Since I moved to Chicago, I have always wanted to visit Isle Royale National Park, the only national park in Michigan. Finally this summer I managed to go there.
There are two ferry services from MI side to this island, One from Houghton (6 hr one way) and another from Copper harbor (3.5 hr one way). I chose the second one because it is of a shorter duration. Now, remember to book at least 2/3 weeks prior to your journey. This ferry service (runs only Mid May to End of September) fills up pretty fast.
So only July 3rd early morning I left my place with a hope that I would be at Copper harbor by 4pm. But you know, sometimes you search for some most common thing and you can't find it. Soon after I left I realized that I don't have my camping stove fuel with me. Well, for a quick solution, I ran to the Walmart near us. Alas ! no camping fuel for my particular stove. There were other kinds. Sometimes I wonder who are the people who decides to make all standards ? Even camping fuel container's needs to have various sizes? really? Well, we live in a land of choices and these are all (in some crazy way) to give us more freedom. Although I feel existence of more choices in products make your daily life less efficient and sometimes crazy! Anyway, after trying my luck in Illinois, I thought Wisconsin would provide some luck. After visiting two stores and not being able to find it, I decided to head towards my destination and figure out something there. As a last chance, I think I would just try REI as they are the ultimate land for choices when it comes to the campong gears. It is the very store where after entering you get a feeling that "man !! was I under a rock or what? So many gears can exist with so many different option?." Anyway after finding a right sized container for my fuel I asked one of the attendants if that would fit my stove nozzle. She said my stove has some proprietary design and may not work with their brand (note our extraordinary freedom of choices here again). Anyway, I strongly somehow felt that it should fit my stove and I bought it and it did! A success, finally!
After all these camping fuel drama, I realized that I was so hungry. I felt very strongly a crazy urge to eat from Taco Bell as I miss their crunchwraps very much (I used to eat California Crunchwrap, not sure how that name came). Anyway, found a nearby one and went there. So they have discontinued California crunchwrap!! What ?? I tried so many then made my choice and then that choice got removed ? now again I have to try and choose a new one? What complicated decision making processes will I be taking through every time ? Well, what can I do? Finally I ate something that look interesting and it was not bad! Okay, finally ready to drive to copper harbor. At that point I was almost 6 hrs away and it was almost 1:30pm. Enough Subho!! let's drive!!
Okay, nothing very interesting happened on my way to Copper harbor apart from the feeling that I should have bought the fuel a couple of days before. Well, it's a common theme of my life and in my native language Bengali we have a proverb (Oh yes, we use proverbs all the time!) - "Chor palale buddhi bare" which has a literal meaning - you become intelligent once the thief steals everything from your house.
I finally arrived at Copper harbor around 8:20pm.
I went towards the beginning of the US highway 41.
As I did not reserve any campground I was trying to find a small camping spot to finish cooking and sleep after doing a short hike. I met Bob (Picture below) who told me that if I go little more in that road I would find some spots on my left where I can easily stay for one night. That was exactly what I was looking for [Bob came came later to check on me to make sure I was okay, Thanks Bob, very nice of him].
I drove a little further and found a short hike. There was a trail of 0.5 mile round loop that goes to the lake. I did the hike and then came back to the spot I found earlier and pitched my tent. Then I boiled some water to have some pre-packaged Indian dinner pouch. It was great and went to sleep as I had to catch the ferry at 8am on Sunday.
I woke up early and packed my backpack and reached the dock at Copper harbor where I had to catch the boat "Isle Royale Queen IV". We all had to park our car at a nearby parking lot where overnight parking fee was 10$. Finally wish masks, we all boarded the boat around 7:50am.
It took almost 3.5 hrs. to reach the other side which is known as Rock harbor. The journey was uneventful. I went to the back side of the boat a few times and enjoyed the cool breeze there. Once we landed, the ranger Lauren greeted us with warm welcome and told us about the rules and regulations for the park. After that, we all got in line to get the permit from them. Jeff, an old man, actually gave me the permit and took a picture in front of the park sign.
After that, I went directly to the closest campsite in Rock harbor and found an empty spot #11. I put up my tent immediately and was ready to start my hike. It was around 1pm by then.
The goal was to do a loop from the campsite to go to the Mt. Franklin and comeback from three mile campground direction. Om the way to Mt. Franklin, I visited Suzy's cove and took the greenstone ridge trail to reach Mt. Franklin.
On the top of Mt. Franklin, the view was gorgeous and I had my lunch there with spicy tuna, bun and avocado, yummm! The hike was really refreshing. Sometime, it was next to the lake Superior and other time it was inside the forest. The entire trail was very less crowded so as a solo hiker, one can enjoy the quietness of that place fully.
As I mentioned, the part of the hike was next to the lake so it was very refreshing to get the cool breeze from the lake time to time.
Next, around 8:30pm I reached my campground. I quickly boiled water and had my dinner and soon went to the dreamland as I was very tired.
I woke up pretty early and started hiking around 7:30 am the other part of the island. I wanted to go to the Scoville point. The round trip was less than 5 miles. So I had enough time to complete it before 2pm when I need to come back for my return boat back to copper harbor.
Most of the part of this hike was next to the lake. The flowers, the structure of the rocks were gorgeous. I sat down multiple times on the way. Once time I wanted to sing a song and here is the link if you want to listen :) [Link to Tomar Khola Haowa]
I also saw a huge next by an eagle family where a baby eagle was waiting for her mom to come back. Even the baby looked so huge. Actually I did not noticed it at all as I was trying to find some birds on the shore side. So one of my co-hikers brought the attention to it.
Finally I reached the Scoville point. It was very nice spot and I went down to check the larger rocks and did find some astonishing colors in those.
As there were copper mines, so probably those colors could come from some minerals and copper and other metals.
I started to head back around 11 am and reached the harbor around 12:30. I had my lunch at the greenstone grill with fish sandwich, which was tasty. After that, I went to my campground and packed everything and collect some souvenirs and magnet [a must] from the park store. Then I sat down by the harbor before we assemble at the dock for our return ferry.
Coincidentally, I met a Bengali person, Bikram there. He and his girlfriend were from Madison and came to hike this park since July 2nd. Bikram and I were from the same part of India and we speak the same language. So we started chit-chatting and that actually ended in Copper harbor when we had to drive back to home.
Anyway, it was a great rejuvenating trip for me and an official post-covid crisis trip. Hiking and camping were great and I made a good friend in this trip!
I am very glad that finally I was able to do this national park which I planned to go for a long time since I moved to Chicago.
