Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

[GrizzlyAdams]

My oldest son (a.k.a. quantumcat) and I had a week's adventure in Northern Michigan and Wisconsin this last week. We started off hiking the Lakeshore Trail, through the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This area is managed by the National Park Service.

We left home Sunday afternoon, and drove up to Cedar River, MI to camp one night at the JW Wells State Park. We pulled in around 10:30 p.m., went to the site I'd gotten a reservation for, and heard Lake Michigan nearby. Very nearby. There were excellent trees on the site for hanging, and so my son put up a Warbonnet and I put up my DMB. There was a brisk wind up, and so we broke out the Neat Sheets converted to underquilts, for a wind break. The night was clear and we were tired, so left the tarps packed up.

Here's the site in the morning. Lake Michigan was right past those bushes.

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We made our way up to Munising, paid for our shuttle pick-up, picked up some lunch, and got our backcountry permit. You negotiate an itinerary with the Park Service that lists the nights you'll be camping at particular campsites, and pay on a per-night-per-person basis. They give you a pass to prove you have permission to camp. Once in the trip a ranger came up to us and asked to see the pass, so they do check.

We drove up to Munising Falls, the trailhead, and were off at about 1 p.m. Our destination was the Potato Patch campsite, 9 miles away.

The Lakeshore Trail through the PRNL is a tourist trail. Clear and wide almost everywhere, usually flat. Most of the time it is near the ridge of 200 foot high cliffs above Lake Superior. About half a dozen times over the course of the 43 miles the trail descends quickly to lake level, where creeks or rivers come through, and where there are beaches. It then ascends just as quickly. Those parts are rugged, but there are few of them.

Here is a typical view of the trail.

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We pulled into Potato Patch around 5:30 p.m. Our campsite was well suited for hanging. The park rules say that tents (and hammocks) need to be within 15 feet of a campsite marker, and here we had no trouble putting up and meeting that rule. Our site was just about half a mile past Miner's Beach, and so we walked back and spent the rest of the evening on the beach. (We did have one of those rugged ascent/descent bits between us and the beach though).

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Day Two brought us some spectacular views of the lake and cliffs.

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Clearly something was missing though...hmm...a hammock!!

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By lunchtime we'd covered half of the day's allocated length---15 miles---and took a leisurely lunch at Cove Beach. Then strolled into our next campsite---Pine Bluffs---around 5:30 again. This one had trees but mostly more than 15 feet from the camp site marker. We hung with one hammock following the rule, and the other as close as we could get it. Spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. It was to be on the warmer side that p.m., with little chance of rain, so we opened up our tarps (both JRB 11'x10') up pretty wide. Might have made the neighbors a little uncomfortable though when we changed. :D

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Pine Bluff has beach access, so again I spent time down at the water, amusing myself. I did spend almost 10 hours in my hammock that night.

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Day Three was another 15 mile one. A highlight was a leisurely lunch and hammock nap at 12 Mile Beach. One of the drive-in campers had pitched a Byer's hammock a bit further down the beach.

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This is a very popular section of PRNL, we saw many trail hikers (mostly couples in their 20's), day hikers, fathers with young sons wandering around lost. There are drive-in campsites near the trail.

About three miles from our last campsite---Massey Homestead---is a light house. And signs saying that the last water to be had between here and the trailhead at Au Sable Visitor center (about 7.5 miles distant) was here. So we loaded up the Platypus bottles and soldiered on. A pint is a pound the world around, so filling up with an extra 4 liters to last the next 20 hours suddenly loaded me up with over 15 pounds I hadn't had before. Ugh. Plus we got to climb from lakeshore level to the top-of-dune level.

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We were all business pulling into Massey Homestead campsite. We were the only visitors. It sits on the backside of the Grand Sable dune. There are lots of trees, an excellent hanging site. But sand everywhere, that gets into everything. We watched the sun drop then headed to bed.

We had only 4.5 miles to go in the morning to catch our shuttle at 11:30, so we had a leisurely a.m. This last stretch we hiked had spots where I got to wondering how often anyone ever hiked it. The eastern end of the trail, from the light house on to the Grand Sable visitor center, is clearly off the radar of the majority of the visitors.

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It was an excellent hike. I can't remember any non-mountain trail I've been on with the density of great views. The frequent access to the lake was also a great feature.

We spent the rest of the day driving over to the Brule River in NE Wisconsin to meet with FishinFinn and continue the adventure. He's going to tell that story though.
<teaser>
did we ever find a site to hang on Friday night!!!
</teaser>


These pictures, and some more, are up at my picasa site (http://picasaweb.google.com/dmn.photos/PicturedRocksNationalLakeshore).

Grizz

[angrysparrow]

Superb report, Grizz.

[6 feet over]

Sounds like you had a great time. Did sand make it into your hammock?

[slowhike]

Wow... I had no idea that lake had such beautiful shore lines! Thanks Griz.

I have to tell ya, for some time now, I've automatically thought about you when I hear the song "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald"... probably because of your location, the way you sometimes word things, & probably some mention of the big lakes & maybe the song, in past discussions.

That's some kind of lake!

[headchange4u]

Those are some really beautiful pics. It sounds like you guys could not have had a better trip. Congrats.

BTW,
How did the NS under quilts work out?

[JayS]

Excellent trip and report. Lucky son... and Dad! That is truly beautiful land. Now I have another destination to add to my list. :) Thanks for sharing.

[NCPatrick]

Looks like a fantastic trip! It would be a whole different trip in the wintertime, wouldn't it?

Thanks for posting the pictures. I'd like to get my family up there some summer... Beautiful country.

[Dutch]

Great report Griz. It doesn't seem like your rainskirt got much use. How cold can you get with just a neat sheet UQ?

[fin]

BTW,
How did the NS under quilts work out?

<Teaser> I know how they worked on the Brule! I am working on the continuing saga of Grizz and quantumcat, with FishinFinn on the Brule, so stay tuned.

Great report, Grizz, and some excellent pics! :cool:

[GrizzlyAdams]

thanks for the nice comments all. PRNL is somewhere I'll bring the car camping component of Family Grizz, maybe even next year.

6 feet over -- air-borne sand didn't get into the hammock. Sand that was stuck to pants could in theory, but I always brushed off well before climbing in. Wasn't an issue.

HC4U - my son was fine with the NS UQ for our nights in Michigan. He had a synthethic 30 degree bag inside the hammock, and that combination was good to low 50's. The bag I was carrying, a Montbell super-stretch down hugger #7 (used as a quilt) is rated to 50 degrees. Might be a little optimistic in a hammock, used as a quilt. But popping that NS on top of it really made all the difference up top. My DIY 2/3 length underquilt kept me warm below.

NCPatrick --- some of the stretches we were on were marked as x-country skiing trails. That would indeed be a different experience. Would make the low 20's we enjoyed at the winter hang seem down-right balmy.

FishinFinn will later tell what happens when you hang expecting low 50's and instead you get lower 40's.

Dutch -- the rain skirts got a lot of use as places to sit on, or spread gear out on. Mine was my door mat under the hammock. Most sand and things just shake right off it. We had a shower one morning, not enough to break out the skirts for _that_, but then hit a stretch of trail that was overgrown with now very wet vegetation. We put them on then to keep the upper portions of our legs dry. From knees down still got wet though, because there was wet vegetation down that low. Perhaps the right combination is a rain skirt with knee high leggings.

Grizz

[Walking Bear]

I walked the same trail about four years ago. In a tent at the time. We got checked twice by the rangers for permits.
We got a little trail magic at the Light House. There was a couple of park ranger types there but the light house was locked up. We ask when the Light House would be open for tours? They said that it was not open yet, but if we wanted to wait until they finished ther lunch they would give us a showing. The older guy was training the young lady ranger on some of the history of the house. So we got a hour private showing of the light house.