Who we are: Ken (American, 41) and Patricia (Brazilian, 30-something), married and living in Brazil. I (Ken) visited Isle Royale once before in 1997, and that was the only other time I’ve been hiking in the last 20 years. Patricia had never been hiking before.

Our plan: Three nights in a housekeeping cabin at the Rock Harbor Lodge, then five nights hiking around the east end. At the beginning of our stay there, we still hadn’t decided on an itinerary, but we finally made the following plan: take a water taxi to Chippewa Harbor and stay there our first night hiking, then one night each at Lake Richie, West Chicken Bone, Daisy Farm, Three Mile, and return to Copper Harbor.

08/20/04 - Copper Harbor the “night before” - we stayed at the Bela Vista Motel; not particularly friendly service, but room #9 was fine and cost $54.50 tax included. On the return trip a week later, we stayed there again; this time in one of the cabins which may have been a couple bucks cheaper. Copper Harbor is a nice little town, but not much there really. If you need last minute supplies, it’s best to stop in Houghton on the way. Still, the thirty mile stretch of Highway 41 just south of Copper Harbor is one of the nicest drives I’ve ever taken in my life.

08/21/04 - The Rock Harbor Lodge and Suzy’s Cave - The Queen III departed and arrived right on schedule, beautiful day. We checked into our housekeeping cabin which was nicer than I had expected. Very roomy, they are built as “duplexes” (you share a wall with a neighbor). The kitchens are well equipped including coffee maker (no filters). The cabins have beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows for viewing the wildlife. We were really looking forward to sipping our coffee in front of those windows and watching the moose graze outside (they never showed). We hiked to Suzy’s Cave and back that day - “going” on the Rock Harbor side, and returning on the Tobin Harbor side. The Rock Harbor trail was much rockier; the Tobin Harbor side was an easier walk, but less scenic. Moose sighted today: zero.

… a little more about the Rock Harbor Lodge for those who are interested in staying there. The official website talks about the guest rooms at the Lodge, the rustic old Lodge room where visitors are welcome, and the grand dining room, so I got the impression that there was one big old lodge with the dining area, gift shop and some rooms, and then some newer rooms in separate buildings. Actually the old Lodge is little more than a small old house at the center of everything. It has one ground floor “living” room open to the public - interesting for about ten seconds, but I can’t imagine wanting to spend any time there (it’s not very big) and that‘s it. There are no accommodations there. The dining room is in a separate building and is nothing special in my opinion - looks pretty much like any other cheap family restaurant up north, but it’s far from cheap. You can buy a lot of the same food in the gift shop diner (attached) at a much lower price. I didn’t stay in one of the rooms, so can’t comment on them.

08/22/04 - Tobin Harbor, Moose Lake, Lookout Louise - We borrowed our “free” canoe from the Lodge today for a paddle around Tobin Harbor. From the seaplane dock we paddled west around Tallman Island, then crossed over to the other side where a creek dumps water from Moose Lake into the harbor. We figured there’s gotta be moose at Moose Lake, so we pulled up the canoe, and bushwhacked through the woods about ten minutes to Moose Lake - not too difficult really. No moose, but we had a nice lunch there. Back to the canoe, we paddled back east to the portage route to Duncan Bay. We docked there and hiked the trail to the top and back, just to see what we could see - not worth the trip. Paddled further east to Hidden Lake and hiked up to Lookout Louise - well worth the trip. Then went back to the Lodge. After a little rest and some dinner, we went out for a sunset walk on the Stoll Trail, hoping to see some moose. We took the “shortened” loop - didn’t go all the way out to the point. Moose sighted today: zero.

08/23/04 - Stoll Trail - This morning we saw a fox near the Rock Harbor dock, and then we took the full Stoll Trail loop, and had lunch out on the point. This is one of the most scenic trails on the island, and well worth doing if you spend even one day around Rock Harbor. Still no moose. Trying to plan our itinerary for the “real” hiking leg of our trip that starts tomorrow, we asked a ranger about the lack of moose. She was a little evasive, but finally admitted that there were very few moose to be seen on the Rock Harbor peninsula - lately, only one cow and calf have been spotted occasionally. When planning our hike, she really wasn’t very helpful at all in indicating where we might find moose. We returned later and asked a different ranger. She was much more enthusiastic, and suggested Lake Mason and Chickenbone Lake, so we planned our trip around that. Moose sighted today: zero.

08/24/04 - Chippewa Harbor and Lake Mason - Planning to take the M.V.Sandy to Chippewa Harbor today at 9:00 am. Due to bad weather, he could only take us to Moskey Basin for which they charge only $120 instead of $126 (lousy trade in my opinion, but whadayuh gonna do?). Another tip for those planning to take water transport to Chippewa Harbor: check out the Voyager schedule. On the days they pass by there, they leave Rock Harbor around 9:00 am and get there around 10:00. If you’re not on the Voyager, you’ll want to get there BEFORE 10:00 to have a better chance at one of the four shelters at Chippewa. Anyway, we hiked from Moskey Basin to Chippewa, no problems, and got there around 2:00 pm. Lucky for us, some late risers vacated their shelter shortly thereafter and we moved in. Chippewa Harbor is really beautiful; perfect place to stay if you have a boat; steep rocky shoreline, and only a few places to actually walk down into the water. That night, we took a dusk walk to Lake Mason looking for moose. The lake is beautiful, peaceful, and looks like a great place to fish. We also back tracked the main trail a little further to a marshy area that looked ideal for moose spotting. Moose sighted today: zero.

08/25/04 - Lake Richie - Got up at dawn today and went back to Lake Mason - no moose. That’s IT! We are not going to make any more special side trips looking for moose. If one crosses our path, fine, but we’re done going out of our way looking for them. So we hiked to Lake Richie today in hot mid-day sun. I think it’s only about four miles, but it seemed like 14. When we got there, only #1 campsite was open - a pounded flat dirt plot with no table, no place to sit, and no afternoon shade (what we wanted most at that point). After sunset it finally dropped down to less than 95 inside the tent, and we could sleep. Then it rained all night. We didn’t like Lake Richie. Moose sighted today: zero.

08/26/04 - Moskey Basin - Considering our bad luck with the moose, we decided today that we don’t need to go to Chickenbone Lake. If we go to Moskey Basin today we’ll trim about seven miles off our total trip, and also it looks like rain today, and there are shelters at Moskey - none at Chickenbone. Only a mile from Lake Richie, we got to Moskey early and had our pick of shelters - lucky for us because they all filled up by afternoon. We couldn’t be happier here at Moskey. This is our favorite place on the island. A fox ran off with our coffee, but he didn’t like the taste, so we were able to recover it. Moose sighted today: zero.

08/27/04 - Daisy Farm - We hit the trail early for Daisy Farm, and arrived here at around 11:00. The trail between Moskey Basin and Daisy Farm is a little uppy-downy, but not bad. We had our pick of shelters here, too - there are lots of them. One disappointment: We found garbage left behind in two of the shelters. One place had more garbage than we had produced on our entire trip so far. That’s just rude. Moose sighted today: zero.

08/28/04 - Going Home - With our latest plan, we were going to take the short hike to Three Mile today, and spend our last night there. But considering that it appears all of the moose have been evacuated from this island, we decided to head straight through to Rock Harbor, and see if we can board the Queen III a day early. If there’s no room on the boat, we’ll have a shower and a nice meal and spend one more night there. Passing through the Three Mile camp, it looked really nice. We almost changed our minds, but decided not to stop. The trail from Daisy Farm to Rock Harbor is pretty smooth near Daisy Farm, but gets pretty rocky - almost “difficult” in my opinion - around Three Mile. When we got to Rock Harbor, the Queen III was fully booked, but we hung around on the waiting list and just squeezed on (some get left behind). Moose sighted on Isle Royale: zero.

As you can see, I’m a little disappointed we didn’t see any moose, but we met other hikers who went three times as far as we did and they got “shut out” as well. The few people we talked to that did spot a moose, saw one or two crossing their trail on a given day, but that was it. I don’t understand it. I hiked the Feldtman loop in June 1997 and I saw moose everyday. I saw them at Feldtman Lake, I saw them at Siskiwit Bay, and I saw several at Washington Creek. I would sit and eat breakfast while they grazed just a few yards away, for hours on end. Ah well, we still enjoyed our trip very much. Other than one night of rain the weather was great, the views were spectacular, and we enjoyed seeing lots of other wildlife.
 
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