Friday, September 14, 2012

Driving to the Porcupine Mountains


This was to be illustrated, but when I began my hike, I put a new card in my camera and for the life of me I haven’t been able to find the old card which had photos I’d taken while driving across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  I have not been a very good blogger lately as I have been busy and the free time I’ve spent on my sailboat, sailing several evenings a week.  Sadly, on Wednesday, I took the boat out of the water as it is beginning to get cooler and I’ll be traveling next week and then very busy when I come back.   Anyway, here’s my story of driving north.  I am nearly done of my 4 day hike in the Porcupines and then I’ll have another story of a hike in Picture Rocks.  Be good!

From my home, it is a long ways to the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan.  It’s almost 300 miles to “the Bridge,” and once I get to the bridge over the Mackinac Straits, I still have 300 miles to drive.  It’s about 2 PM on Monday when I finally hit the road for my trip, heading north on freeways through the nondescript parts of Central Michigan.  Things don’t get interesting until I cross the bridge, after which I take US 2 and head west into the setting sun, with Lake Michigan to my left and small hotels and diners advertising pasties for sale to my right.  It was getting dark as I see a sign for Hog Island Campground.  Checking it out, it appears to be a great place to stop for the night.  There are only a handful of campers and lots of open sites that back up to Lake Michigan.  But it’s after 8 and I haven’t eaten dinner, so I drive on a bit and stop at a little diner at the next community and picked up a sandwich and beer and then drive back to the campsite, backing my truck into a site and parking.   A nice breeze is blowing off the lake and the stars are just beginning to pop out.  I roll out the foam pad that I keep in my truck and then open up my inflatable pad that I put on the top of the other pad and spread up my sleeping bag.   Eating my sandwich and drinking my beer on the table, I look out into the dark lake and then read some in a hiking guide on the Porcupine Mountains, before crawling into the back of the truck, shutting the hatch and falling asleep. 
I wake up early the next morning and walk out onto a point in the lake as the sun rises over the distant horizon, illumining the stones alone the beach in a warm hue as it casts casting long shadows of every object.   The winds are calmer than yesterday evening and it appears to be the beginning of a beautiful day.  Deciding to forego making breakfast, I am soon on the road and again heading West on US 2.  I still have a long ways to go to get to the trailhead.  I Naubinway, I stop and pick up a breakfast sandwich and coffee and continue on, through Manistique, where I see what appears to be a local freight train shuffling a few cars around.   The highway runs across the top of Big Bay De Noc, paralleling the Soo’s Mainline from Canada and across the Upper Peninsula.  As I’ve seen, the line is still used, but doesn’t have the traffic it once did as it once did when timber and mining were big business up here.  Today, many of the old railroad lines have been abandoned and their beds serve as snowmobile trails.   As I drive, I continually pass groups of Harley’s, whom I assume are taking the long way home from Sturgis and the big rally that had just ended a few days ago.  I am amazed at how many Harley riders have gone to tricycles!  But looking at the size of some of these bikers, a two wheel bike would just sag.  And when mamma is almost as big as the biker, the three wheelers with their oversized tires may be the only option. 
At Rapid River, I leave US 2 and head over to Michigan 35.  It is probably a little longer and the Aussie girl on my GPS is squawking at me, telling me to turn around and informing me that she’s recalculating.   I don’t know why I have that thing on as I often decide to travel on roads that take parallels railroad tracks, shorelines and crosses interesting rivers.  Thankfully, the map published by the state shows not only roads and rivers, but also railroad tracks.  Michigan 35 parallels the tracks that run up to Marquette.
South of Marquette, I turn west, to avoid the UP’s big city and head through Negaunee and Ispheming where I stop to pick up some cord (I’d used all my food hanging cord on the canvas that covers my boat) and an anniversary card from friends who are celebrating their 50th.  Since I was going to be in the woods during their celebration, the least I could do was send them a card.  I stop for lunch at a McDonalds, for one last check of the internet and a large refillable glass of unsweetened ice tea.  I also take time to write a note in the card before continuing on west.  In the little town of Sidnaw, another small railroad town whose tracks now seem to serve as a storage depot for old box and lumber cars, I find an open post office and stop to mail the card, asking if they could hand stamp the envelope.  Jim, who is not big on shin-digs, had expressed interest in hiking with me and I decided a post mark from the UP might remind him why I was missing the party his kids were throwing for him and his wife. 
At Bergland, a small town on the shores of Lake Gogebic, which looks to be an incredible place to sail, I turn north on Michigan 64.  I’m getting close and twenty minutes later I can see Lake Superior.  I head to the park headquarters where I pick up a backcountry permit and look around at the small museum on the history of this, the largest and one of the most remote state parks in Michigan.  It’s almost 4 PM, when I arrive at the parking lot at the Lake of Clouds trailhead.  I could have gotten here faster, but I’ve enjoyed the journey.

19 comments:

  1. it is def fun to hit the side roads...so much unseen from the main thoroughfares...and cool too because sometimes the journey is as much fun as the destination...

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  2. This is the kind of things I love to do. We spend about a third of our life in our RV. We tow a jeep and use it as our base. We LOVE traveling the back roads. The less people we see the better. There is SO MUCH to see off the beaten path. Back roads, no roads and hiking. I guess that is my passion. I'm going to google the porcupine mountains right now...

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  3. Hello dear friend, I was thinking about you this morning and wondering what trip you may be on. Sorry you lost your photos, perhaps that card will turn up later. I just know you had a marvelous trip, or rather journey throughout that lovely country. Last time I was at the UP was a trip to Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor, it's so peaceful there, even if it was during the week of the 4th of July, Eagle Harbor put on a big show (ha-ha) for their small town. It's too bad that you had to bring your sailboat in, we're still having some hot weather, Tuesday it was 94 degrees tomorrow in the high 80's, it's up and down between rain or not. But I love to hear your funny stories...and yes you with a GPS really! :) Stay safe and take care of you and yes, post more often, or when you can! We miss you!

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    1. Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor are neat towns--was up there a couple years ago. As for GPS, I don't hike with one and the one in my truck is a hand-me-down. And the only reason I don't throw it out the window and run over it is that the woman with the Aussie voice is so sexy when she says, "Recalculating"

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  4. "I am amazed at how many Harley riders have gone to tricycles."

    Same here in California, Sage. At a certain age one likes the extra shock absorption. And there's that 60+ urge for the experience: My wife suspects they buy helmets with gray ponytails already attached.

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    1. We better be careful. Making fun of Harley riders might be as harmful to our health as making a movie about a certain religious leader

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  5. The journey has always been the destination for me.

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  6. sounds like a wonderful time. i was excited to hear of the bridge and then route 2 in michigan. i've crossed the bridge countless times and route 2,i got lost there once last year and was ecstatic for it and hope to go back again. i don't know the park you mention in michigan but i imagine one day i'll experience this as well. being outside like this, hiking, running, listening, being, is most definitely my kind of thing. but what i really wonder about is the other journey going on beneath this one. what were you thinking and how were you being inside of this movement? how was the world affecting you? here is lies the real journey:)

    xo
    erin

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    1. Erin, of course you are right, my mind was filled with various thoughts and many were recorded in my journal but they are too fresh to share... maybe when I rewrite this in 20 years... as for now I wanted to capture the feeling of being aware of the country I was traveling

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  7. I sure do hope you find the camera card!

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  8. Yeah, if you're enjoying the journey, no need to hurry to the destination!

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  9. I picture deciduous woods and Hiawatha.

    There are quite a few studies about the French settlement of that area. Jesuits predominantly. Have you seen The Mission. It was very much that sort of idea.

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    1. I have seen "The Mission" but that's set in South American. Have you seen the movie, "Black Robe" that is set in the Canada, but in the "northwoods"?

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    2. No I've not seen that one. But the Jesuits had gone far into the deep forests very early on. It is credited for the connections between the French and the Lakes tribes. But they had gone much deeper than that.
      What I was saying about the Mission was that they had the same notion in the Americas as a whole.

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  10. I love that last line - I'm glad you took the long way.

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  11. You had me at 'pastie'. Big A and I were thinking of doing that trip and going all the way further north in the UP to the Copper Harbor area. I want to do the Brockway Mountain drive again which I haven't done since the fam took a trip up there when I was younger. Hopefully in the spring we will finally have the time to take a couple of days off to do this.

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  12. Um, what's a pastie? I mean, I know one kind of pastie, but I'm guessing that's not what you're talking about.

    You definitely have developed a distinct storytelling style. It makes for smooth, easy reading.

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    1. Bone, it's a pastry dish popularized by Cornish miners... you should ask Murf, it would make her day to tell you about them!

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