Porkies 2025, Day 5: Section 17 to Lily Pond and a side trip

Last time: Food fantasies? -- Links to all of my adventures.

Metal cabin roof

Thursday May 29, 2025: I slept poorly. I barely (and blearily) got upright in the morning. The weather was warmer, but only a few bugs bothered me as I stepped outside to use the outhouse.

Breakfast was our usual: oatmeal and raspberries. We spent some time reading and discussing our plans for the day, which involved a relatively short hike. So, we took it slow. We packed up and left just before noon, finding that the day had warmed more than any previous days -- but it still wasn't hot.

I was glad that we had revisited the Section 17 cabin. It's cozy and private but still within 1 mile of a trailhead. Having stayed at the nearby and right-on-the-trail Greenstone Falls cabin a few years ago, I strongly prefer Section 17's solitude. We agreed that it would be a good place to start or end a trip, or even a place to stay several days in a row and just relax.

Today's plan was a change from our original itinerary, which had us hiking the Little Carp River trail for about 4 miles up to Lily Pond. That section of the Lily Pond trail is mostly a green tunnel that is nowhere near the river, and is much less picturesque than its lower section. Plus it has some muddy areas that we weren't excited to deal with. We decided instead to hike out to our car, drive to Summit Peak, and hike in to Lily Pond from there. That had a couple of advantages: We could throw away our trash, eat a snack (calories!), and I could also do a quick hike down a half-mile trail that I'd never touched before. The hike to Lily Pond itself would be shorter and on nicer trails than our original plan.

Our hike to the Little Carp River road trailhead was quick -- just about 1 mile -- and beautiful. This segment is one of the rougher bits of the Little Carp River trail, mainly due to roots, rocks, and constant small ups-and-downs, but it also runs close to many small and lovely waterfalls. We again noticed how different the trail felt hiking in this direction, compared to our first day's hike over the very same stretch of trail in the opposite direction.

Crossing the bridge at the trailhead, we passed two older fishermen sitting on a bench. They looked worn out. As I said "morning!" I wondered if they'd been caught off-guard by the ruggedness of the trail, something that often happens with dayhikers on this section. That led to me recall a story from many years ago: While dayhiking this part of the Little Carp River trail together, we encountered a group of high-school or college aged students, all with backpacks. Well, all of them except for one girl with no backpack, who looked a little ragged around the edges. She was followed by a boy, wearing his own backpack and also carrying a second backpack over his head. True love.

Trailside trillium

The last quarter mile of trail was a gravel path, formerly a road, and it was straight uphill. This section always gets me, because it feels so easy on the way downhill -- you barely even notice the slope. On the way uphill, and near the end of a trip, it's rough. Today, with bright sun and warmer air, we were sweating by the time we reached the top.

Nonetheless, we made it to the car. The first thing I did was throw out our trash bag, dropping nearly half of a pound from my pack. Woohoo.

Another group of older hikers was just starting out from their cars. One of them gestured at me and asked, "are those necessary?" I didn't know if he meant our head nets or hiking poles, but I figured that either way the answer was "yes". It turned out he was asking about hiking poles. He was the only one in his group who had brought them.

In the car, we blasted air conditioning and opened a bag of Fritos as we drove to Summit Peak. The chips were delicious calories. We still didn't have any real food fantasies though. We parked at the upper parking lot, where our plan was to spend a bit of time here before heading out to our final cabin.

First we walked up to the lookout tower, which is somehow always longer and steeper than I remember. We both wore head nets and I brought my hiking poles for my trip along the Summit Peak side trail, which started at the tower. We passed multiple people along the way who were envious of our bug nets. For some reason, Summit Peak is always buggy. I don't think I've ever been there on a day when I didn't need a head net. Once again, somebody pointed at me and said "those are necessary!" I'm guessing they meant the bug nets this time, but who knows?

Summit Peak selfie. The bug nets were necessary.

Although we'd both climbed the tower many times, we did it again out of a sense of obligation (and to grab a bar of cell service to check if a favorite burger joint would be open tomorrow -- it was!). We climbed back down, sat on some benches, and ate rice cakes for lunch. They had dried out over the course of our trip and were now horribly crumbly, much to the future joy of the ridiculous number of chipmunks that live on Summit Peak.

At this point we parted ways. Sarah went back down to our car while I hiked the Summit Peak side trail. This is a short trail that connects the top of Summit Peak with the South Mirror Lake trail. Those trails, plus the Little Carp and Beaver Creek trails, can be put together to create a 5-ish mile dayhike up to Mirror Lake and back. But that requires starting at the top of the peak, something that I've never needed to do as a backpacker -- and so this one small segment of trail had gone un-done.

The Summit Peak loop, with the side trail in blue.

While the side trail is short, its main purpose is to drop you from the top of Summit Peak nearly to its base, a drop of about 250 feet over half of a mile. As it turns out, most of that drop happens over a much shorter stretch, with both the start, and especially the South Mirror Lake end of the trail, having long relatively flat segments. Other than a few rocky bits, all well-tended (one part even had steps!), the trail was generally unremarkable. I reached the end of the trail, looked around at the boring intersection in the middle of the woods, and turned back around to climb right back up again. I'd checked off one of the last few trail segments I hadn't hiked in the Porkies (the only trail remaining, other than the legendary flagged route that may not even exist any more, is about one mile between Union Spring and the Government Peak trail).

I met Sarah at the car, where she'd set up a camp chair and was reading her Kindle. While she packed up, a truck pulled up, featuring the two tired-looking fishermen from the Little Carp River trailhead this morning. One told me that they were trying to get to Mirror Lake to fish and asked how I would get there. They had apparently tried the Little Carp River trail but found it too muddy, and South Mirror Lake was too hilly (it does have a brutal uphill right after the gate). I encouraged them to try Beaver Creek trail as a starting point. They thanked me and said they'd be back another day to try again.

Steps -- yes, steps! -- on the Summit Peak side trail

We slung on our packs and headed down exactly that trail, Beaver Creek. It had a little mud and some bugs, but was generally in good shape. The trail crosses the Little Carp River on a bridge across a marshy area, then follows a long boardwalk across more of that marsh. Last year when I'd visited here, this boardwalk was filled with fallen trees and broken boards. It was much better this time.

We turned off of Beaver Creek and onto the Little Carp River trail, then completed another mile or so of perfectly nice trail before we arrived at Lily Pond. This is a wide beaver pond on the Little Carp River, and it has a long and impressive bridge built across the river's mouth on the downstream end.

As soon as we'd opened the cabin to air out, we headed back down to sit on the bridge's wonderful bench, built right into the middle of the span. (The cabin is right next to the river, pond, and trail.) We talked, for the umpteenth time over the years, about just how bad Porkies trail signs are. The sign at the start of today's trail listed the distance to Lily Pond as 1.5 miles, when the truth was over 2 miles. That might not sound like much (just half of a mile, who cares?), but like I mentioned back on Day 1, most Porkies signs are wrong by a similar percentage -- and not consistently. Some are too long. Some are too short. Often subsequent signs on the same trails, pointing to the same destinations, give inconsistent and even impossible results.

Here are two signs I photographed during my 2022 April snowshoe trip along the Escarpment. The left one is at the trailhead, the right one is at the Escarpment trail intersection, 0.1 miles later. Notice how Trap Falls has gotten... farther away?! (Not to mention "Mirror Like".)

Don't trust Porkies maps or trail signs

OK, getting off of that soapbox, climbing onto another one. I sat next to Sarah, sharing updates from the social media feed that is the cabin's log book. The book had been in the cabin for quite a few years, and I was able to find my two previous entries -- one from 2021, another from 2024. Recent entries didn't say much about mice or other troubles, which is always pleasant to read.

In the log book's long history, it had been filled with people obsessed with finding a certain spring on the far side of Lily Pond. Multiple maps, detailed instructions, and blow-by-blow accounts of mud-filled adventures to find the spring filled the book. The spring almost certainly exists (enough people claimed to have found it), but I've always thought it was way too much work for the limited payoff of... slightly cleaner water that I would still need to filter. Others took a canoe all the way out into the middle of the lake to get "clean" water from the middle of the pond. Again, too much work. River water works perfectly well, and tannins just add pleasant flavor!

The bridge was sunny and lovely, and we spent quite a long time enjoying it. Eventually we decided that the cabin had aired out enough, so we headed back up to unpack. With that chore done, we spent some more time reading, this time in our bunks.

Dinner was, again, Pad Thai, but this time a newer bag that hadn't gone rancid. It was OK, but not as good as we'd hoped.

Looking towards the Little Carp River, where the eagle was perched

Shortly after dinner, Sarah headed outside to "enjoy" the outhouse. I wasn't paying much attention, but as soon as she left the door, I heard her hiss "Dave! Come look!". I jumped up, startled, and rushed out, but I was too late. A bald eagle had been perched on the beaver dam, right outside our door, but had flown away once Sarah came outside.

In hopes of seeing the eagle return, I walked down to the bridge and tried to read. Unfortunately the bugs had really ramped up, and even with my headnet I was chased back inside quickly. I did get to hear, and then see, a lone Trumpeter Swan. It paddled around the lake, took off, and did a lap, honking like a car horn the entire time.

We read a bit more, tried the bridge again (still buggy), and finally decided we were in for the night. We went to bed early, knowing that we would want to get up early to head home tomorrow.

Next time: Our run of good weather ends

Miles hiked: 4.0 (1 mile to trailhead, 1 mile Summit Peak side trail, 2 miles to Lily Pond)

Total miles: 21.0

Day 5: Routes in orange

Porkies 2025, Day 4: Big Carp to Section 17

Last time: Excessive deference -- Links to all of my adventures.

Looking out the Lake Superior cabin's east window

Wednesday May 28, 2025: I woke up with a headache, presumably brought on by too much relaxation. The day was gray and warmer than we'd yet seen on this trip.

Morning was normal: Tea, oatmeal with freeze-dried raspberries, and a trip to the outhouse perched on top of Mt. Everest (aka the lakeshore bluff).

We packed up, ready for a big-ish day of hiking. We would reverse course, undoing almost all of our steps on the trip so far, and end up at the Section 17 cabin near the Little Carp River Road trailhead.

As we heaved the screen door closed for the last time, we talked about the Lake Superior 4 bunk cabin. We both liked it, especially because it had a nice view in the spring (and no view to speak of once the brush has grown up). Its location is a bit unfortunate: While the official trails avoid the cabin area, there are many criss-crossing trails that are easy to mistake for official ones, and many of them go right past the cabin. So there had been a decent number of randos walking past the cabin, although not as many as there would be in a few months. We had seen plenty of groups walking up to the directional signs and map posted out near the river, stare at them for a good long while, and then head off in a random (and unlikely to be correct) direction.

We had no choice but to hike up the giant bluff to the outhouse, while the lakeshore in front of the Lake Superior cabin remained easily accessible. The Little Carp cabin was exactly the opposite: easy to get to the outhouse, hard to get to the lakeshore. As Sarah pointed out, the outhouse wasn't optional, whereas going down to the lake was easier to say "nah, I'll do that later." That was her reasoning for preferring the Lake Superior cabin to Little Carp, despite both of them being quite lovely in other ways. I generally agreed, and I also liked the Lake Superior cabin's view of the lake this early in the season. I would gladly return, although I think that I still prefer the Big Carp 4-bunk cabin for its gorgeous setting right next to the river.

Lake Superior trail, ferns, and boardwalk

We hiked 1.2 miles west on the Lake Superior trail to the Little Carp River bridge, where we again sat on the rocks and enjoyed rice cake sandwiches. This is one of my very favorite places in the Porkies, and I was glad to see it multiple times on this trip.

After that, we spent the rest of the day hiking back up the Little Carp River trail. The trail was as picturesque as ever, but we were both surprised at how different the trail felt in this direction -- it was quite noticeable since we'd just hiked the opposite direction three days ago. Partly this was because we started with the flattest, easiest section near the lakeshore.

The unbridged stream crossings came and went quickly. We took a quick rest at each, but we were feeling healthy and hearty, so we mostly pushed onwards. We met a few other people on the trail, including a photographer with only a daypack and a giant tripod. That, plus some people walking a dog and one solo hiker, made this the most people we'd seen all trip so far.

Sarah making the first Little Carp crossing 

The Little Carp River trail gets hillier the farther inland you get. As we started climbing those hills, the day warmed up, and we started to sweat. Soon there were even a few bugs hanging around us. None of them seemed to be biting, but they were certainly annoying. I kept my bug net pushed up on my hat, ready to come down whenever the bugs figured out how to bug us.

We followed our rule and stopped for a snack 1 hour after the last river crossing. Like on our first day, this break was at a random place in the woods, and we sat quietly eating a snack with bug nets hanging around our hats.

The Little Carp trail was generally dry and lacking mud. It's usually one of the best-maintained trails in the park, and relatively easy to hike. But it wasn't perfect, and there were several places where the trail needs significant work. Because the trail stays so close to the river for most of its lower 6 miles, it's susceptible to washouts from spring flooding or flash flooding at other times. This has happened in several places over the last few years, including this one, perched along the side of a steep hill that makes the washed-out trail even harder to bypass without wading in the river:

A difficult trail segment

As we walked on, we talked about how neither of us had the usual "food fantasies" that have plagued us on previous trips. We had been more intentional about packing enough calories on this trip, especially by looking for the largest dinners we could find, and that made all the difference. Well, almost -- talking about not having food fantasies nonetheless led to a long and involved conversation about our favorite restaurants, individual meals we remembered, and where we might want to stop and eat after the trip. While I wasn't necessarily daydreaming about a greasy hamburger and onion rings... I did bring up a few places where we could get them.

As we hiked through untouched beauty, we continued to talk about things that weren't in front of us. We had designed this trip with several possible endings based on the weather and how we were feeling. Our endpoint today was a cabin within 1 mile of our car, so one option was to walk out right away. Feeling happy, healthy, and enjoying the good weather and relative lack of bugs, neither of us was interested in that. Another option was to sleep in the cabin tonight but leave tomorrow. We also felt ready to stay another full day in the woods, so that wasn't necessary. The third option was to hike tomorrow on the Little Carp River trail to our last cabin, Lily Pond, and then return to our car the next day by reversing back down the trail yet again.

That sounded almost good. Lily Pond is one of our favorites, but hiking the last few miles of the Little Carp River trail didn't sound fun. That segment is more of a tunnel of green as the trail cuts away from the river, and it has some muddy spots as well, certainly more than we'd seen all trip.

We decided on a previously unconsidered fourth option: Hiking out to our car and driving to a different trailhead, which would give us a better (and shorter) trip in to Lily Pond.

Little Carp river next to the Section 17 cabin

With those discussions ringing in our ears, we arrived at the turnoff for Section 17 cabin. This was our second time at Section 17. The first time was 10 years ago, but Sarah had been so exhausted on that trip that she barely remembered the cabin. I had also forgotten many of the details of the cabin. It's tiny, among the smallest 4-bunk cabins in the park (there is one 2-bunk cabin that's much smaller). The bunks have a strange arrangement, with one -- and only one -- of the top bunks turned perpendicular to the other three. The floor is some kind of smooth laminate rather than the gnarly and pitted wood of other cabins. Because it's so small, Section 17 cabin has very little storage -- just a couple of cabinets, probably half of what other cabins have.

The physical location of the cabin is also unusual, and quite different from most others in the park. For one thing, it has a moat -- or more specifically, it's on the opposite side of the Little Carp River from everything else (and this is the exact opposite of the other nearby cabin, Greenstone Falls, which is right on the trail). There is a large and well-built bridge leading across the river. The cabin sits in a private notch in the woods, hidden deep inside the trees, but with the sound of the rushing river audible even inside with all of the windows closed.

Starting at the river, the land near Section 17 rises in a series of remarkably flat "steps" that form a series of river bluffs, almost like terraced hillsides. One very narrow stretch of flat land parallels the river, perhaps just a dozen feet deep and quickly squeezed into the river by the following terraces. Behind that, Section 17 is perched on the next terrace, about 10 feet higher. Shortly behind the cabin, the next "step" rises steeply 100 or more feet above the cabin. The log book claimed that I could get 1 or 2 bars of cell service by climbing this last hillside, but I wasn't about to try.

Section 17 cabin. Yes, the tree is growing into the steps.

After we had opened up the cabin to air out, Sarah took a nap on a bench, and I took a walk along the terrace on which the cabin was perched. The cabin's "step" of land was perhaps 50 feet deep, and stretched up and down the river for a quarter of a mile. The much taller "mountain" behind the cabin pushed its way closer to the river, forcing the lower levels of terraces to narrow and eventually disappear. The stretch of land was covered in wildflowers: Canada Mayflowers, Trout Lilies, Wintergreen, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, plus ferns, grasses, and many other plants all beneath a deciduous canopy. The canopy kept down denser brush, making it easy to bushwhack along the nice flat land.

The woods were getting more buggy, although those bugs still weren't biting, so I walked around with my bug net pushed up onto my hat. I eventually bushwhacked my way back to the cabin. As soon as I arrived, I realized that my bug net was missing -- not something I wanted to be without, as each day seemed to be buggier than the one before. I backtracked along my meandering path and quickly found my bug net. I recognized the spot: It was where I had stopped to look up at a particularly tall and beautiful tree, and the net had slipped right off the back of my head.

When Sarah laid down for a nap, she had also set out the solar shower. On this nice sunny day, the shower heated up quickly. Once we had unpacked, we both cleaned ourselves up again with pleasantly warm water.

Next we both wanted to read, but also be outside. So we moved out to the bridge, sitting right in the middle, dangling our feet over the edge, enjoying the beautiful river, and reading. It was a wonderful setting but also turned out to be extremely uncomfortable. The bridge had been designed with walking, not sitting, in mind, so we ended up sitting upright with no backrest or laying down flat on the hard boards. In the end we didn't last for long.

Zig-zag bridge to the cabin, not meant for reading

Back at the cabin, we curled up on my air mattress and enjoyed a quick nap. Then it was dinner time. Tonight's meal was another new one, a risk we were willing to take on a day with a long hike, since all we wanted was calories. This one was Peak Refuel Sweet Pork and Rice. It was fine, and certainly had a lot of calories, but it was also overly sweet. I guess "sweet" is right there in the name, but the meal was almost sickeningly sweet. On the positive side, we finally drank the 12 ounce can of hard cider (actually "Pear Pop") that I'd been carrying this entire time. It made the sweet pork and rice go down a bit easier.

After dinner, we played some more solitaire. At this point, I think I need to explain what we're doing: This was a sort of multi-player solitaire that we'd learned from Sarah's sister-in-law, modeled on the classic Klondike. However, players share their ace piles, meaning that anybody can play any legal card onto one of those piles. It could be played competitively (first to empty their board wins), but we prefer playing cooperatively: try to clear out everybody's boards. We hadn't done so yet.

To play the game, each player needs a deck of cards, and the decks must have different backs so that they can be sorted back out into decks afterwards. This cabin came with two identical decks of cards. Sarah carefully went through and marked one of the decks with an identical small mark on each back, which let us play the game. And then we won. Our first try today, we fully won the game, with both of us emptying our boards. That had literally never happened to us before. We exchanged high-fives, and then started packing up the cards, because it wasn't going to get any better than that.

Another Little Carp River view

As night came on, we laid back to read again. I've often noticed how much lighter the lakeshore cabins are, and this cabin, deep in the woods, was dark. I put on my headlamp and lit a small fire in the woodstove. It wasn't as critical as on previous nights, but it did warm up the small cabin fast. We hadn't collected any firewood, but there was a lot in the cabin and stocked outside. There was also no working saw in the cabin -- there were handles, and blades, but no bolts to attach the two together.

Our stomachs were full and we were cozy, so we crawled into bed, read a bit longer, and fell asleep. Well, Sarah fell asleep. I struggled to get to sleep, and then kept waking up. I heard mice in the walls (and likely other places in the cabin too). A strange squeaking and whooshing sound made me wonder if an owl had captured a mouse just outside the window. In addition to all of that, my bed was strangely uneven. It wasn't until the next morning that I noticed that my mattress (always hard and unpleasant) was lying on top of a large chunk of foam. No other mattress, in that cabin or any other that we visited, had this arrangement. It probably had a lot to do with my uncomfortableness.

Next time: A convoluted trek to Lily Pond

Miles hiked: 5.9

Total miles: 17.0

Day 4: Route in blue

Porkies 2025, Day 3: Rest day at Big Carp

Last time: A very short hike -- Links to all of my adventures.

Razorback along the Lake Superior trail

Tuesday May 27, 2025: I slept in late -- 10 am -- and repeated yesterday's strange trend of waking up every few hours while having vivid dreams in between. As woke up, I heard -- in real life -- the haunting call of a loon out on the lake, followed by the spooky rattle of a sandhill crane.

Breakfast, as always, was tea and oatmeal with freeze-dried raspberries doing their best to fancy it up. Sarah made a quick run out to the river mouth to get more water, which we filtered and boiled for even more tea to help warm us up. We spent the rest of the lazy morning sipping tea and reading.

This was our zero day. After one genuine backpacking day (6 miles) and a day so short it was almost silly (just over 1 mile), it was time for us to rest. Sarah's plan was to sit on the beach and read. My plan was to, well, not rest. Instead, I planned to do a day hike on the Lake Superior trail east of the Big Carp river. I hadn't been on this part of the trail since 2014. I didn't want to repeat the mud-bogging required at the far east end, but I did want to see one of the nicer nearby sections of the trail.

Sarah graciously lent me her phone to use as a camera (mine was still stuck in a restart loop, and would be for the entire rest of the trip), which is why you have photos at all in this post.

Picturesque ravine

After crossing the Big Carp river, I followed the trail up to the high bluffs that rise above both the river and Lake Superior. The Lake Superior trail runs along the top of this bluff for half of a mile. The bluff's top is cut through by many picturesque ravines, some of which the trail crosses on ancient bridges, for others it dives right down to the bottom and back up again. The bluff is covered in a mix of Hemlocks and deciduous trees, and many wildflowers were blooming as well. Blue bead lilies were in full bloom, while trout lilies were fading out.

As I enjoyed the wildflowers, I heard a strange sound in the distance. Soon, a helicopter (?!) flew past, seemingly following the shoreline. I never did learn what it was doing.

After half of a mile on the bluff, the trail plunged down into yet another ravine, this time following it all the way out to the shoreline. At the bottom was a campsite, LS-10, unoccupied and looking like a perfect spot for me to stop for lunch. I sat down on some driftwood (most of the Lake Superior campsites have impressive driftwood structures built to protect from strong and cold lake breezes), pulled out a rice cake sandwich, and enjoyed the view. While cabins are great, I really do need to camp at some more of these sites. They have spectacular views of Lake Superior and unrivaled solitude.

Driftwood wall at LS-10

After lunch, I was still feeling great, so I packed up and headed east again. The Lake Superior trail in this area has nothing if not variety. The bluffs, old growth, and ravines were replaced by a long stretch of rocky cobble. The trail ran directly over the cobble, which formed a narrow berm between the bedrock of the lakeshore and the dense swamp on its inland side. Hundreds of Columbines populated the edge of the trail, flowers just about ready to open.

Cobble trail

After the cobble stretch, the trail took me into another ravine, switchbacked up a hillside, and back up to the bluff again. This part of the bluff was entirely deciduous, with many trees just barely leafed out in the harsh lakeshore climate. The bluff soon narrowed to a razorback ridge, with the lake on one side and a small pond and stream on the other. I came down off the razorback to another campsite, LS-11, which I decided would be my endpoint for the day.

The stream that had formed one side of the razorback ridge drained into the lake right next to the campsite, forming a small waterfall that cascaded down the lakeshore bedrock. It really was a small waterfall, gentle enough to turn a big swath of bedrock into a mossy bed. I spent a lot of time enjoying the mossy waterfall, the lakeshore, and the solitude of the campsite. I really have to stay at some of these.

Tiny waterfall and bedrock at LS-11

After a nice long gorp break, I packed up and headed back the way I'd come from. Near the end of the 2-mile return trip, I met the first (and only) other hikers that I saw all day. They were an enthusiastic triple of college-aged men who were entirely too deferential to this 40-something backpacker. "No, you can go first." "Yes, lovely day, isn't it." "Have a good day, sir!" (I later noticed, by way of a selfie, that the scraggly goatee I'd been growing all week was coming in remarkably gray).

I made it back to our cabin with lots of the afternoon to spare, feeling great and ready for some solid relaxation. The dayhike had been beautiful and reminded me that the Lake Superior trail isn't entirely terrible. Many individual segments are quite nice, even if others (ahem, the far east and west ends) are usually miserable.

Sarah had spent some time searching for fallen tree branches, of which she'd found a lot. When I returned, we processed the firewood into a healthy stack of firewood. After that we were both ready to sit and read for a while, which we did on the beach. As soon as we'd started, the cool breeze shifted and raindrops started sprinkling down on us, but we put on coats and warm hats and gutted it out.

False Rue Anemone blooming along the Lake Superior trail

When the sprinkles stopped, Sarah set up our solar shower bag. This is essentially a black watertight bag with a nozzle on one end. We had filled it up with water yesterday and hoped that the pale sun would warm it up. It was slightly warmer than air temperature (a mere 50 degrees), but that was enough to let Sarah wash her face, and both of us to clean our hands thoroughly for the first time in days. Sarah grudgingly admitted that the shower might have been a worthwhile exchange for her beloved camp chair.

By that time we were ready for dinner, which was Mountain House Fettucine with Chicken. It was perfectly good. We ate another 7 cookie bites apiece for dessert.

Evening was a repeat of yesterday: I started a fire in the woodstove, tended it, we played some solitaire, then we read. The fire was almost too warm in this small and easily-heated cabin, but it was extremely cozy.

The Lake Superior trail plunges into one last ravine

Sunset was again just OK. I again went out to the beach to see if it somehow looked better from there. It again did not look better, but it was colder out there.

After dark, there was nothing to do but cozy up under my quilt and read. I slept with a ton of dreams, some inspired by the scratching of a mouse trying to get in under the door.

Next time: Return to Section 17

Miles hiked: 4.0 (dayhike)

Total miles: 11.1

Day 3: Dayhike in yellow

Porkies 2025, Day 2: Little Carp to Big Carp

Last time: Biscuits and Hiking -- Links to all of my adventures.

Sarah enjoying the view out the Lake Superior cabin's window

Monday May 26, 2025: I woke up every few hours during the night, each time only remembering that I'd had a sequence of vivid dreams. I awoke for good around 9 am, feeling surprisingly well-rested.

The day was sunny, with a lake breeze making the air even cooler than yesterday. Breakfast was oatmeal plus freeze-dried raspberries, an attempt to make three packets of instant mush a bit more palatable. It worked, mostly.

We took the morning slow, since today's hike was to be a mere 1.2 miles to the mouth of the Big Carp river. Technically backcountry cabins and campsites have a check-in time, and we didn't want to push out the current renters of our next cabin prematurely. That check-in time was a mystery to us, however, since it didn't appear in any of the printed materials that the park had placed in the cabins, in the park newsletter, nor on our camping permit (much later -- as I write this -- I found it in an email: 3 pm).

After breakfast, we spent some time down at the beach, reading and collecting a bit of driftwood for firewood. After that, we slowly packed up, but it was still much too early to leave.

Beach selfie: Cool air, no bugs

So of course, we played Yahtzee. Some kind soul had left a set of dice and a score pad in the cabin, so Sarah and I chucked dice for half an hour. Just as I was starting to total up the final score, the next renters of our cabin showed up shortly after noon. They were good natured about us still being there -- they dropped their packs and headed straight down to the lake, much like we had done yesterday -- but we hurried to sweep out the cabin and head out on the trail. (We never did finish totaling the scores, but I'm pretty sure I won. Pretty sure.)

As we left, we reflected on our second visit to the Little Carp cabin. It's a nice cabin in a nice spot. But it has one big problem: It's so hard to get to the beach that it actively discourages you from seeing the best part of the location. Other cabins -- including our very next cabin -- have much easier lake access and views.

We hiked down the short access trail, down the steps to the spectacular wooden Little Carp bridge, crossed the bridge, and stopped. We set down our packs, pulled out peanut-butter-rice-cake-sandwiches, climbed down onto some sunny rocks next to the river, and enjoyed our lunch.

Sarah said as we relaxed: "We just walked 500 feet and took a break." It was true. We have a long history of relaxing near the Little Carp River bridge (here's evidence going back to 2015). It's a beautiful spot: The bridge itself is spectacular, the river is made of waterfalls as it runs through a deep and rocky gorge, yet the rocks are often sunny and warm. If you're lucky, there are even fish spawning for your amusement. It's worth stopping there, even if it is just 500 feet from your starting point.

Interesting rocks supporting the Little Carp bridge

After a good long rest, we packed up again and headed east on the Lake Superior trail. The next mile or so was uneventful, with mostly flat and relatively dry trail and no bugs to speak of.

Our next cabin was the Lake Superior cabin, another one we hadn't visited in quite a while (10 years, in fact). I remembered it as the "thimbleberry hut", buried deep within a field of thimbleberry bushes. But in spring those bushes hadn't had time to grow up yet, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the Lake Superior cabin had a decent view of Lake Superior through its big bank of front windows.

Another change, less welcome, was the doors: The cabin's screen door scraped so badly on the porch that we had to grab it and yank on it repeatedly. The inner door, in contrast, had a 1 inch gap under it and other holes (bugs? a woodpecker? large-bore lockpicks?) around the lock. The frame had a huge variety of jagged holes and rot, some clearly the work of mice or other gnawing animals. There were piles of rocks inside and out, apparently left by past visitors who were trying to block drafts... or mice.

Lake Superior cabin, featuring sticky screen door

The cabin itself was small and cozy -- much smaller than the Lake Superior cabin. There was a good supply of dry firewood too, a sight that always makes me happy.

We opened all of the windows to let the cabin air out. I took my camp chair -- 1 pound of relaxation! -- down to the beach, while Sarah sat on a log (she'd replaced her camp chair with a solar shower and was currently regretting that choice). I may have gloated a bit, which was put to an abrupt stop as my chair legs sank deep into the rocky sand and I toppled over. I had to reset it with flat rocks under each nubby leg for support.

The beach was sunny but cool, with a strong breeze blowing off the lake. We snacked on meat sticks and read.

Once we were satisfied that the cabin was aired out, we unpacked, then headed right back down to the river mouth again to get drinking water. We also filled Sarah's solar shower bag and left it sitting out in the pale sunlight, which I thought was unlikely to warm it up much in the chilly lake breeze. While we were getting the water, we spent a little time "talking" with the renters of the Big Carp 6-bunk cabin, across the river, which required more shouting than actual chatting. They offered us some spare firewood if we needed it, but it seemed that everybody was well stocked-up this early in the season.

Nonetheless, we did collect and process some firewood, because it's always good to leave a solid supply for the next people. Like at Little Carp, there was lots to be found.

Cozy Lake Superior cabin interior

Next we made dinner. Since it had been an easy day, we chose an old favorite: Backpacker's Pantry Pad Thai with Chicken. It turns out "old" is the most appropriate part of that description. This package said it had expired one year ago, although since freeze-dried meals are designed to last for years, we didn't think that would be a problem. But this one comes with a packet of peanut butter and peanuts, which go rancid quite fast. In fact, the peanut butter packet in this "expired in 2024" meal came with its own expiration date... in 2022!

We ate it anyhow, but it turns out the date was right. The peanuts and peanut butter both tasted off, and the rest of the meal was just OK. It was disappointing, but at least we still had freeze-dried cookie bites -- 7 each -- as a good end to the meal.

By this time the sun was getting low and the lake breeze had only made things colder. I started a nice hot fire in the woodstove with the well-dried wood left by previous campers.

Our next stop was our beds, because both of us were tired out from our 1.2 mile walk and associated activities. When we were both upright again after a quick rest, we spent the rest of the evening reading, playing solitaire, and generally staying nice and cozy.

Sunset was, surprisingly, visible from the cabin's front windows. I went out to the beach to see if it looked any better in person, but it was still just OK.

After dark, as I was laying in bed, I heard a strange rhythmic sound in the distance that puzzled me. As I was drifting off to sleep, I realized that it might be fireworks for Memorial Day. People will take any chance they can get to set off fireworks, and I wondered where they were coming from.

I drifted off to sleep in the cozy, quiet cabin.

Next time: A lovely dayhike

Miles hiked: 1.2

Total miles: 7.1

Day 2 map: New trail in green

Porkies 2025, Day 1: Intro, biscuits, and Little Carp

This is the first of 6 posts about our backpacking trip to the Porcupine Mountains in May 2025. There's a link to the next one at the bottom of each post, or take a look at this list of all of my adventures. More links will be added as I write each post!

• Day 1: Intro, travel, and hiking to the Little Carp cabin (that's this one!)
• Day 2: Little Carp to the Lake Superior cabin
• Day 3: Rest day at Lake Superior
• Day 4: Lake Superior to Section 17 cabin
• Day 5: Section 17 to Lily Pond cabin and a side trip to Summit Peak
• Day 6: Exit from Lily Pond and final thoughts (...keep watching!)

The Little Carp River trail runs right next to the river

In late May 2025, the Lovely Sarah and I took a 6 day backpacking trip to the Porcupine Mountains, home to one of the biggest areas of primary forest in the United States, and one of my favorite places anywhere.

Here's what I posted in the Porkies Facebook group shortly after we got home:

PORKIES TRAIL CONDITION REPORT!

I just returned from a week of backpacking, so here's your already out-of-date beta. Read the footnotes.

Bugs - minimal*
Mud - minimal**
Weather - beautiful***

* But increasing quickly towards the end of the week with wet and warmer weather. June will be miserable. But man was last week amazing - almost no bugs to bother. Bring your bug nets!

** The normal bad spots are still bad (Correction Line, east end of Lake Superior, middle of Big Carp) but the rest is pretty good. This could change with wet weather.

*** Your mileage may vary because, you know, time passes on.

As you can tell, the trip was great: Great weather, great (lack of) bugs and mud, and also a lot of fun. It was much more enjoyable for me than last year's trip, certainly in part because I got to share this trip with Sarah. This was our first backpacking trip together since our week-long 2023 trip to Isle Royale (a place that we're avoiding this year as we see how the wolves-eating-human-food situation shakes out).

The trip was essentially a march up and down the Little Carp River trail, staying in rustic rental cabins and enjoying one of the most beautiful corners of a supremely scenic park. None of this trip was planned to be new -- no new trails, no new cabins -- but more of a revisit of old favorites. We went in May, still springtime in the Porkies, hoping for the usual cool nights and few tourists. We got all of that and more.

We spent two days in Marquette before beginning the hike. Marquette has quickly become a favorite spot to stop -- it's a bit easier to get to than Houghton (you can really feel those 2 extra hours), has interesting shops, breweries, and restaurants, and there's even a bit of family history for me (last time we visited, I found my grandparents' high school yearbook).

Sarah at the Dead River falls, site of our first date

We spent our time at places like Blackrocks brewery, the Presque Isle park, and even a farmer's market. We also recreated our first date by hiking the Dead River waterfalls. After doing that steep and tricky hike for the first time in 16 years, I was amazed we ever had a second date. I am a lucky guy.

We also stayed in the Superior Stay hotel, unusual for Marquette in that it's located near the interesting businesses on 3rd Street and Northern Michigan University's campus, rather than on US-41 or the fast-food-and-big-box-stores business strip. It's a perfectly nice hotel despite some quirks, chief among them an overabundance of signs. There are signs everywhere in the room, for every possible thing. There was even a sign inside our refrigerator:

Fridge sign

We enjoyed our time in town, but after a couple of days, it was time to march off into the woods.

Sunday May 25, 2025: After breakfast at the hotel and coffee from our new favorite Marquette coffee shop, The Crib, we packed up and headed west towards the Porkies.

We took a detour up to Tapiola, south of Houghton, for lunch at Bosio Biscuit Company. This biscuit-themed restaurant, nearly in the middle of nowhere, is run by a college friend and has fantastic food. It's worth the trip. I'd first stopped there last year and wanted to introduce Sarah, who is a huge fan of all things biscuit. She was duly impressed.

Back on the road, we made it to the Porkies Ski Chalet to check in -- the Visitor Center was closed for renovations (after being closed all of 2023 for a parking lot expansion) -- and quickly retrieved our cabin keys. I learned from a ranger that "the mud's not bad, but the bugs are really coming out", but in my experience the rangers always say that the bugs are bad. Back in the car, we drove halfway around the park to the Little Carp River road, our starting point for the hike.

Starting selfie -- we thought we would need bug nets

With one final check of our bags and bug nets perched on our heads, we headed out down the trail -- actually a gated gravel road -- to begin the backpacking phase of our trip.

After crossing a bridge, we picked up the Little Carp River trail. This is, in my opinion, one of the park's most beautiful trails. It's also relatively easy by Porkies standards, but the part we were starting on -- near Overlooked and Greenstone falls -- is some of its tougher terrain. This part of the trail is extremely bumpy, rooty, and rocky, constantly going up, down, and over obstacles and small hills. Many dayhikers are unpleasantly surprised at the difficulty of this part of the trail.

The rocky, rooty, hilly Little Carp River trail

30 or 40 minutes into the trip, as I was gazing lovingly at the ancient hemlock forests that shaded us on every side, Sarah said: "So when do we get into the old growth?" I pointed out that we were in the middle of the oldest of old growth. "But the trees look so... small!" I saw her point: Compared to a big old maple or oak, these trees didn't have huge trunks. But that's mainly because hemlocks are an extremely slow growing species. I gestured at a tree and said "that one is probably 500 years old". Sarah was skeptical. At just that moment, we came across a recent blowdown that had fallen across the trail, its trunk cut cleanly by a trail crew. We stopped to count the tree's narrow rings. Our best estimate for this tree (which had a trunk diameter of at most 1.5 feet) was again 500 years. Sarah was impressed.

A few minutes later, we implemented a rule that we had invented on our last backpacking trip together: Stop every hour for a rest break. This keeps us snacking, happy, and less tired. An hour into our hike put us in the middle of the woods, so we stopped and sat on a log and enjoyed our usual backpacking lunch: a "runner's sandwich" made of rice cakes and peanut butter.

Our next two breaks were at more natural stopping points: the two unbridged river crossings of the day. Porkies river crossings are usually pretty easy. We weren't lucky enough to be able to rock-hop across the river this time, but the water was at most calf deep. I waded through with my trail runners, Sarah stopped to switch to sandals. Each time we found the opposite side of the river to be sunny but cool. We sat on rocks, dried off, and enjoyed some gorp.

Throughout the day, we had barely even met a bug on the trail. We'd started out with bug nets on, and quickly started pulling them up onto our hats, keeping them there just in case we needed them. By the end of the day, my bug net was in my pocket, and Sarah's was largely forgotten on top of her hat.

Less than 30 minutes after the last crossing, we came to the mouth of the Little Carp river with its spectacular wooden bridge. We checked, but there were no fish spawning in the river. Despite multiple spring trips around the same time, we've only ever seen fish running up the river one time.

Sarah at the Little Carp bridge

We crossed the bridge, turned down a spur, and came to the Little Carp River 4-bunk cabin, our home for the night.

We'd last been here in 2021. We quickly noticed a few changes, not the least of which was a deer skull decorated with feathers sitting next to the fire pit. That wasn't ominous at all. The outhouse wasn't leaning any more either. For some reason the cabin, which I had remembered as strangely large and empty feeling, felt smaller and cozier now.

Sarah and I are probably some of the more Covid-cautious people you'd ever meet, and small, enclosed, poorly ventilated cabins are a great place for airborne diseases to hang out long after the last people left. So as usual, we opened all of the cabin's windows to let it air out and entertained ourselves outside.

At this point I checked my GPS app on my phone. I'd been tracking our distance from the trailhead, which came out to 5.9 miles. I wasn't surprised, because this is the distance on a CalTopo map I had helped create, as a step towards creating a grid of trail distances for Porkies trails. Why not just use the already existing park maps, you might ask? Because those maps -- and the trail signs on the ground -- indicate that the same route we followed today is 7 miles long. If anything, the error is even worse, because the park's distance doesn't include the spurs to the parking lot and to the cabin, both of which were included in my GPS track. It's a lesson I've learned again and again: Never trust the distances marked on maps nor trail signs.

Accurate distance grid for the Porkies. Feel free to share, save, or print.

There was lots of firewood left in the cabin by some previous renters (perhaps from as long ago as last fall), but it's hard to have too much. We went out into the woods to find some more. This is always easier in May, after a winter's worth of blowdowns, than in September, after a summer's worth of campfires.

Our next move was to hike down to the beach to collect water and wash out some clothing. Perhaps the only downside of the Little Carp River cabin is that it's high up on a bluff, and the trail down to lake level is steep and narrow.

We collected water for our gravity filter, and Sarah swished some clothes (already sweaty!) in the river mouth. We spent time sitting on a giant driftwood tree, letting things dry and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

After a while, we were ready to get back to the aired-out cabin. We found a different, seemingly less steep trail that cut a diagonal up the steep bluff. All went well until we reached the middle of the trail, where a large muddy patch awaited. I tried cutting above it -- on the steep hillside -- but the dry leaves were just hiding more mud. I immediately slipped and fell on my side, just barely holding on to the bag of water I was carrying. I regained my balance and immediately slipped again, this time below the trail. I made it through, and Sarah carefully followed behind, but we decided to use only the steeper but drier trail next time.

Cobble beach and leafing-out trees

Back in the aired-out cabin, we set up the gravity filter and made up our beds. I brought my 0-degree down quilt, by now my favorite quilt for staying cozy during spring camping. I also brought a new Nemo Tensor ultralight pad, specifically the wide version. I'm a side sleeper, and after many years I'd gotten tired of my knees (or rear) slipping off of a narrow pad. My elbows would even fall off if I tried to sleep on my back on a regular width pad. I am not a large person, but I've had it with regular-width pads.

Next up was dinner. We had intentionally packed extra calories this trip, another way to try to keep ourselves warm and healthy. We started out with the most caloriffic meal in our packs, Peak Refuel Beef Pasta Marinara. This was a new one for us that claimed to have 500 calories per serving -- far more than any other freeze-dried meal we've ever found. After adding boiling water and waiting a surprisingly short time, we decided that the meal was perfectly acceptable. It tasted a lot like other freeze-dried pasta meals we've had. It didn't feel like it had that many calories in it, but it certainly tasted good.

For dessert, we brought freeze dried cookie bites, another way to add some calories. We had been gifted them by some friends for our 2023 Isle Royle trip, and they were the perfect gift we didn't know we needed. Looking into the bag, I applied my extensive mathematical training and made a random guess that we could each eat 7 cookie bites per meal. And so we did.

We packed away all of our food and other smellables into the cabin's cupboards, a long-established habit to avoid mouse problems.

View from the trail: Looking across the river to a massive clay hillside.

As I looked out the cabin's front window, I could see the sun setting through the (not quite fully leafed-out) trees. I climbed down to the beach to check out the sunset, although the clear sky promised a dull sunset and a cold night. Nonetheless, I pulled up my phone to take a photo, at which point the camera app froze and crashed. Then the entire phone crashed, restarting... then restarting again... and again. Nothing I did could get the phone to stay on for more than a few seconds. Eventually, as the sun set behind Lake Superior (it was dull, as expected), I held down the power key and got the phone turned off.

I climbed up the steep (but non-muddy) trail and back into the cabin, where I told Sarah about my phone troubles. I'd brought (and bought) this phone specifically for its really good camera, and here it had died on the very first day of backpacking! She kindly offered to let me use her phone, and from this point on, all of the photos in this blog series are from Sarah's phone instead.

With the sun below the horizon and the skies clear, we knew it would be a cold night (in fact, 38 degrees in nearby Ontonagon, according to the weather service). We had plenty of dry firewood, so I set about starting a fire in the woodstove. Using directions from the Porcupine Mountains Companion, I got the fire roaring with my first match.

I pulled a chair up to the stove, feeding in occasional twigs and reading on my Kindle. By the time we were ready for bed, I had some hot coals established and added one more log for the night.

The night was clear with no moon, a perfect chance to see stars and even the Milky Way. But we were both so tired -- and so cozy in the cabin -- that we went to bed instead.

Tired from our first day of hiking, I fell asleep quickly. But I woke up every few hours, sometimes thinking to stir the coals in the stove. Each time I fell back asleep, I slept intensely with vivid dreams. The fire and my zero degree quilt kept me cozy.

Next time: 500 feet until lunch

Miles hiked: 5.9

Total miles: 5.9

Day 1 map

Porkies Solo 2024, Day 5: Big Carp to Lake of the Clouds

Last time: A "rest" day at the Big and Little Carps - links to all of my adventures

The Big Carp 4-bunk cabin's beautiful setting

Thursday May 23, 2024: Despite being woken up by animals screaming outside the cabin window in the middle of the night, I slept well and woke for good by 6:30 am. It was a clear morning -- the first and only one of the trip -- and the sun was already rising above the Big Carp river.

As I awoke I realized, for about the 4th day in a row, just how truly stinky I was. It was worse this trip than usual. Probably the jumping jacks I did yesterday didn't help. I was ready for a shower. Luckily, today was my last day in the woods, so I would get my wish. On previous trips, we'd usually arranged for a short hike on the last day, which helps make the trip home a bit smoother. Today was different, since (depending on which map you trust) I had to hike anywhere from 8 to 10 miles -- the full length of the Big Carp River trail -- before escaping the woods and heading to a hotel in Marquette.

First, I dressed and walked out to the shore. The river continued emptying its muddy waters into the lake while I had a pleasant chat with a fisherman from Houghton who was staying with his father in the 6-bunk cabin.

Right next to the Big Carp 4-bunk

Then back to my own cabin, breakfast, packing up, and out the door by 8:30 am. My knee still hurt, but I felt like I was ready for today's challenge. I stopped to stretch one more time before I left.

The Big Carp 4-Bunk cabin had been a good one. It was clean and well-maintained, with a lovely view of the river, plus I could hear the river all the time -- a feature in my opinion. While it lacked the lake view of the 6-Bunk, its setting was close, intimate, and picturesque. This early in the season, I didn't have to deal with a parade of hikers walking right next to its windows, but I could see how that would be a problem at other times, much like the cabins at Lily Pond and Greenstone Falls.

Big Carp waterfall -- one of dozens

I immediately took the wrong trail and ended up... maybe on the Cross trail? There's a whole maze behind the cabin. In any case, I backtracked and found the Big Carp bridge.

My knee gave a few twinges as I climbed high above the river, then a few more when the trail took me right back down to river level. But the morning was clear and cool, and I stopped frequently to rest and stretch my knee, with the excuse that I was taking photos of the dozens of waterfalls along the river. I passed Shining Cloud falls with only a quick look -- it's hard to see from the trail, and there was no way I was going to climb down the steep river bluff to view it up close.

The Big Carp River trail winds through a field of (faded) trout lilies.

The mud began above Shining Cloud falls, where the trail starts to follow a flat area high above the river. At first it wasn't bad, but soon I scrambled down a low bluff and entered the part of the trail I had been most dreading: The Swamp. As far as I can tell, the trail just disappears into a genuine standing-water swamp filled with deep mud holes, laced with fallen trees, and lacking any sign of an actual path. The only thing to do is to pick your way between grassy tufts, along tree trunks, and sometimes just through the water. I've hiked this twice before, and it's always been awful. This time was no better.

The trail supposedly goes straight ahead...

... then through this.

The swamp did seem a little shorter than previous trips, but after I exited the worst of it, the trail remained seriously muddy. At least it was clearly a trail. Soon enough I scrambled down another, bigger bluff and came to the Big Carp River, the site of today's first unbridged river crossing. I stopped for a quick snack and another knee stretch before I crossed.

The river crossing itself was uneventful -- the water was only calf high, and I waded right through in my trail runners. My worries about the river rising too high to cross after the thunderstorms were thankfully unfounded.

After the river crossing came another long muddy stretch. It was mostly flat, but the mud holes had slippery bottoms. Or maybe my shoes were getting caked with mud, giving them less traction. In either case, I had to lean heavily on my hiking poles to keep my balance.

Another feature of the Big Carp River trail at this point is a bunch of small but steep-sided stream crossings. The streams themselves are at most ankle-deep, but they have steep, muddy banks (usually 6-10 feet deep) that I had to descend. These muddy banks were, you guessed it, slippery! As with other downhills, they hurt my knee more than uphills or flat land, so they required even more careful navigation. On one of these descents into a tiny stream valley, one of my feet started to slip right in the middle of the bank. I flailed and started to pivot around my other foot. I tried to plant both of my hiking poles for support, but my arms were turning with the rest of my body, and one arm ended up crossing over the other as I stabbed the ground with my pole. I did manage to stay upright, but in a contorted, twisted position, and my right arm hurt mightily as I pulled a bunch of muscles all at once.

A lovely hillside

I paused to ruefully rub my arm and shoulder and take a few deep breaths, and then I hiked on even more carefully. Very soon I came to the intersection with Correction Line trail, an undistinguished flat spot in the middle of the woods. I turned to follow the Big Carp trail, after which I was on another piece of new trail -- I'd never hiked the tiny (0.1 mile?) segment of the Big Carp trail between the Correction Line intersection and the second unbridged river crossing. In typical Porkies fashion, a sign at the intersection warned "No water next 6 miles". Of course, there was a river crossing just ahead that kind of negated the sign's point. I assume the sign was warning about the long dry stretch after that. It's not as if the sign was any help here, at an intersection in the middle of the woods where there was no water to be filtered anyhow. Why not put the sign at the river?

Along that new 0.1 mile I passed a campsite, BC-6, that featured a heavy steel bar forming the seat for an informal bench. Who in the world would have carted that all the way out here? As soon as I came to the river crossing, I understood: It had been scrapped from the footings of the long-gone bridge that used to span the river here.

The crossing is now unbridged. As always, I walked right into the river, which turned out to be deeper and running faster than I expected. It reached up past my knees, the current pushing strongly on me and forcing me to use my hiking poles to maintain my balance (which in turn tweaked my messed-up arm).

I paused on the far bank, letting the sun warm me up and dry my legs a bit, while I pondered the choices that had led me to this point. As painful as my knee and arm were, it was still a mightily beautiful place to stop for a rest.

After that, the trail began a slow climb as it followed the base of a long line of cliffs -- an extension of the Escarpment that featured Lafayette and Miscowawbik peaks. My friend Kyle and I had hiked this bit of trail years ago and even bushwhacked along the top of the cliffs. This segment was mostly dry, a noticeable improvement on the last few miles. It was pleasantly shaded by a mix of deciduous trees and hemlocks, lacked rocks, and was as well-maintained as any Porkies trail ever gets.

Another view of the Big Carp river

Like I've mentioned in previous posts, most days on this trip I had some particular goal -- a new bit of trail to hike, a new cabin to stay in, something new to me in the park. Today, one of those goals was to complete the entire Big Carp River trail in one go (thereby also covering the last tenth of a mile of the trail that I'd somehow missed). But as part of that, I wanted to find some of the abandoned copper mines scattered along the base of these cliffs.

When I lived in Houghton, I used to spend most of my weekends exploring old mine sites, something that has gone by the wayside now that I live 9 hours away. But as it turns out, my old mine-hunting skills haven't completely disappeared. I first noticed a suspicious looking pile of rocks just about a mile up from the river. I'd found this before on my previous trip -- it was indeed a rock pile from the old Lafayette mine, leading up to nothing in particular. The "adit" (horizontal mine tunnel) at the end of the rock pile had long since collapsed, leaving just boulders at the base of the cliffs.

I knew there should be more mines along here (the Last Porcupine Mountains Companion claims four of them), so I kept my eye tuned towards the cliff base. Unfortunately that was several hundred yards off-trail, which made it a bit hard to see anything useful. Plus, my knee twinged worse and worse each time I stepped off the trail, and it really complained if I tried to climb on any uneven rock piles and then make steep descents back off of them.

I was nearly to Miscowawbik peak at the east end of this line of cliffs before I saw a hint of another mine site. I wasn't even sure -- after more than 150 years, a manmade pile of mine rock looks an awful lot like a mossy pile of scree -- but I decided that it was worth the effort to check it out. This was my last chance to find a mine before climbing the Escarpment and returning to Lake of the Clouds.

Hey hey everybody! Like my grill?

Once I winced my way up the steep pile of rocks, I knew I'd made the right choice. All of the signs were there (be grateful I'm not spelling out the technical details here). As I came closer to the cliff base, the payoff appeared: An actual mine shaft! It was "gated" with a grid of rebar jammed into the rock, a way to allow bats to enter and exit while keeping pesky humans out of the collapsing, water-filled hole in the ground. The overall effect was as if the cliff was grinning -- and it had braces. It was immensely satisfying to find this shaft. Now if only I could have found the two others supposedly in this area. Maybe I will need to devote another trip just to that goal.

Back on the trail, I passed below the towering cliffs of Miscowawbik peak and started climbing the switchbacks that ascend the west end of the Escarpment proper. I topped out at a spectacular bedrock overlook and immediately plopped down on a convenient bit of rock to rest and eat lunch. The view was fantastic, looking back over Lafayette and Miscowawbik peaks, the Big Carp River valley, the interior highlands, and even a hint of Lake Superior in the distance. I'd come a long way today and seen all of it.

Looking back towards Lafayette (left) and Miscowawbik (right) peaks,
with Lake Superior in the distance

Early in the day I had put on my headnet to ward off bugs, but they were so rare in the cool morning that I often pulled the net up onto my hat and left it attached there, away from my face. Up here on the sunny and warm Escarpment, the bugs were bad. I quickly pulled the net back down and left it there for the rest of the trip. I even ate lunch by pushing bits of food up under the net.

After 20 or 30 minutes, I was ready to move along. Up here, the Big Carp River trail zig-zags between the clear, rocky edge of the Escarpment and the scrubby trees that cover its more forested interior. Then it heads back to the cliff's edge again to pass another spectacular viewpoint. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each viewpoint brought Lake of the Clouds closer. I stopped at every overlook, also taking the time to stretch and rest my knee. When the trail enters the trees, it often descends sharply and then climbs back up again, all of which aggravated my knee even more. Despite all the beauty, the knee pain began to make the trail drag. The one upside was that my tender arm and shoulder muscles seemed to have repaired themselves in record time.

Lake of the Clouds nestled between the Escarpment and the interior highlands

I trudged my way through the last few miles of unending beauty and climbed the last few steps to the boardwalk at Lake of the Clouds. This is where I realized that, up until now, I hadn't seen another person on the trail all day. I had been entirely on my own for the last five-and-a-half hours, covering... how much distance? According to my GPS, 8.6 miles (including my mistake back at the beginning of the trail, plus two off-trail excursions), much less than the 9.6 miles reported by park maps. That made my walking speed 1.5 mph, slower than usual and definitely reflecting how tenderly I had to treat my knee at times.

I hadn't met anybody on the trail, until suddenly I met everybody. Or at least, it sure felt like it after the solitude of the last few days. Several groups of tourists were walking around the boardwalks and overlooks. These sparse "crowds" made the boardwalks feel positively cosmopolitan after how empty the woods were. I noted with approval that the groups were all wearing bug nets this time -- those nets were even more necessary here than they had been earlier on the Escarpment. 

I passed an older couple attempting to take a selfie along the boardwalk, then turned around to offer to take the photo for them. They reciprocated, which is how I learned that they were from California but were visiting friends in the Twin Cities, and now touring around the scenic sites of Lake Superior for the first time. They said that their friends had given them bug nets, and they had thought "nah, there's no way we could need those". Now they were extremely glad they had brought them.

Selfie at the Lake of the Clouds overlook. Zoom in to see the bugs.

I limped my way along the wooden boardwalks, with my knee now screaming at me on every flat step. I tossed my bag into my car, jumped in, and finally took off my head net. I was done!

I drove back to the Visitor Center, dropped off my keys, and headed east. Normally on a trip like this, I might try to get to my in-laws house on the east end of the UP, or even all the way home. But with such a long hike today, I instead stopped for the night in Marquette.

After the traditional two showers and a fresh set of clothes, I got a burger and fries from Lakers, the new brick-and-mortar restaurant operated by the owners of the Burger Bus. I took them down to the waterfront, where Sarah and I happened to be online at the same time -- she in the morning (Korean time), me in the evening. I spent a beautiful evening catching up with her, eating my delicious food, and enjoying the waterfront views. I ended the meal by picking up a hot fudge sundae from a shop on 3rd Street, a perfect end to the day and the trip.

Burger and Ore Dock in Marquette

This is about when I realized that I hadn't had any food fantasies on this trip. Normally by the second day of a backpacking trip, I'm having nearly intrusive thoughts about hamburgers, onion rings, pizza, a coke... you get the idea. This time, that never happened. Almost certainly it's for the same reason that I didn't feel cold, except for last night -- when I hadn't eaten enough calories. Indeed, some nights my 2-serving freeze-dried meal left me overly full. In general, I was much better fed on this trip than on previous ones, which helped both keep me warm, and keep me from daydreaming about food. Certainly a lesson learned for future trips.

Nonetheless, the burger and fries were everything I could have hoped for: They weren't freeze-dried.

Big Carp River from far above

Final thoughts: Hmmm... what to say about this trip? It was a strange one, and quite different from previous May backpacking trips. As I hinted way back at the start, the last day of this trip was quite good, which has helped me think back fondly on the whole trip. I almost wrote "fantastic" in that last sentence, because the Big Carp River trail really is wonderful, and the weather couldn't have been better on that last day -- but the mud and my injured knee took a little of the shine off that otherwise excellent day.

While the trip was bookended by nice days, in between I had three days of miserable weather: gray, dreary, rainy, even thunderstorm-y. I didn't see a good sunset, and only one decent sunrise, on the whole trip. I barely saw blue sky at all, and don't even ask about nighttime stars. Even clouds can be interesting, but not when they're a solid undifferentiated mass in the sky. In many past trips, we've lucked out with a week or more of amazing weather. Not this time. Adding to the disappointment, spring came early this year in the UP (after a record mild winter), which means that I missed many of the best wildflowers. I'm used to May including fields of trout lilies, but this year they were mostly gone by the time I arrived.

All of this contributed to my general feeling of "blah" during many of the days. This got better throughout the trip, but it took a long time and never fully went away.

One of the few wildflowers I saw: columbine, usually a June-blooming flower in the UP

Bugs: While I wore a head net daily on this trip, I've certainly experienced worse bugs. Almost nothing bit me during the trip, there were few mosquitoes and no black flies. There were just lots and lots of gnats, flies, and other non-biting insects that really, really wanted to get up in my face. Not surprising for late May, but also not fun.

Trails: The motivating goal for this trip was to hike the Cross trail. I'm proud to say that I did it, and I've now hiked all of the trails in the park (ok, ok, except a few ski trails) -- but I won't be hiking the Cross trail again. It's wet, muddy, unmaintained, and hard to follow. It's not even like the trail is difficult because of tricky terrain -- it's remarkably flat and boring -- it's just a real slog through a swamp. It truly lives up to its (bad) reputation and is no fun at all. The Little Carp River trail essentially connects the same points and is better in every way except for being longer -- but that length just gives you more time to appreciate the sheer beauty of the Little Carp River. The Little Carp River trail is easily one of the best trails in the park. Go that way unless, like me, you want to be able to say you've done the Cross trail.

Little Carp waterfall. You won't see anything like this on the Cross trail.

The Big Carp River trail is as lovely (and muddy) as ever, but it's totally worth it. The first and final thirds of the trail are spectacular -- the first third, near the mouth of the river, is a trek next to constant waterfalls. The last third, below and then above the Escarpment, has dense ancient forests and incredible views. The middle... is a muddy slog. But it's worth the trouble for the start and end. The Big Carp River trail as a whole shows off the best (and worst!) the park has to offer.

Cabins: The only new-to-me cabin on this trip was the Big Carp 4 bunk, which was an unexpectedly nice cabin. I hadn't expected to enjoy it for two reasons: First, because it's far away from the lake and doesn't have a view; second, because the trail runs right next to it. As it turns out, while the cabin doesn't have a lake view, it does have a wonderful river view, and it's in a lovely and intimate setting. The trail could be a real problem in busier seasons, but the combination of a slow season and bad weather meant that I wasn't bothered at all by hikers outside my windows. Besides the 4 bunk, I enjoyed returns to the Mirror Lake 2-bunk (secluded, dark) and Lily Pond (spectacular setting, also right on the trail).

This slug climbed allllll the way up on this fern just for lunch.

One final detail: After I got home, I started putting alternating cold and heat on my knee. It quickly improved and I'm 100% better now. It just needed some TLC that I couldn't provide in the woods. It was frustrating, but I've learned a few things from the experience about how to prepare for a trip. One of those lessons is "take it easy". (Haha, no, never mind.)

In the end, I'm glad I completed this trip, as bad as some parts were. The lovely end justified the sometimes miserable means.

Miles hiked: 8.6

Total miles: 29.6

The full loop: Pink --> Green --> Orange --> Blue --> Yellow

Here's a link back to the first post of this series, and a list of all of my hiking adventures.