept saying "no."  I thought we could make it eight miles. When we crossed Grace Creek we were really disappointed because we were not even a third of the way yet. We stubbornly kept hiking until the sun got low in the sky at which point we gave up.  One of us made dinner and the other one pitched the tent.  We had not seen any other hikers for hours and we were ready and willing to admit defeat. Dinner was fried rice and apples and Cabernet Sauvignon.  We might as well eat and drink all we could because we would have less to carry in the backpack on the hike back tomorrow. Once our beds were set up and we were relaxing we listened to the sounds of the babbling brook. When you are outside and if you listen extra hard you can hear all kinds of stuff. For awhile I was totally convinced I heard a moose walking up that stream. We could see moose prints in the mud all around the bank.  At the end of day one on Isle Royale we were about 4 miles from the dock where we got off the boat.  We were happy and tired.  We were also glad we didn't make it the eight miles because then we would have to walk eight miles again tomorrow.

See the twisted white bark of the spirit tree?

Our tent pitched next to the babbling brook.

You cross the brook on these boards. This is the view from our back woods camp site.

Here we are at the beginning of our long hike.