Torturing myself.

I have exactly 30 days until I set foot on Isle Royale. I would be there right now if it not for my clumsiness. The ankle seems to have turned a corner and the color is gone.

But I can’t help thinking where I’d be if not for naught. Right this moment, we’d probably be fishing for northerns at McCargoe Cove. Weather says it’s a partly sunny day, high near 70. I could suffer through that.

Fact is, all this week I’ve been imagining where I’d be at any given moment…and doing whatever. So far I’ve been to Daisy Farm, Moskey Basin, Chipewa Harbor and Lake Ritchie in my head. Imagining the trails, meals, fishing, climbing, setting up and chillin’ out. It’s been great. Really.

But for the real thing.

I’m also being visually flogged by a number of new Isle Royale photos posted at the IR forums. The photo with this post is one seen at the top of this entry. Exceptional shots, done by a pro. Saaaaweeeet.

Too suite.

All I can do right now is try to rehab my balky ankle and see to whatever minor details I can in this lull time. Soon my mental trip to Isle Royale will be over, but I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing the real thing is yet to come.

The Itinerary

Many thanx to the folks at Isle Royale Forums (http://www.isleroyaleforums.com). IMO, it’s the best IR forum on the web. I asked lots of questions and got lots of answers.

From the various discussions there, and after reading basically everything I could get my hands on, my son and I arrived at the following trip itinerary:

We would arrive in Copper Harbor that Saturday, overnighting at Fort Wilkins State Park. Then the next morning….

Day 1: Ferry from Copper Harbor to Rock Harbor.
To Daisy Farm: 7.1 miles
Day 2: To Moskey Basin: 3.9 miles
Day 3: To Chippewa Harbor: 6.2 miles
Day 4: To Lake Ritchie: 4.3 miles
Day 5: To McCargoe Cove: 6.3 miles
Day 6: To Daisy Farm: 8.2 miles
Day 7: To Rock Harbor: 8.0 miles (via Tobin Harbor Trail)
Ferry back to Copper Harbor

That’s about 44 miles total, with packs. That’s a little over 6 miles per day, average. Plus whatever we walk in our various explorations of the Island.

After arriving back at Copper Harbor on Saturday evening, we’ll drive to McLain State Park (on the Superior shore near Hancock) for the night. Next day, it’s back to Grand Rapids.

It’ll be a fun trip even on the travel days. We’ll be able to poke around the campus of MTU and Houghton a bit. I’ve made plans to take a tour of WMTU, the campus radio station I worked at during my time at Tech. My jockin’ there later led to a 10 year radio career, and ultimately to my current profession as an advertising writer/producer/voice talent. That’s where it all started for me. Should be a gas!

That, and the stellar drive from Houghton to Copper Harbor. Gonna be epic, I tells ya!

This is, of course, all predicated on my successful ankle rehab.

No pressure there. ;-)

A trip on the edge....

I was originally going to Isle Royale this weekend.

For months, my trip to Isle Royale was scheduled for July 20th to 26th. Recently, my wife and I had decided to take a short overnight backpacking trip of our own the weekend before. It would be a good warm-up to the big trip. I would carry a full pack to get used to carrying weight again, and try out a few new pieces of gear. So it was up to the Manistee River Trail near Cadillac, MI for a quick overnight trip…5 miles in, 5 miles out. Simple.

Not simple.

Both trip and trail were delightful…until we were no more than 5 minutes away from the trailhead and our car. We were passing through a section of trail that was a bit overgrown, with brush obscuring the path below. I spotted a web of tree roots below and told her, “Careful…some tree roots here…tough to see.” No sooner were those words out of my mouth, than did I step on one of said roots and rolled my left ankle. Bad. Toppled into the prickly brush.

In a moment, I knew I had done some damage. I’d felt that buckling sensation before and knew it wasn’t good. Pain shooting up my calf. A sharp ache wrapping itself around my foot and ankle.

Staggering to my feet, I tried to walk it off…hoping that I really hadn’t done what I knew I had. In a few moments, it didn’t feel as bad and I was able to complete the last couple hundred yards to the car.

Then I pulled off my boot to survey the damage. Not good. Not good at all.

If you were to cut off about a third of a tennis ball and place it on the bone of my ankle, that’s about what it looked like. Puffy, swollen.

A visit to an urgent care center confirmed my fears. There was no way I was going to be able to tackle 40 miles or more of Isle Royale’s famously rugged terrain, 5 days after sustaining an injury like this.

The trip was off. I nearly cried.

This was the only real window of opportunity for the trip. We didn’t want to go earlier because of the bugs and crowds, and my son had a month long art internship that would cover all of August. After some deliberation, my son decided that he would skip the last 4 days of his internship in favor of being able to do Isle Royale this year. Otherwise, it wasn’t going to happen.

So now we have new trip date….August 24th through the 30th. All I have to do is heal up my ankle.

And steer clear of tree roots.

I can’t get enough of the Great Outdoors.

If you are of similar mind, this is a place to pose questions or settle into a long fireside palaver of your experiences.

This blog starts in July of 2008 as I ready myself for my first ever trip to Isle Royale National Park. I plan to spend 7 days and 6 nights on the Island, backpacking the eastern third with my 17-year old son. We plan to cover a little over 40 miles with packs on our backs during that time. There will no doubt be a few more miles in dayhikes and explorations from base camp.

This trip is over 30 years in the making. I attended college at Michigan Tech (Houghton, MI) in the early to mid 70s. But even though I was a Forestry major, I never ended up visiting the Island. I could have gone in late summer before classes began, or late spring after classes ended. I was even up at Tech for Forestry Summer Camp and could easily have gone at its beginning or end. But it never happened. I found myself either short of time, money or both. After moving back downstate after college, life wrapped its tentacles around me and the possibility of an Isle Royale trip became more remote with each passing year. Job…marriage…kids….disabilities…. each contributed to the distance and difficulty of getting back up to this mysterious Island. Not having gone when I had the chance has been one of my biggest outdoor regrets of my life.

But things have come full circle now. The kids are older. I get more vacation time these days. And I’m not poverty-stricken any more.

The time is right, and Isle Royale is on the horizon….waiting for me.