NORTH BY NORTHWEST
This
summer’s trip ended up being one of our most creative adventures. It started with a pair of bookends. Christy wanted to spend the first weekend of
August with our friends Marsha and Ian in St. Joseph, Michigan. St. Joseph is in the southwest corner of the
state, on Lake Michigan. She planned to
do a ˝ Ironman race there with them. I
wanted to spend the last weekend of August in Missoula, Montana. Appalachian State was scheduled to open the
football season there against the University of Montana. Montana is the class of Division 1-AA (FCS)
football. For years I’d wanted to attend
a game there, but this was my first real opportunity.
My
goal was to build a trip connecting those two weekends. Fortunately I’m able to take 4 consecutive
weeks of vacation each summer. However,
Christy has to return to work (high school) around mid-August. So I had to do the Montana portion of the
trip without her.
Initially
we decided to spend the first two weeks in Michigan. After driving to St. Joseph, we’d head north,
into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (the U.P.)
We planned to visit places like Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore,
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and Porcupine Mountains State Park. Most notably, we planned a six-day trip to
Isle Royale National Park. Isle Royale
has been at the top of Christy’s to-do list for years. Isle Royale is the largest island in Lake
Superior. It’s not easy to get to, as it
requires a 4+ hour ferry ride from the northern tip of Michigan.
At
the end of the first two weeks, Christy would drop me off at an Amtrak station
near Madison, Wisconsin. She would drive
home from there, after another brief visit with Marsha and Ian. I would take the train all the way to Glacier
National Park. That certainly isn’t the
fastest way to get to Glacier, but the train offered some advantages. Most notably, it would save a lot of
money. Airfare to Montana is expensive,
but the biggest savings would come from avoiding a rental car. I wouldn’t have to spend hundreds of dollars
on a car that would be sitting in a trailhead parking lot most of the
trip. Since Amtrak stops in West
Glacier, at the park entrance, I could simply walk into the park.
I
hoped to spend most of my time there backpacking, though that part of the trip
was filled with uncertainty. Backpacking
in Glacier requires a permit, and backcountry campsites have strict
quotas. Half of the campsites are
available for reservation in advance.
However, because the park is popular and the hiking season is short
(July – September), demand for most of the better campsites exceeds the limits
imposed by the park service. Reservation
requests received prior to April 15th are entered into a
lottery. I submitted a request, but I
was not lucky. As a result, I’d have to
try to get a permit upon arriving at the park.
About half of the campsites are available on a walk-up basis, no earlier
than the first day of the trip. This
would mean having to arrive at the backcountry office early in the morning
(i.e. 5am) – possibly several days in a row.
Because of this uncertainty, I had to leave the Glacier National Park
portion of the trip largely unplanned.
I’d be winging it until it was time to leave for Missoula.
Our
plans went awry a couple of weeks before we planned to leave. Christy has a chronic knee injury, which
began acting up in June. By mid-July it
was apparent that she wouldn’t be able to hike.
After much debate, we decided to cancel the Isle Royale portion of the
trip. Honestly, there just isn’t much to
do out there if hiking isn’t an option.
We considered renting a canoe or kayaks, but that would’ve been
expensive for six days. Instead, we
cancelled our ferry reservations, and we were refunded most of the cost.
Initially
we figured that we would just spend more time in some of the other places in
Michigan’s U.P. However, we already had
reservations for campsites at most of the places we wanted to visit. We didn’t want to change them, so we didn’t
have a lot of flexibility. This was
unfortunate, as it would’ve been nice to spend additional time in Pictured
Rocks and the Porcupine Mountains. Also,
Christy decided that she’d prefer to return home a few days earlier, so that
she would have some recovery time before school started. I was not opposed to spending a few extra
days in Glacier, even though it meant spending an extra $60 to change my train
ticket. I made that change a week or so
before we left. Luckily, I was able to
change my hotel for my first night in West Glacier (they had exactly one room
available).
The
final planning and packing was complicated.
I separated the food, gear, and clothes I’d need for the Montana portion
of the trip, except that there were some items that would be needed in both
places. By our day of departure, my
football tickets hadn’t arrived. I had
already assembled a box with clean clothes that Christy would ship to me at my
hotel in Missoula. She would put the
tickets in the box before she shipped it.
Finally we were ready to head out.
We turned the house and dogs over to our 16-year old nephew and prepared
for an early departure on Friday morning.
PART I: THE GREAT
LAKES
We
left Charlotte early on August 2nd.
Spending 15 hours driving to Michigan wasn’t a great way to spend my
birthday, but all adventures have to start somewhere. We took my new Prius, which is at least
enjoyable to drive. Packing the car with
everything we needed for 2 weeks of car camping, plus everything I needed for
another 2 weeks in Montana, had actually been pretty easy. It helped that Christy was only doing the
swim portion of the ˝ Ironman. Her bike
would’ve gone on our bike rack, but some of the other race necessities had been
left behind. The best part of the drive
was that we made it all the way from Charlotte to St. Joseph, Michigan on about
15 gallons of gas. In terms of cost, it
was like being back in the 90’s.
The
drive was tedious initially, with heavy traffic and frequent construction zones
in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
After passing Charleston, WV, we were running short on patience. We spent most of the rest of the drive on
back roads in Ohio and Indiana. We were
driving a little slower, but traffic was lighter and the back roads were more
direct. We probably made the same time
as if we’d stuck to the freeways and toll roads, but the experience was more
pleasant. At least until we reached Fort
Wayne, Indiana.
We
drove through a ferocious downpour while passing through Fort Wayne. We’d planned to stop for dinner there, but
kept going on account of not being able to see any of the restaurants we were
passing (or anything else, for that matter).
We continued on to Columbia City, Indiana, which must have been the
inspiration for the sitcom “Parks and Rec”.
Columbia City was not the place to stop for dinner, but that didn’t stop
us from trying. We found a Mexican
restaurant on Google Maps that sounded promising, but it didn’t actually
exist. We then tried a second Mexican
restaurant, which also didn’t exist, followed by Chinese restaurant that didn’t
exist. In fact, during our grand tour of
Columbia City, the only non-fast food “restaurant” that we saw was a bowling alley advertising “the best fish in Columbia
City”. I don’t doubt that claim. In fact, I’m quite sure they are the only
place in Columbia City that serves fish, or pretty much anything else.
We
continued on to Warsaw, Indiana. I found
a place on Google Maps that sounded really great – they even had sushi! Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to exist. There were 20+ reviews of this place, but we
couldn’t find it. At least it didn’t
exist where Google Maps thought it existed.
We did find a Mexican place a few minutes later, but the line there was
out the door. I don’t know if that was
because it was that good, or because it is the only restaurant that actually
exists in the whole county. Finally we
conceded defeat and settled for a Ruby Tuesday.
That wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind for a birthday dinner, but we
were tired and hungry. Service was slow,
but at that point it hardly mattered.
We’d already killed an hour driving around looking for somewhere to
eat. Plus, they gave us free cheesecake
for our trouble. Hooray.
We
finally arrived at Marsha and Ian’s at 10pm, which was 3 hours later than we’d
expected. One hour was lost driving
around Columbia City and Warsaw, and in the downpour near Fort Wayne. Another hour was lost at Ruby Tuesday. The third hour? I’d been under the mistaken belief that
southwestern Michigan was in the Central Time Zone. Actually, almost all of Michigan is on
Eastern Time.
Ian
actually arrived shortly after us. He’d
just returned from working in Italy. We
chatted briefly, but everyone was tired.
We all headed to bed, but with big plans for Saturday.
The
next morning we went to the beach. We
drove to a local park, which was the site of Sunday’s ˝ Ironman. Marsha and Ian were planning to do the race,
and Christy intended to do the swim.
They picked up their race packets, and their daughter, Audrey, raced in
the kid’s fun run. I’m pretty sure she
won. I attempted to run that morning,
too. A few weeks earlier my chronic calf
injury had reoccurred in my right calf.
When it happens, the muscle knots up, and
running is impossible. Two visits to one
of my personal magicians had fixed the problem – or so I thought. I was 11 minutes into my run when the left
calf went. Frustrated, I limped back to
the park. Fortunately, the calf injury
doesn’t bother me when I’m hiking, but running during the remainder of my
vacation would be out of the question.
We
hung out on the beach for a while before heading back. The beach was actually quite nice, but the
water is cold. There’s no Gulf Stream in
Lake Michigan!
We
returned to Marsha and Ian’s, and relaxed there that afternoon. Later, we ventured into downtown St.
Joseph. It’s a neat little town, and our
visit coincided with a Chalk Art display.
The art is made on the streets and sidewalks with chalk, and some of it
was quite impressive. Then we headed
down to Silver Beach, which was also quite nice. After driving through lots of rain on Friday,
a sunny weekend with highs in the 70’s was quite welcome. We went to bed early that night, as Christy,
Marsha, and Ian all had to be up early for the race.
They
headed out early on Sunday morning. I
stayed behind to watch the kids. Later
that morning Marsha’s friends arrived with their children. We all drove back down to the beach park to
catch the end of the race. I found
Christy on the beach, enjoying the sunshine.
She’d had a rough swim against the current most of the way. We relaxed there until Marsha and Ian
finished their first ˝ Ironman races.
Congratulations to both of them!
That
evening we had dinner at a pizza place adjacent to the Amtrak station near
Silver Beach. The pizza was good, and
they had Moose Drool (in bottles, not draft), but it probably wasn’t worth
waiting 90 minutes for! I spent most of
that time walking around Silver Beach.
Surprisingly, Christy, Marsha, and Ian didn’t seem to be interested in
joining me. Later that evening I picked
up groceries for our first few days of car camping.
SLEEPING BEAR
We
were up early on Monday morning. I had tried
to make campground reservations at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
several months earlier, but everything had already been booked. However, some campsites are available on a
first-come, first-serve basis. The Park
Service recommends arriving early for the best chance at getting one.
We
made a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts and left St. Joseph at 7am. The drive north was pretty smooth, though I
nearly hit a wild turkey crossing the road.
We drove up the east side of Lake Michigan, but the lake remained hidden
from view most of the way. We arrived at
the Platte River Campground at 11:30, but it was already full. The Lakeshore’s other campground, at the
northern end of the park, was also full.
Apparently Sleeping Bear Dunes is extremely popular! I hadn’t expected it to be that hard to get a
campsite on a Monday morning.
We
spoke with a ranger, and he gave us a rough map of the area with other
campgrounds noted. The first one we
tried, near the local air strip, was unattractive, but also full. I was beginning to get frustrated. We only had about 24 hours to spend at
Sleeping Bear, and I didn’t want most of that time dedicated to finding a place
to put the tent.
The
map provided by the ranger showed a campground in Gary Lake State Forest a few miles
away. We headed that way, not realizing
that getting there by the direct route involved several miles of rough dirt
road. We only scraped bottom twice, but
it was a huge relief when we finally got back on the pavement.
We
found the campground a bit further down the road. Oddly, the place seemed to be completely
deserted. There was one RV in the whole
place, and it looked like it had been abandoned. The campground was overgrown and generally in
disrepair. There were no amenities to
speak of, either. The campsites (also
overgrown) didn’t even have fire rings or picnic tables.
We
weren’t quite desperate enough to settle for one-star (zero star?)
camping. We continued down the road, not
knowing where we were going. The only
thing I was sure of was that we weren’t going back the way we came.
We
reached the real Gary Lake State Forest campground a minute later. The campground we initially drove through was
a horse campground. The regular
campground was much better. It was
horribly overpriced at $22, which included the day use fee, which campers also
have to pay. Technically we were
probably supposed to pay for both days (at $8 per day), but we kind of skipped
out on paying for day 2. By my math, we
would be there less than 24 hours, which is clearly one day.
The
campground was actually pretty nice, although the water was hard to pump and a
bit more brown than I generally prefer.
We ended up getting all of our water at the visitor’s center later that
afternoon. The campground includes a pit
toilet, picnic tables, and fire rings (but no grills). Gary Lake was pleasant but unspectacular, at
least until that evening, when the loons came out. Nothing beats sleeping in a tent while
listening to loons.
We
had lunch and then headed back to Sleeping Bear. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center and got
water, and I picked up an annual National Parks Pass for $85. The pass would be good through August, 2014,
and I figured it would practically pay for itself by the time I was finished
with my 2+ week visit to Glacier NP.
I
had planned a short hike, but it started raining as we left the Visitor’s Center. Instead we went over to the Pierce Stocking
Scenic Drive. The rain put a damper on
the views, but it was still an enjoyable drive.
The highlight was a stop at the top of one of larger dunes in the
park. There was a herd of people here,
and many of them were making the trek down the dune to the lakeshore. From the crest of the dune it looked like a
sheer cliff, but in reality it was just an extremely steep slope. The lake didn’t look too far away, but we
overhead one young, athletic guy mention that it took him 50 minutes to climb
back up. Christy and I decided to skip
that little excursion. Between her knee
injury and my calf injury, it didn’t seem like a good idea.
From
there we walked over to another overlook, which provided a side view of the
dune. From there, we enjoyed watching
people struggle back up the slope. Many
of them were sliding back down the hill almost as much as they were
climbing. All that
scene needed was a gorilla at the top of the hill hurling barrels, and it
would’ve looked just like a round of Donkey Kong.
The
rain ended about the time we finished the drive. It was late afternoon, but I thought I still
had time for a short hike. We drove out
to the Maritime Museum and on to the Sleeping Bear Point Trailhead. Christy dropped me off there and drove into
Glen Arbor to do some shopping.
Originally she had planned to relax on the beach while I hiked, but the
weather wasn’t cooperative. This would
be a recurring theme through the first week of our trip.
I
hiked the Sleeping Bear Point Loop. The
hike was only about 3 miles, but it was in deep sand most of the time. That made for difficult hiking, particularly
since my calf was still extremely sore.
The hike was enjoyable though, and I had the trail to myself after
passing Sleeping Bear Point a short distance from the parking lot. The hike featured lots of good views from the
sand dunes, but the overcast sky didn’t do much for my photos. The best part was the views of distant cliffs
on the main land and on North and South Manitou Island. Plus, it was nice to get some exercise after
several days of driving and leisure.
Christy
was waiting for me when I finished the hike.
We drove back into Glen Arbor, which was overrun with tourists. We made a brief stop for groceries before
heading over to Inspiration Point. Every
National Park is legally required to have an Inspiration Point, and we felt
obligated to pay it a visit. The view
from there across Glen Lake was ok, but not terribly inspirational. We headed back to camp for dinner, a
campfire, some Moose Drool, and some free therapy courtesy of the resident
loons.
UP THE BEACH
We
started Tuesday with pancakes, bacon, and coffee. Then we broke camp and drove back to Sleeping
Bear. We were passing a farm when we saw
one of the more unusual wildlife sightings of the trip. A housecat darted across the road in front of
us, followed closely by a fox. I was
curious as to how that would turn out, but they both disappeared into the
forest.
I
did another short hike that morning.
Christy dropped me off at the giant parking lot for the Dune Climb. Fortunately it was still fairly early, and
most of the tourists hadn’t arrived.
However, a school bus pulled in just as I was getting organized. That provided the motivation I needed to
start up the first dune.
My
plan was to do the Dunes Trail to Lake Michigan. It’s a little less than 2 miles, and
traverses 7 sand dunes along the way.
The tallest dune is first, but it is a roller coaster the rest of the
way. The trail officially ends at the
lake, and most people return by the same route.
I had a different plan in mind.
Instead of returning, I would follow the beach all the way back to
Sleeping Bear Point and the trailhead I’d hiked from the previous day. That would give Christy a couple of hours for
shopping before she had to pick me up.
It
was a steep climb in soft sand, and at one point my calf gave an alarming
twinge. I slowed my pace after that, and
resumed the climb at an angle, rather than going straight up. The effort was worth it, as the view from the
top was dramatic despite the overcast sky.
The best view was back east, over Glenn Lake. From the highest point I could just make out
Lake Michigan in the opposite direction.
From
there I followed the trail, which is marked with posts in the sand. I descended and ascended 6 more dunes, each
one a little smaller than the last. The
hiking was difficult due to the soft sand, but I was lucky it wasn’t a sunny
day. There is very little shade along
the route.
The
trail was fairly busy, and there was a small cluster of people along the
lakeshore at the end of the trail. I left
them behind quickly, hiking north along the water’s edge. The views across Lake Michigan towards the
Manitou Islands were fantastic, but the overcast sky once again diminished my
photos. I saw lots of birds along the
way, and passed a Piping Plover nesting area that was fenced off. I didn’t see any other people though, until
reaching Sleeping Bear Point near the end of the hike. In fact, there weren’t even any footprints in
the sand between the two trails.
Apparently I was the only person to think to connect these two hikes, at
least on this particular morning.
Christy
was waiting for me at the trailhead. We
drove to a picnic area overlooking Lake Michigan and had lunch. Then we headed east and north, bound for the
Mackinaw Island Bridge and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Back to Michigan
Back to Hiking and Backpacking Trip Reports
Please remember to Leave No Trace!