Threemile to Rock Harbor

7 August 2024

Shelters are strange- I spent a good portion of last night waiting for the skittering of little feet on the screen that never came.  Which was a good thing since setting up my tent inside the shelter wasn’t fun- long poles, short ceilings… plus, nothing actually got in, so I chanced it (though I did pack all the gear I wasn’t using into my pack incase something did get in and I needed to get away from said critter quickly).

Last night was almost too quiet.  Needless to say, I did not sleep well, which was probably for the best as I wanted to get an early start to ensure I get a shelter at Rock Harbor- there’s rain in the forecast for tonight and I’d rather not pack up wet gear in the rain.

But, Rock Harbor is a busy place so I’m hoping to time my arrival for after the boat to Michigan leaves, but before the boat from Minnesota gets in, so I hit the trail a little before 7.

Since it hasn’t started raining yet (and my shelter was already partly down the trail), I opted to take the Rock Harbor trail instead of the Tobin Harbor trail:

Ranger III, departing the island- hopefully some of those passengers were in shelters so I can snag one!

Sunrise from the dock wasn’t all that impressive, but the views from my hike:

GORGEOUS!!!

So glad I took this route:

I had passed one group at this point, and don’t want to get passed by others, but it’s still early so a little side quest to check out a cave is probably ok:

Welcome to Suzy’s Cave!

It had a secondary entrance/exit, but there’s no way I’d fit through it with my pack on and I didn’t want to lose too much time, so onward!

Over the next mile, I passed 2 groups and had almost overtaken a third when the campground came into view:

There were 4 shelters available!  But the one of the groups I had passed was catching up so I just grabbed the closest one (#4):

Definitely not the best- there’s not much of front porch (that rock took up most of the space), but there was a blueberry patch in the back!!!

and it came with a stash of toilet paper:

which was much appreciated since I officially ran out this morning!

Yes, there are flush toilets here, but I have to walk into “town” to use them- the pit potty is just up the path from my shelter, so it’ll still be my go-to.

It also came with this creepy, but kinda cool spider!

It’s early, 9am-ish, and there’s still one more hike I’d like to do, so I left most of my gear in my shelter and headed into “town”:

I checked out the Ranger Station (and bought a t-shirt!) and scoped out the camp store, then headed around the harbor:

to the start of my hike:

If you’re on the Rock Harbor end and don’t want to hike the length of the island, this trail is a great representation of what the island has to offer:

Stellar coastlines:

Scoville Point:

it was seriously windy out here!

Float plane, inbound:

I don’t know who lives on this cove, but they’ve got some amazing views!

One more view of the coast before heading into the forest:

I came in on the lefthand trail; I’ll take the righthand trail (along Tobin Harbor) back:

Tobin Harbor, also quite scenic!

For a split second, a float plane was visible through the gap in the trees, but he was gone before I could get my camera out:

Duck family:

FINALLY! a close-up loon!

Faces in rocks:

Remnants of an old mine:

From the 1840s to the 1850s, miners dug for copper.  They found some, but ultimately, Isle Royale is rather copper poor, so the mining industry here dried up and only a few remnants of the excavation remain.

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Back in Rock Harbor, I’m officially done with my hike!

I did it!!!

Since about my 2nd day on the trail I’ve been looking forward to 2 things: real food and a shower.  First up, food!

Bags have to stay outside- most of these packs look WAY bigger than mine!

Some combination of a burger/pizza and a beer/soda are common post-hike meals here, but I wasn’t really feeling it, so I opted for soda and a salad:

The leafy greens were really packed in there- it was much more filling than I expected.

Now that my belly’s full, it’s time to get clean!  …except there was a line at the shower and someone mentioned the hot water was out… so I made a few loops of the campsite looking for moose or wolves (no luck) and came back an hour later.  I’m pretty sure showers used to be $5 for 6 minutes but apparently inflation has hit here too, it’s now $7 for 5 minutes.  Short, but doable- best $7 I ever spent!

…or it would have been had there been hot water.  This was the coldest, shortest shower of my life (I was done before the water shut off at 5 minutes!) but I’m CLEAN!!!

And to celebrate, I found this giant cookie at the grill:

I also picked up a couple scones for the boat ride home tomorrow.  But now that I’m clean, I don’t really want to hike and get sweaty again, so I just bummed around town, wandering back and forth between my shelter, “town” and the campsites looking for moose or wolves.  No luck, unfortunately.

I did spot this collection of cans:

You can’t bring gas canisters on the float plane, so people often leave their cans behind when they fly out.  Some of them were marked with an approximate amount of fuel remaining, but otherwise you just have to guess.  A good way to get a few extra warm meals if your canister runs out- all these were gone when I came back an hour later!

I was planning on eating dinner at the grill here, but when I stopped for lunch (unplanned, but I ate through my packed lunch and was still hungry) nothing really grabbed me, so I ate the just-in-case dinner I had packed for just this situation:

This was an untested meal- butternut dal bhat and it was so good!  I should have used a bit less water and, despite cooking it for longer than normal, not all the chickpeas rehydrated (though their crunch was kinda fun), but the flavor was much better than expected- creamy, buttery, squashy… would eat again!

Clouds started rolling in, so even though the sun won’t set for another 1.5 hours, this is the best sunset shot I got:

The sun dipped behind the incoming clouds and did not come back out, and shortly after I got back to my shelter, the rain started.  On and off, little sprinkles at first (which sound creepily like hundreds of tiny feet running on my roof!) then heavier.  So glad I’ve got a roof over my head to keep my gear dry!  Packing up in the rain tomorrow would not have been fun!