Trail Talk

Editor’s Note: Tis the season … to scramble around for last minute stocking stuffers. We’re here to help. MichiganTrailMaps.com is having its first holiday sale. Order a book and we’ll throw in one of our new trail maps, a $4.95 value!

Order any book from our e-shop and fill in the “Name of Free Trail Map” box to let us know which map to send you. It could be Jordan River Pathway, Manistee River Trail or our newest that just arrived from the printer, South Manitou Island. Also don’t forget to fill in the “Autograph Book For” box so author Jim DuFresne can dedicate it to whoever you want. You’ll receive a personalized Christmas gift for somebody and a detailed map for next summer’s adventure.

Journey To A Deadly Valley

By Jim DuFresne

I’m hiking along an open ridge at 5,475 feet with 360-degree views all around me; peaks and entire mountain ranges, valleys and a road that looks like a ribbon. I stop at an outcropping to briefly get out of the wind and, as amazing as the scenery has been so far, I’m stunned at what I see now.

Jim DuFresne

Straight below me is a whitish plain, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the horizon to the west, poking its icy crown above a mountain range, is Mt. Whitney, at 14,505 feet the highest point in the contiguous United States. I’m looking at the floor and the ceiling of our country from one of the most amazing parks within it.

Death Valley National Park, a land of great extremes.

When my brother had an extra week off he called the one person he knew is always up for a hiking adventure. He baited me into flying out to California by saying we could spend a few days at this 3.4-million acre park that is only two hours from Las Vegas.

“It’s always been on my bucket list,” he said. It should be on everybody’s bucket list.

Death Valley is a blend of craggy mountain peaks, sand dunes, low valleys and rocky gullies that has been sculptured into every possible shape and color, a surreal landscape that is jagged, rugged, severe, beautiful and sublime all at once. Much of the area is barren – the reason you have places named Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View, Deadman Pass and Coffin Peak. But it also supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

The land of great extremes.

Hiking across salt in Badwater Basin In Death Valley National Park, the lowest point in the country.

For most people Death Valley is synonymous with the Borax 20-mule teams from the 1960s TV show, Death Valley Days, and scorching temperatures. Three moisture-trapping ranges to the west cast Death Valley in a deep rain shadow, making it a very dry and hot place. The average high in July is 118 degrees, the lows at night only 88 degrees.

Last July the temperature rose to 128 degrees at one point and on July 10, 1913 it hit 134 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. “It was so hot that swallows in full flight fell to the earth dead,” said a Death Valley ranch hand at the time.

But when we arrived in mid-November the daytime temperature, even on the valley floor, was a comfortable mid-70s and it was sunny every day, great weather for hiking. At night it would drop to the upper 40s, chilly enough to justify fleece, and in the winter the mountains that enclose Badwater Basin, the heart of Death Valley, are covered with snow.

The main centers of activity in Death Valley are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells which include park resorts, limited supplies, campgrounds and visitor centers. Both are located on paved State Highway 190.

There are four other major paved roads in this massive park and then it’s dirt roads and two-tracks, most recommended only for high clearance vehicles or four-wheel-drive jeeps and SUVs. Even then you must be careful when you leave the pavement for the backcountry. This is how the National Park Service makes that point in its official visitors guide:

You’ve got two flat tires. Your cell phone doesn’t work. Nobody knows where you are. You’re not sure where you are. You haven’t seen another car since you turned off the highway 12 hours ago. The only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears. Is this how you thought it would end?

Ridge walking in the mountains above Death Valley.

Wow, and we were driving a plug-in Prius.

We stuck to the pavement or close to it but had no problem filling three days with things to see. We checked out the Harmony Borax Works mining ruins, followed Artist’s Drive through multi-hued volcanic hills with a late afternoon sun setting behind us, rose early the next morning and watched it rise over the perfectly smooth curvatures of the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes.

The highlight of the trip, however, was the hiking.

We drove up to Dante’s View, a 5000-foot overlook, and from there ridge walked for miles. We snaked our way through Golden Canyon to a high pinkish bluff known as Red Cathedral. We explored the narrow passages, old borax mines, dry waterfalls and colorful Badland-like setting in Gower Gulch.

In the end the most amazing hike was the shortest. From the road, it’s less than a mile before you’re standing in Badwater Basin, a salt flat that is almost pure white. Here in the lowest place in the country you’re surrounded by mountains and on one ridge a sign has been placed so high above the valley floor you have to squint to read it:  Sea Level.

Indeed, a strange land of great extremes.

For more on Death Valley National Park go to www.nps.gov/deva or call the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at 760-786-3200.

Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has long since departed the Manitou Islands of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore  but he filed one more blog entry for MichiganTrailMaps.com since his return to the mainland.

Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

By Jim DuFresne

Thoughts from the trail at the end of the hiking season:

Jim DuFresne

On my fifth day on North Manitou Island I departed the meadow they called Crescent City on the west side of the island and headed south. My eventual destination was the sweeping beaches in the southeast corner of this wilderness island where I plan to camp for the night.

But at lunch time I decided to take an extended break at Fredrickson Place. The old farm is now a grassy clearing where from the edge of the shoreline bluff you can view South Manitou Island and Manitou Passage that separates the two islands.

On this particular day, Manitou Passage was wicked. I didn’t need the Weather Station to know that there were small craft warnings. I could look down and see four- and five-foot waves sweeping across the passage and crashing into the beach just below me. At times you could hear the wind roar between the two islands.

Powerful stuff.

If I was in a kayak or even in the Manitou Island Transit ferry I probably would have been clinging to the gunwales. But I was on solid ground, high above the stormy sea, practically alone on a 15,000-acre island, out of reach of cell phones and the Internet and editors and those endless campaign messages from robocallers. I was as content as I had been all summer.

I unfolded my small camp chair and plopped down to see what was left in my food bag. I found a can of sardines in mustard sauce, a piece of pita bread, a good chocolate bar that my German friend gave me just before I departed on this trip, enough water so I didn’t have to trudge down the bluff to filter another quart in four-foot waves.

Life was good.

A backpacker pauses along a beach on North Manitou Island.

I ate the sardines, nibbled on some of the chocolate and read a few pages from a novel, my sole entertainment. But mostly I just sat there and took in the scene that surrounded me. I was in the lull just before Labor Day when the ferry will deliver boat loads of backpackers to the island for the extended weekend.

Right now, however, I was alone and had been since breaking camp two days ago. But I hardy felt isolated in the middle of Lake Michigan, rather invigorated by the seclusion.

Backpacking is a tonic for me. It allows me to get-away and slow-down … uninterrupted. It provides me opportunities to think and ponder. To sort out my life and get back on track with what’s important to me.

Even a couple of days in the woods is beneficial but spend an extended amount of time on the trail, like eight days on North Manitou Island, and soon you fall into that rhythm where the watch becomes irreverent because the only deadline you have is to pitch your tent before dark.

It’s the simplified life on the trail that I find so appealing. Everything I need is strapped to my back. This is when you discover what’s really important in life; clean water, food, a dry fleece pullover for when the temperature plunges at night.

And you discover what is a true luxury; a seat with a back on it, a warm shower, a flush toilet.

Eventually I return to what they call The Village on the island where the ferry dock, ranger station and the only spigot for drinking water is located. The next day I was on that dock waiting for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

At first I’m like everybody else. I’m looking forward to a cold beer, a soft bed, even some sinful junk food like a Taco Bell burrito.

But by the end of my first night off the island I’m thinking, even planning, my next wilderness adventure. It’s how I survive the winter, trying to figure out where I am going to pitch my tent the next summer. By the time I nod off to sleep that night I’ve already made an important decision.

The next time I hit the trail I have to pack more of that German chocolate.

Editor’s Note: This edition of MichiganTrailMaps.com Trail Talk was written by our favorite ultra-hiker, Roy Kranz of Midland. It’s titled Pic Rock Yo-Yo Madness! and in it he tried to explain why he hiked the 42-mile Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore twice (there and back) in under 36 hours. We read it and still don’t understand.

Mark your calendar for a pair of Jim DuFresne presentations in November. DuFresne will be in Traverse City to give his new presentation Alaska Marine Highway: High Adventure and Easy Travel on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Backcountry North store, 2820 N. US-31. See the Backcountry North web site for more information. On Nov. 20 DuFresne will be at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to present Wondrous Wilderness: Tramping in New Zealand at 7:30 pm. For more information see the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club web site.

By Roy Kranz

My buddy Morgan Anderson and I stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was setting.  We were dripping with sweat, our feet were blistered, our bodies were sore, but our pride was glowing.  We had just hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 14 hours.

At 42.4 miles it was my first really long day hike.  As we posed for our victory photos at the trailhead sign, I turned to Morgan, completely spent and joked, “how much would I have to pay you to turn around and walk back to the beginning?”   We both laughed and quickly dismissed the idea as impossible.  The year was 2003.

A watertfall leaping into Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Fast forward nine years to September of 2012.  Weeks away from turning 40, I decided it was time to attempt the impossible.  Now I had experience on my side.  I had completed four monster day hikes that were 22+ hours long and rated as multi-day backpacking trips.

These monster hikes always involve hours of suffering.  Your feet hurt, you feel horrible, you lose your appetite, you’re exhausted, and you have an overwhelming urge to give up and go home.  “Why do you do this?” is a question that I’m often asked.  As I approach 40, I guess I wanted to see if I still have “it,” whatever “it” is.  I enjoy pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.  Pushing through the pain and succeeding is very rewarding.

Seven months before the “yo-yo” (a there and back hike) at Pictured Rocks, I assembled the strongest crew I had ever hiked with.  They included collegiate runners, Ironman triathletes, and several guys that had completed extremely long hikes.  My buddy Heath Kaplan, one of the best support guys in the business, also signed up.

On September 22, 2012, at 8:38 a.m., we started from Munising Falls, eight hikers strong.  Our pace was quick despite the cold temperature and rain.  High winds whipped us around as we danced over tree roots and tiptoed across exposed sections of cliff that were perched several hundred feet above an icy Lake Superior.   Loud booms startled us as the turquoise-colored waves slammed into eroded caves at the base of the cliffs below us.

Chapel Rock along the Lakeshore Trail.

Nineteen miles into the adventure, Mount Pleasant attorney, Todd Levitt, injured his foot and was out.  Next to drop was Pete Bultema Jr. at 31 miles.  Isabella County Assistant Prosecutor, Mark Kowalcyzk, and Gabe Garcia threw in the towel at mile 37.  Ryan Leetsma and Jason Schuringa both dropped at the half way point, 42.4 miles in.

My buddy, Eric Carlson and I mentally prepared for the inevitable pain and suffering and pushed on into the night.  We trudged, hour after dark hour in the small bubble of light that our headlamps cast ahead of us.  Somewhere around 3 a.m. I got nauseous, my mind started to dull, and I was unsteady on my feet.  As the minutes clicked by, I felt worse.  My hip and knee joints were killing me and I couldn’t force myself to eat.

As we approached the Au Sable lighthouse, we entered a large clearing.  Despite the incessant rain and clouds during the day, it was now completely clear.  The stars were abundant and bright.  Without a word, we both stopped walking and just gaped up at the sky.

When we reached the checkpoint at 12 Mile Beach, it was 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  At 54 miles in, we faced the crux of the challenge.  While most of the hiking sections between checkpoints were 3 to 6 miles long, this next one was 24.  We would be on our own, with no way to quit or get help for 9 hours.

We sat in the support vehicle eating, drinking, and repacking our backpacks.  I was wet, sore, and completely exhausted.  We didn’t talk.  All I could think about was how much I wanted to be done.  I blocked out thoughts of the comfortable bed waiting for me at the house we rented.

It’s at this point in the hike when the internal war is waged between comfort and commitment, pain and resolve, and pride and logic.  Do I want to feel good now or feel good about myself later?  The choice sounds easy until you are struggling to make it.  I’d planned, trained for, and thought about this hike for seven months.  I simply could not quit.  So I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen pills and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster said, “let’s do this!”

Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sun came up.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  The light tricked my brain into thinking I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Even with my renewed energy, the last 31 miles were a blur.  Eric hallucinated.  He saw buildings and bridges that weren’t there.  When we finally hit the last mile both of our minds were mush.  We had been at this same spot the day before but it seemed like a week ago.  Nothing looked familiar.  We thought we had missed our exit trail but we hadn’t.  We backtracked.  We studied maps.  We screamed in frustration.  We ached to be done.

Eric Carlson (left) and Roy Kranz at the end of their 35-hour, 84-mile trek.

As darkness closed in, we stumbled out of the woods completely shot, physically and mentally.  It was 8:00 pm Sunday night.  We had hiked over 85 miles [189,470 steps according to our pedometer] in under 36 hours without sleep.

We accomplished what I once thought was impossible. Many people still wonder why we do this.  The challenge and pride definitely play a part. Society has become conditioned to think that the easiest and most comfortable way is the best way. I disagree.

It isn’t always understanding why we voluntarily put ourselves through such suffering, but Ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes offered some insight when he explained “there’s magic in the misery.”

Roy Kranz is the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor in Isabella County.  To see a video of this adventure and some of his others, go to www.roykranz.com.

Backpacking in Michigan

Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne is on the Manitou Islands of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two weeks working on a MichiganTrailMaps.com mapping project. Here is his first Trail Talk blog entry. For more on the islands, check out Backpacking In Michigan available from our e-shop.

By Jim DuFresne

One of the most anticipated port-of-calls occurs almost daily during the summer when the Mishe-Mokwa pulls up to the wharf on South Manitou Island. The 5,000-acre island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, lies 17 miles west of Leland on the mainland and is the site of three campgrounds, numerous shipwrecks, a restored lighthouse and a wonderful trail system.

Jim DuFresne

But no cars, motels, outlet malls or even a Starbucks.

For most visitors the only way to reach this island is onboard the Mishe-Mokwa, the Manitou Island Transit ferry that cruises across the Manitou Passage, an historic shipping lane scattered with 19^th century shipwrecks. The trip takes 90 minutes and the vessel is often packed with backpackers, day hikers, families ready for an afternoon on an exotic beach. Everybody on the boat is eager to set foot on what they perceive as a paradise isolated from the madness at home.

On the island’s wharf there is another large group also anxiously waiting for the Mishe-Mokwa. These were the campers who had stayed overnight on the island, some as long as a week, and, while a get-away paradise is nice, they are now longing for a hot shower, a cold beer, food that doesn’t require two cups of boiling water and, heavens forbid, a peak at their Facebook page to see what they have been missing.

I was part of the influx of new campers. We waited for our packs and duffle bags to be unloaded and then headed up to the Boathouse at the head of the dock. This building was built to store the rescue boats as part of the U.S. Lifesaving Station stationed here in the late 1800s. Today it’s where park rangers give their camper orientation.

It’s takes about 15 minutes to go over the dos and don’ts and when it is over the ranger hands you your backcountry permit and you’re free to hike out to a campground and stake a site. You can tell who’s there for the first time. They take their time gathering up their gear, they study campgrounds maps to decide where they might want to go, they’re in no hurry.

The rest of us grab our packs and run as if this was the Oklahoma Land Rush.

Backpackers heading off to Bay Campground on South Manitou Island.

Sites are handed out on a first-one-to-reach-it-first-one-to-get-it basis. The two closest campgrounds, Weather Station and Bay, are also the most desirable because each has strip of seven or eight sites that are primo, some of the best places to pitch a tent in Michigan, possibly in the Midwest. Maybe the country. Who knows? All I know is these are sites worth hustling for.

I was slated to be on the island for a while and really wanted to stay at one of those beach-front sites at Bay Campground the entire time so I picked up my gear, a backpack and duffle bag, and the race was on.

Bay Campground is the closest campground to the Boathouse but it’s still a good  half mile trek. It was obvious there were five groups who had been here before and were intent of securing a primo site. I easily passed the first two groups on the trail without breaking a sweat and caught the third one, a husband and wife, when they stopped to fill their water bottles.

That left only the leaders, a husband, whose cap said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and his wife who had no problem maintaining his military pace. They were shouldering monster packs and carrying two kayaks between them, the end of one in each hand.

And I still had a hard time closing the gap between us. Then I noticed their Achilles heel; two young sons, one six and the other four, and when the four-year-old announced he had to go to the bathroom I caught up and zipped around them on the outside corner of the trail.

I entered the campground ready to stake out the best site available. But when I went down the side trail to site No. 10, standing in the middle it, grinning from ear to ear and not even breathing hard, was Military Mom.

I was stunned. “How did you get here so fast?”

“We dropped the kayaks and while my husband watched the boys I took to the beach.”

I tipped my hat to her gold medal performance and headed over to site No. 12.

It wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Like site No. 10, it sits in the fringe of pines that line the Crescent Bay shoreline. I pitched my tent in the shade but from a pair of benches in my site had a view of the beach, Lake Michigan and the mainland to the east. Every morning I woke up and watched a stunning sunrise take place over the bay without ever leaving my sleeping bag.

This was my home for almost a week and when it was time to go – while I longed for that cold beer, hot shower and soft mattress – I knew I was leaving a place worth racing to.

Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has suggestions for anybody heading to Isle Royale National Park for the first time. For more on the island park check out the Isle Royale pages at MichiganTrailMaps.com.

By Jim DuFresne

Teresa sent me an email recently with a question about backpacking that I have been asked a thousands times before: Can we do this?

Or in her case, can her boyfriend do this and survive? Possibly even enjoy it?

Jim DuFresne

My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Isle Royale this July. I bought your book have been reading and planning our 3 night 4 day hike. I have also been dehydrating fruits and veggies for our stay. We have never done this kind of overnight hiking before and in just the last few days he sounds like he isn’t sure about the whole thing. Is there any advice you can give me so as to reassure him that this can be done and that 1000′s do it every year.

Teresa is correct on the last point. Thousands do it every year. Isle Royale is a remote island national park in Lake Superior that attracts roughly 17,000 visitors from April through October.  That’s a drop in the bucket by National Park standards, less than what they draw on a good day at Grand Canyon.

But of those Isle Royale visitors, the National Park Service classifies 12,000 or more as “backcountry users,” people who arrive to spend a night or more away from the entry ports of Rock Harbor and Windigo. Some are kayakers, some are canoers, some are anchored in a backcountry bay in their sailboat.

But the vast majority is backpackers, hikers who cram everything they need, and a few things they don’t, in a pack and then head down the trail for days at a time. That’s what leads to Isle Royale’s most unusual stat. The island boosts one of the longest visitation period of any national park in the country; the average stay at the park is 4.5 days.

Weighing a backpack at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale National Park.

People don’t come to see Isle Royale, they come to escape.

Once you hit the trail, you realize backpackers come in all ages and physical shape; from a couple of retired guys plodding down the Greenstone Ridge Trail to a family with five-year-olds hauling their own gear.

Once you reach you’re next camp, the camaraderie among backpackers pitching their tents for the evening is heartfelt and spirited. You swap stories about seeing a moose and in the evening you share your chocolate bar with another couple while watching a pair of loons on a lake. Everybody is pulling for everybody to reach the end of the trail.

Because it is Teresa’s first backpacking adventure I do have a few suggestions that will make it much more enjoyable:

Keep the backpack as light as possible

This is the key. Isle Royale is not overly rugged, we’re not talking about Rocky Mountain National Park here, but you’re still hauling your gear down a trail that will include steady climbs every now and then.

You don’t want a lot of weight on your back, that’s why at Rock Harbor there’s a scale to weigh packs and storage available if they are too heavy. Ideally for adults the weight of their backpack should be between 30 and 40 pounds and as close to 30 as they can get it.

You don’t need a lot of clothes. You need one set that you will be hiking in and one set when you’re done for the day.

You don’t need gadgets. You need a lightweight backpacker’s stove, fires aren’t allowed in the backcountry, but you don’t need a trailside cappuccino maker, no matter how compact and cute it is. Freeze-dried coffee will be just fine.

Stop often

Breaks are crucial, especially the second day when you shoulders will be most sensitive to the straps of your backpack (the reason to keep it light). The rest periods don’t need to be long, just numerous so you can remove the pack and allow your shoulder muscles a brief recovery.

Besides this why you’re out here, to soak up the amazing scenery on the island. Backpacking is not a foot race, take time to enjoy the surroundings.

Bring Moleskin!

The most feared injury on Isle Royale is being attacked by a moose or falling off Mount Franklin, it’s a blister on the back of your heel. To survive you don’t need to haul along a giant first aid kit, just carry a small piece of Moleskin, a few other bandages and tape and, even if a blister develops on the second day, you’ll be fine.

Eat Well

Teresa has a good start here, dehydrating fruits and vegetables will result in delicious meals in the middle of the wilderness. My favorite is tomato paste that we spread thin on wax paper and then dry at the lowest possible temperature in the oven. We then store it in a Ziploc bag and on the island tear off chucks of it to make incredibly rich sauces and soups.

Father and daughter on the Greenstone Ridge Trail.

Keep in mind that after hauling a pack 8 miles, whatever you cook at the end of the day is going to taste great, even if it’s watery mac-and-cheese and cup-a-soup. Pack enough food so you’re not hungry at night but to end the hike with anything more than an emergency granola bar is a cardinal sin in backpacking.

Limit your itinerary

A common mistake when you have only have four days on the trail is to cover too much mileage each day. On Isle Royale 7 to 8 miles is a pleasant day, allowing you to start around 9 a.m., be done by mid-afternoon and stop often for breaks and lunch in between.

If she can work out the logistics with her schedule, my suggested itinerary to Teresa is to take the Isle Royale Queen IV from Copper Harbor which lands in Rock Harbor around noon. That gives them more than enough time to hike the 7.1 miles to Daisy Farm campground the first day.

The second day can be easy; 5.8 miles to Lake Rickie Campground. On the third day they can hike to McCargoe Cove, a beautiful campground to spend the night, and along the way drop their packs at the Greenstone Ridge Trail junction and climb the ridge a half mile to the west for a view of the inlands lakes form the top of it. Total mileage that day, including the side trip, would be 7.5 miles.

On their fourth day they can hike to the old mining ruins on the Minong Ridge in the morning without packs and then return to McCargoe Cove and hop on the Voyageur II. The ferry that circles the island and will pick them up for a ride back to Rock Harbor. The boat ride will be a way to see the scenic Five Fingers region of the park and cap off the trip.

As far as Teresa’s boyfriend, if this blog doesn’t convince him to go, I say go without him. And after you come back so enthused about your adventure on the island, he’ll never pass up another opportunity to go backpacking again.

Neither will you.

I received two emails recently from what only can be described as “extreme trail users,” people who push it to the limits and then some.

The first came from Roy Krantz of the Midland Hiking Club. In 2003, Roy and a friend hiked the entire Lakeshore Trail in Pictured

Jim DuFresne

Rocks National Lakeshore – 42.4 miles from Grand Marais to Munising – in one day. Or 14 hours and three minutes to be exact.

Extreme or just plain crazy? Before I could decide Roy dropped me a line with his latest challenge:

 In an effort to figure out the next hardest thing to try, my crazy buddies and I are planning a non-stop yo-yo hike of the Lakeshore Trail at Pictured Rocks for this fall. This year, we’ll be starting in Munising hiking to Grand Marais and then back to Munising in 28-30 hours (hopefully).  I want to make sure that I go far enough to make it official but not any farther than I have to.  A woman at the park told me that the official starting and ending points are Munising Falls and the Grand Sable Visitor Center.  Is that your understanding? Can you help?

Roy

My reply: Roy, you are crazy but if I can help with that insanity, I’ll try.

I then went on to say it has always been my understanding that the Lakeshore Trail went from the Grand Sable Visitor Center to Munising Falls because it was set up soon after the park was created in 1966, meaning it predates the North Country Trail, which connects to it at each end.

A backpacker on the Lakeshore Trail.

If you’re crazy, Roy has posted a You Tube video,  inviting other hikers to join him and his buddies. It’s pretty funny but I’ll pass.

A few weeks latter Eric Charette sent me an email with questions about the 42-plus mile Greentsone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park:

As an ultrarunner and having grown up in the UP and graduated from MTU, I have been fascinated with running the Greenstone Ridge Trail. From my research, it looks like the fastest known time (FKT) from Windigo to Lookout Louise is 10 hours 17 minutes. Having just run rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for fun in 11 hours (41 miles) I think that I can run the GRT in well under 10 hours.

Anyway, my questions are numerous, but to start I need to know if this travel schedule is possible. I have researched the options a hundred times over and as an engineer this is a complex problem to solve!   

Eric

I answered the questions as best I could and I think Eric is, pardon the pun, off and running.

His plan is to run from Windigo along the Greenstone Ridge Trail to its east end at Lookout Louise this July. Because Lookout Louise is a rather isolated spot in the park, his support crew is going to rent a canoe and paddle across Tobin Harbor to meet him at the finish and take him back to Rock Harbor Lodge where they have booked a room for the evening.

His main concern will be how much weight he’ll need to carry while running, particularly water. He plans to carry have 130 ounces of fluids but will also have a water filter in case he runs out.

I’ve hiked the Greenstone Ridge Trail almost a dozen times. It is truly one of Michigan’s classic trails. But I’ve always hiked it, taking the usual four to five days to complete the foot path that spans from one end of Isle Royale to the other and hauling along some 40-pounds of gear to spend the night in the backcountry.

To me, the beauty of either the Greenstone or the Lakeshore Trail is the length of them that allows you to escape into the backcountry for days at a time. Only then do I slip into the natural rhythm that is long distance hiking, where there are no deadlines other then setting up your tent before dark (and sometimes not even that).

You eat when you’re hungry; you take a break when you’re tired. You move at your own pace because all you have to do by the end of the day is to reach the next backcountry campsite. Only by being out in the woods for so long do I feel spiritually refreshed when I return home.

 But my hat is off to Roy and Eric and I’ll be following their escapades closely to see how they do.

You can too by checking into Roy’s web site (www.roykranz.com) and Eric’s (www.ericcharette.com) to keep tabs on them and then cheer them on at the finish line.

Editor’s Note: Jim DuFresne has covered both these trails in his guidebooks; Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails & Water Routes and Backpacking in Michigan. You can order the books through the MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop at www.michigantrailmaps.com/store.html.

Jim DuFresne

It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11^th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15^th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

Our first sale!

It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

The cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

Match that Amazon!

When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

The next day she wrote back to me:

I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

Sometimes being small is better.

I was the first skier to arrive at Wilderness State Park on Saturday morning after this corner of Emmet County was blessed with three inches of lake-effect snow the night before. I stepped into my skis and headed south on Swamp Line Trail, alone in the woods, surrounded by winter’s stillness.

Jim DuFresne

I was more than a mile from the trailhead before I noticed the dog prints following the same path I was. There was something unusual about them and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

There were no boot prints accompanying the tracks. This was no dog.

I paused and studied the prints more closely, immediately regretting not packing along a field guide to identify tracks. But I have seen wolf prints before and there was no reason to believe these weren’t made by the same species.

At some point after the snowfall had subsided early in the morning this wolf was the first down the trail. I was the second.

When wolves finally returned to the Lower Peninsula after being extirpated in the early 1900s, most biologists believe Wilderness State Park was their door step. It may have been in 1997, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot reported sighting a pair of wolves along the shoreline of the park after they had apparently made the 5-mile trek across the frozen Straits of Mackinac.

Swamp Line Trail in Wildernesss State Park.

In 2010, U.S. Forest Service biologists verified that a pack of wolves living in the tip of the mitt had been successful breeding and the pup, most likely the first born in the Lower Peninsula in more than a century, has been radio collared.

They’re here and for all I knew this was one of them.

I followed the prints for more than a half mile, so mesmerized I almost never took my eye off them. If I was more knowledgeable about tracking, I probably could have determined the animal’s size, the pace he was walking at, maybe he’s age. But I’m not.

It did appear at one point as if the wolf paused or at least cautiously slowed down. In the beginning the tracks were clean and almost perfectly spaced as if they were made by a steady gait. Then suddenly there weren’t and at that point the wolf made a sharp turn to the right and entered the tangled cedar wetlands that Swamp Line Trail passes through.

I peered into the woods, wondering what made him leave the easy travel of an old two-track like Swamp Line Trail for the thick underbrush and deeper snow he was now in. I couldn’t figure it out so I skied on and 30 yards later I stopped again at another set of tracks.

A snowshoe hare had run across the trail in the same direction as the wolf, leaving prints almost as clean and sharp as his. Suddenly I realized I was witnessing life, death and survival in a place called Wilderness.

I was definitely not alone in the woods.

            *                                  *                                  * 

Wilderness State Park is a wonderful place to visit in the winter for a backcountry skiing adventure. But when you want to retreat to someplace warm and comfortable, there’s no better choice then Crooked River Lodge  (866-548-0700).

Located right on the banks of its namesake river in Alanson, the impressive log lodge is on US-31 and only 20 minutes from the state park. It features large, comfortable rooms, a hot breakfast in the morning and not one but two hot tubs.

One is located indoors adjacent to the pool, the other is

The outdoor hot tub at Stafford's Crooked River Lodge.

outdoors overlooking the wooded banks of the Crooked River, a great place to soak away sore muscles after a day of breaking trail. This is a Stafford property, the same family who also operate the Perry Hotel in Petoskey and nearby Bay View Inn, so you know the service is impeccable.

I’m driving a new car. No, let me re-phrase that; I’m driving a newer car.

I picked up a Saturn Vue that is three-years old and has 43,000 miles on it. It’s high tech. For the first time I can use my IPod in my vehicle. It has remote start for those mornings when the windows are all frosted up and during those cold winter drives I can flick a switch and the seats warm up.

Jim DuFresne

I like the Saturn but it can never fully replace the car I just gave up; Father Jack’s Buick, a.k.a. the Priestmobile.

My wife’s uncle was a Catholic Priest and after he died I purchased his car from the estate, a 1998 Buick Regal with 110,000 miles on it. I only paid $1000 and figured I could squeeze a couple of years out of it. But this car was blessed because eight years and 140,000 miles later I was still driving it.

It took awhile to warm up to Father Jack’s Buick. You sat low in the seats so getting in and out was always a monumental effort. The trunk was poorly designed. I could barely squeeze my belly boat in and could only carry my mountain bike if I left the front wheel hanging out. And there was something wrong with the tape player. No matter what cassette I put in, it was always like I was listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks sing.

Plus it was Buick. Drive a car like that and you might as well slap an AARP sticker on the bumper. People who saw me on I-75 in December probably thought I was just another snowbird heading to Florida for the winter.

But that car had the character and perseverance of its pervious owner and eventually I came to realize that Father Jack was somewhere in the Buick. Maybe sitting next to me in the front seat.

Father Jack's trusty Buick Regal

This was a man who didn’t dilly-dally. He was famous for his 40-minute masses that attracted church-goers from surrounding parishes. He had little patience for excessive ceremonies and when it came to his sermons he told you what you needed to know without a lot brow-beating or biblical references.

This is how you should live your life, now go home and do it.

Naturally the clock in his car was fast. I would reset it at the beginning of every month and it would be off by 15 minutes at the end of it so I’d reset it again. This went on for eight years. It was hard to be late in Father Jack’s Buick.

After a couple years the trunk no longer locked. No doubt he was letting me know I was becoming too attached to worldly possessions. What was important wasn’t my flyrods in the trunk, rather the journey and certainly the destination at the end. That can be hard lesson to learn sometimes.

 Most of all, that car, like Father Jack, was dependable. No false fronts or pretentiousness. You knew what you were getting. It wasn’t a model I’d ever choose at a dealership but it was always there when I needed it. That Buick never stranded me in the woods.

And I spent a lot of time in the woods in that car. For two years I drove around the northern half of the Lower Peninsula trying to find and fish obscure rivers and creeks while working on my book, 12 Classic Trout Streams of Michigan.

Beginning in 2009 I was crisscrossing the state researching trails for www.MichiganTrailMaps.com. Sometimes it sputtered, sometimes near the end it hesitated but it always started up.

Once last year I was deep in the Pigeon River Country State Forest, a good hour from the nearest tow trunk in Gaylord. After spending all morning on the Green Timbers Pathway I jumped in the Buick, turned the ignition and nothing happened.

I was probably looking at a $300 towing bill, if I could even find somebody to come out there, when I decided what I needed to do was pray. But not to God.

“Please Father Jack don’t let the Buick strand me here. Please!”

He was in that car with me, he heard me. I got out and opened and closed the hood a few times, rock the car a little from behind and tried the ignition again. This time the engine roared to life.

I’m going to miss that car, maybe more than I miss Father Jack’s sermons.

After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

Jim DuFresne

On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

Then it would run again.

Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”