My youngest son graduated high school this year. Since we have owned a camper and have been camping in the upper penninsula of Michigan he has found a home up there, researching hiking trails, different waterfalls and beaches and other sights. For the last couple of years he has been working on me to take him hiking on Isle Royale, a national park about 50 miles as the boat sails north of Copper Harbor, the northern-most town in the upper penninsula, in northern Lake Superior.

Being a 52 year old overweight guy with back, shoulder and occasional knee problems with no equipment it was a tough sell but finally I agreed, giving me about a year to gather equipment and prepare physically.

We took the boat out of Copper Harbor for the three hour ride earlier this month. Our agenda originally planned on about 25 miles of hiking over the 5 days/4 nights we were on the island between camp grounds with full packs with the possibility of day hikes with reduced packs or just water after setting up camp. Aside from seeing the island my sons main goal was to see a moose if at all possible.

After all was said and done we had hiked almost 58 miles, about half of that with full packs, another dozen with reduced packs! I never would have thought it possible for this old guy to be able to do that amount of hiking, and I did very well during what up to that point had been the hottest stretch of weather so far this year. I made it a point to buy very good, light equipment (read EXPENSIVE!!) which certainly helped, but still found that I was hauling close to 45 lbs on my back!! Luckily for us we were fortunate enough to get shelters to sleep in three of the four nights. The one exception of course featured a cow and calf moose traipsing through our site at about 2:40 in the morning, very close to our tents!!

Moose? Moose you may ask??




A change in our agenda, changing a 4 mile hike to a 9 mile hike, brought us to spend the last day and night in Rock Harbor where there were several bull moose sightings, a great decision as it turned out. He had 5 moose sightings while I had only four. I chose to take a shower, thereby trading possibly not seeing a moose for not smelling like one, a worthwhile tradeoff!!

Overall it was an amazing experience, although I won't lie and say there weren't a few times I was wondering what the hell I was doing there! Sharing that experience with my son created memories I will never forget. Isle Royale is a beautiful and very isolated place, well worth the expense.

Last week we moved my son into his dorm at Michigan Tech in Houghton, about 45 miles from where we caught the boat in Copper Harbor, and 545 miles from my house.

I can't begin to tell you how much I HATE Imgur.....

Nice trip, congrats on getting yourself prepared for that too; no small task.

Wolves?

Appears to have been an enjoyable outing!

quote:

Originally posted by armored:
Wolves?

At this time there are only 2 wolves left on the island. There will be more transplanted in the next few years. We saw plenty of scat, but no wolves.

Very nice. I grew up 30 miles South of Houghton. I’ve been all over the U.P. but never on the ground at Isle Royal.

The word is now the moose are way up, about to eat themselves out of a home this Winter. They’ve always touted ‘hands off’ Mother Nature. Now the plan is to put more wolves out there to kill off many moose.

I’d rather vote for a high $$ hunt, but know it will never happen. Then of course they say the wolves only take a handful of deer on the mainland U.P., though there are less than traditionally.

One can make a career out of studying the ‘predator - prey relationship’. It does seem somewhat simple to me.

That is awesome. It's a dream of mine to hike Isle Royale someday...I love the UP, but have never made it out to the Island. How were the bugs? The last couple of times I've been up north the stable flies have been vicious.

You rode the Barf Barge? Congrats! The seaplane is a better option, but I can never afford it.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
That is awesome. It's a dream of mine to hike Isle Royale someday...I love the UP, but have never made it out to the Island. How were the bugs? The last couple of times I've been up north the stable flies have been vicious.

The bugs weren't a problem at all. Only put on repellent a couple of times while on the Tobin Harbor trail. It has been very dry in the U P this year.

We did a tune up hike to South Manitou island in June and the bugs were almost unbearable!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sprg03-A3,

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
You rode the Barf Barge? Congrats! The seaplane is a better option, but I can never afford it.

Ha ha.... Yes. The lake was almost scary calm on the trip out, not so much on the trip back but we did fine. Can't say the same for a few other passengers though. The boat was expensive enough without all the other costs associated with the trip. My son has been woken up in his dorm room by the seaplane taking off in the morning.

Another pictures off a moose that we were able to watch for quite a while. This old guy was more interested in eating than in us luckily!

Sunrise over Moskey Basin:

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sprg03-A3,

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
The word is now the moose are way up, about to eat themselves out of a home this Winter. They’ve always touted ‘hands off’ Mother Nature. Now the plan is to put more wolves out there to kill off many moose.

Oh...yeah...that's a GREAT idea.

sprg03-A3 - That looks like a great trip. Beautiful country up there. I've spent some time on a few of the Apostle Islands, but never gotten up there. It looks like a nice place to disappear for awhile.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
The word is now the moose are way up, about to eat themselves out of a home this Winter. They’ve always touted ‘hands off’ Mother Nature. Now the plan is to put more wolves out there to kill off many moose.

Oh...yeah...that's a GREAT idea.

sprg03-A3 - That looks like a great trip. Beautiful country up there. I've spent some time on a few of the Apostle Islands, but never gotten up there. It looks like a nice place to disappear for awhile.

The isolation was kind of a hard thing to get accustomed too. With the exception of a couple of short periods where I had 4g I was completely unable to be in contact with my wife and daughters who were in our camper in Copper Harbor.

The present problem with the wolves on the island is a lack of genetic diversity leading to a degenerative spine condition.

In the recent past there was at least one other pack on the island. Unfortunately three of the other pack drown after falling into an abandon mine during the winter. At present there is a female and one male, her father/brother....really. In the recent past when the wolf population was down one wolf crossed over the ice and single handedly caused a rebirth of the wolf population on the island. Therefore a small infusion of genetic diversity could be a huge benefit.

Interestingly enough the lack of wolves killing off the old/ weak moose is also causing problems with lesser carnivores like the fox as they have less available food.

We were fortunate enough to see a fox, as well as several hare including a baby, several loon and some big toads. Had a huge spider that luckily stayed outside of the screen of one of our shelters too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sprg03-A3,

That sounds like an amazing trip that will be a priceless memory for you both; kudos!