South Desor to Hatchet Lake

3 August 2024

Today also started ridiculously early (0100-ish) when Dad+Sons fired up all their lights and stumbled around camp looking for… ??? … no idea.  Since the nights haven’t gotten below 60 yet, I’ve been sleeping with the fly off my tent so there was no stopping their lights from lighting up our site and waking me up.

Lame.

But I managed to fall back asleep, waking up in time to catch this sunrise:

The lake was so still!

I wasn’t quite ready to be awake just yet, so I crawled back into my tent for another hour or so.  But, days here have been pushing 80, so I do want to get an early start, so I packed up camp and was on the trail by 0730:

Today’s hike (on paper) looks great- uphills for the first part, a nice viewpoint in the middle, then downhills to my next campsite:

Through the green tunnel again:

Small hoof print!

I feel like this field would be a stellar place for moose to graze, but no luck:

Ishpeming fire tower:

No longer staffed, but it still makes a great place to take a break.  Normally I just do a walking lunch, but today I actually took my pack off and sat for a bit.  It was nice.

But, I’ve still got several miles to do, so onward!

This turned out to be a delicious stretch of trail- so many thimbleberries!!!

yum!

and then, the green tunnel opened up to these scenic views:

Now *this* is my kind of trail!

I ran into a family of 4 and stopped to chat for a bit; since we were heading opposite directions, we traded advice and current conditions (me: skip Island Mine, them: blueberries ahead!) and before I knew it, I was at the junction to my next campsite:

However, the trail to get down here… so steep!!!

But look at the view from the bottom!

No moose sightings, yet:

I was the second hiker here- an older couple claimed site #5 (and warned me there were leeches in this lake!):

Of the remaining sites, 1 and 3 were up in the woods where the breeze didn’t reach, #2 was very exposed with no good shade, but #4 had a pad with a pre-dug trench:

Maybe not the best sign, but there are definitely clouds rolling in so if it does rain, maybe that little moat will help?  Also, yes, those are rocks holding down my tent- the ground here is pretty hard-packed too.

I filtered some water:

More tannins here than at Desor and definitely more “lakey”.  Not my favorite, but still drinkable.

This lake had a great lounging rock:

The Dad+Son currently using it were actually at Island Mine with me!  The critter that ran through my site was a fox that had been sniffing around their tent that they scared off.  Mystery solved!

This pond had white and yellow flowers:

Yellow pond lily:

Since camp chores were done, I headed back to the trail- on my way into camp, I passed a group that had seen moose, and while it’s probably long gone, I went hunting anyway.

I found a print, but no moose:

I’ve been hearing birds all day, and was finally able snap a picture of a little Northern Perula:

and a cute little green bug:

Dinner with a view from couch rock:

That’s a leech:

Dad+Son from Island Mine and I started teasing them from the lake:

and feeding them to frogs:

I wasn’t fast enough to get an action shot, but this guy is well fed:

Earlier in the day, I gained a site-mate (he’s set up on the other side of the hedge to the right of this picture); he was also down at the lake with Dad+Son and I doing some fishing (and caught a wee little fish!), but he stopped by with a weather update- there’s a cold front coming through that may bring storms tonight, so I deployed my tent’s rainfly and actually staked my tent down:

Goodnight from Hatchet Lake: