Isle Royale awaits us in 2009. John W and I are tentatively planning to hike the length of the island during the week of June 7, 2009. Ideally, we will leave Minneapolis on Sunday, June 7, and return sometime on Sunday, June 14.
This trip will require careful and detailed planning.
We must first decide whether we will travel to the island from the north or south shore of Lake Superior. If we choose to travel from the north shore, we must drive to Grand Portage, which is approximately thirty miles south of the Canadian border. Grand Portage is 300 miles from the Twin Cities. Once there, we will take a small ferry to the island. The island is roughly twenty-five miles from the north shore, and the boat ride to Rock Harbor, our point of departure, will take about two hours. If we travel from the south shore of Lake Superior, we leave from Copper Harbor on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Copper Harbor is about 330 miles from the Twin Cities. The boat ride from Copper Harbor to Isle Royale is about four hours long.
Hiking the island will be a challenge. Most of the trails are no more difficult than those we have encountered on the Superior Hiking Trail, but then some of those trials were an endurance test. Allowing for detours, side trails, and mosquitos, we should expect to cover about 45 miles. This may not seem like a lot of terrain to cover in five or six days, yet this is not a race, of course.
In these pages you will find links to several interesting sites related to Isle Royale, and a running commentary on our gear. The gear page is a list of gear that we have, what we will need, what we might choose to make ourselves, and what we would carry if money, or weight, was no object.
Rain or shine, with or without bugs, this will be a terrific trip, one that we have planned for some time. So here we go....
A few pieces of new equipment have arrived -- the "pocket rocket" stove, that will be a backup for our trusty Trangia, and a new topographical map of the island. More to come.
Below are links to a few sites with interesting information about the Island, its history, weather and geology. Take a look. Can you find anything else to add to this?.