Porkies 2026, Days 2 & 3: Section 17 to Lily Pond, and a "rest" day

Last time: Lots of mousetraps

An unnamed waterfall on the Little Carp

Sunday May 24, 2026: I slept heavily but only in spurts, waking up every few hours and then rolling over into intense dream-filled sleep.

When I finally woke up for good, it was to a sunny and warmer day. The rain had cleared out, but the world still looked wet.

Inside, I found the mouse trap that had gone off last night, along with its unfortunate occupant. I carefully took it outside and threw the poor mouse deep into the woods.

We had our usual breakfast of oatmeal and tea. Today's hike wasn't going to be too long, so we decided to make it a leisurely morning in the cabin. We leaned into that leisure by playing a game of Clue, conveniently left in the cabin by some previous occupants. It quickly became clear why the box says "3 or more players" -- not 2 -- but it was still a fun experience (it was Mrs. White in the Library with the lead pipe -- I won, just a turn ahead of Sarah).

To waste a little more time, I did something else I've always meant to do: I climbed the Big Hill. The landscape along this section of the Little Carp River rises in distinct levels, each one an incredibly steep hillside topped by a remarkably flat terrace. Section 17 cabin sits on one such terrace, and another just behind the cabin rises a few dozen feet above it. Behind that is the big hill, which rises 40 or 50 feet, and above which I'd never climbed. So I did. I took hiking poles and struggled my way up the seriously steep hillside -- so steep that I dared not lean even slightly backwards, lest I topple over and roll all the way down. The top held no view and no surprises, and also no further terraces -- I had reached the top! Then I struggled my way back down (even more slowly), mission accomplished.

Section 17, a lovely little cabin.

We finally packed up and headed out around 11 am. Section 17 was, as always, a pleasantly isolated cabin and an easy starting point. It's likely one that will figure in many future adventures.

Like yesterday, there were bugs, but nothing major and nothing biting. Throughout the day, even after we arrived at Lily Pond, we both kept our headnets pushed up on our hats, ready to go if needed, but rarely deployed.

As we passed Greenstone Falls cabin, the same three people as yesterday appeared to be sitting around the same smoky fire. From my point of view, it looked like they hadn't moved all night.

The Little Carp River trail was still muddy as we headed east. Once we had passed the turnoff to the Little Carp River road, it became clear that few people had taken this route recently. Even this early in the season, brush was beginning to encroach on the trail, and blowdowns hadn't been cleared.

Dutchman's Breeches, just outside the cabin

On the positive side, the trail was absolutely lined with wildflowers. Spring Beauties were at their peak, and Trout Lilies were just starting to open. Dutchmen's Breeches were also in full bloom, and Violets of several colors were beginning to pop.

After a bunch of ups-and-downs and just one really big mud slog, we reached a long downhill to the Little Carp River. This was our only unbridged river crossing of the day, and we were actually looking forward to it -- we were getting heated up in the warmer weather, and were ready to wade through the cool river water.

The twin campsites at the crossing -- LC-3 and LC-4 -- provide a great place to stop if nobody is camping in them, and indeed nobody was today (the trail goes directly between the two sites, which are otherwise wide open, so I can't imagine they're very popular). Sarah switched into her sandals, I kept my trail runners on, and we waded across the pleasantly cool river. We both waded back and forth a few times, enjoying the calf-deep water. Eventually, I sat down right on a rock in the river to enjoy the cool water on my feet.

Me, in the Little Carp River

After that, we sat down on the far side and enjoyed rice-cake peanut-butter sandwiches for lunch. We hadn't seen anybody on the trail since the group hanging out at Greenstone Falls cabin, but that changed at the river crossing. While we ate, four different groups came through -- every one of them coming from the east, opposite our direction of travel -- and most of them looked rather dismayed at the unbridged crossing (is it really a secret? They're marked right on the maps!). Everyone chose a slightly different way to cross the river, including one unfortunate soul who tried to rock-hop across in boots -- and got them flooded instead.

The trail climbed back up out of the small river valley, and soon we were at the intersection with the Lily Pond trail. We continued north towards Lily Pond itself. In this section, I was enchanted by what I described to Sarah as the "early spring light": On this clear and sunny day, the sun shone through the not-yet-leafed-out trees onto the brown leaves on the forest floor. In these segments of the trail, normally beshady under dense leaf cover, the woods were instead light, bright, and mostly brush-free. It gave a very specific feel to the scenery, one that I associate only with early spring and late fall in the UP.

Lily Pond cabin soon appeared around a bend in the trail. This cabin is set right next to the trail, on a small wedge of land between the pond itself and the Little Carp river. In fact, people are often confused about how exactly to follow the trail around the cabin, and end up taking a side trail to the outhouse instead. We would meet more than one of those hikers over the next two days.

For anyone who wants to know what the lock looks like. The combination is on the bottom.

This cabin actually had a combination lock on it -- basically a regular padlock with numerical tumblers at the bottom. As usual, we opened some windows, grabbed the log book, and headed to sit on the amazing bridge across the river outlet. This bridge features a bench built right into the middle, with a gap in the railing to facilitate viewing (or fishing?) opposite it. On this gorgeous and pleasantly warm day, it was a perfect spot to rest. We looked out over the impossibly blue sky, reflected in the pond. We enjoyed the fresh green grasses growing up out of the water. We watched a pair of Trumpeter Swans going to and fro, apparently building a nest. We listened to a chorus of frogs -- spring peepers, and many others -- making an awful lot of noise.

We had also brought down some camping apparatus. I grabbed some water from the pond and set it to running through our gravity filter. I added a few chlorine tablets -- after all, Lily Pond is a beaver pond -- and as the log book said, "beaver fever is no joke!" We also filled our solar shower -- basically a black water bag with a nozzle -- and set it out to warm in the sun. This would eventually let us wash our hands and faces more pleasantly.

And then, it became too hot in the direct sun, so we moved up to the cabin's shady "front yard" and sat in our camping chairs instead.

Camping chairs in the front yard

The log book, incredibly, was the exact same one that had been in the cabin on my  three previous visits. Its binding was falling off and there were only a few pages left, but it still went all the way back to 2021. Clearly, not enough people were writing logs (or using the pages for kindling). Indeed, there was almost no useful information -- but the lack of recent stories about mice did help calm my mouse anxiety a little.

After a lovely afternoon of relaxing, it was dinner time. Today's choice was Peak Refuel Beef Pasta Marinara, chosen for its high calorie count. It was big, filling, and pretty good.

We spent the evening reading and chatting. Soon enough, it was bedtime, with no need for hot tea or fire -- the day had been noticeably warmer than yesterday. Before bed, I carefully blocked the cracks around the bottom of the door with canoe paddles, a trick I'd learned from a log book (probably this log book) a few years ago.

Miles hiked: 2.8

Total miles: 3.8

Day 3 continues below!

The beautiful Lily Pond bridge

Monday May 25, 2026: We slept well, with no signs of mice or other critters. Breakfast included our traditional two cups of tea, more for caffeine than for warmth. Speaking of which, it was clear that the day was going to be a warm one, continuing the upward trend.

Today was our rest day at Lily Pond, the first actual "2" in our original 2-2-2 plan (three cabins with a rest day in each). To celebrate our ability to rest, we'd decided to hike a whole bunch.

Our original plan looked something like this: From Lily Pond, tomorrow we would hike to Mirror Lake (very short), and then the next day we'd haul ourselves to the mouth of the Big Carp (rather long). Based on the mud we'd seen so far, we figured that we would be slogging our way through miles of muck on our way to Big Carp.

So we changed our plans. Today we would return to the Little Carp River trailhead, drive our car around to Summit Peak, and hike back in to the cabin. Then when we were ready to leave Mirror Lake and head to Big Carp, we would instead hike right back out to Summit Peak (short!) and drive to Pinkerton Creek trailhead. From there, we would take the easy and well-maintained Pinkerton Creek trail in to Big Carp, avoiding the miles of mud along the Correction Line and Big Carp trails.

Trout Lily along the Little Carp River trail

We've made mid-trip changes like this on many previous trips, so much so that it's almost becoming a tradition. There's a comparison that we made while discussing this change, which I think you (dear reader) may find relevant. On Isle Royale, another of our favorite backpacking spots, there are (currently) no reservations whatsoever. Campsites are all first-come, first-served. This gives enormous flexibility: You can choose to hike and camp absolutely any route you like, completely changing your plans on the fly, staying extra days at pleasant places and moving on from others. This is a lot of fun, but the race to claim the "best" campsites can be anxiety inducing, especially in the busier seasons.

In the Porkies, on the other hand, all campsites are reserved. There's absolutely no flexibility to change your campsites on the fly. But there's an advantage that Isle Royale doesn't have: The ability to hike out to your car, get in, and drive to a different trailhead. That sort of flexibility is a handy way to react to the conditions as we find them.

We hiked right back out to the car, reversing yesterday's hike, and wearing only one gloriously light daypack. The muddy trail was starting to firm up a bit from the last few sunny and dry days.

As we hiked up the long hill at the Little Carp River road and turned into the parking lot, we met many dayhikers. They came in ones, twos, and entire families, and every one of them looked miserable -- even the ones hiking downhill. Sarah noted that this always seemed to be the case at that trailhead. I think it may be because the Little Carp River trailhead promises "quick" and "easy" access to waterfalls -- by Porkies standards, at least -- but in addition to the surprisingly bumpy terrain, they were also encountering Porkies-level bugs and mud. All par for the course in the Porkies, but not fun if you're a dayhiker who is new to the park.

Serviceberries blooming at the Summit Peak overlook

We threw out our trash bag, saving us a few ounces for the rest of the trip, and got in the car. We drove over to Summit Peak and parked in the upper parking lot. As we got out of the car, two groups of men were loading their packs into vehicles while loudly (and in one case, shirtless-ly) reviewing their trips, and fantasizing about what food they would be eating next. I do mean loudly. We got away from them as quickly as we could, taking lunch with us up to the first overlook on the Summit Peak walkway. At the overlook, looking towards the west, I noticed several high points that would fall along tomorrow's route from Lily Pond to Mirror Lake and made a mental note to check them out. After that we hiked up to the top of the Summit Peak viewing tower, because, why not? It was a perfectly nice view over a sea of green, as always.

We took a quick peek down the Summit Peak side trail, a possible route back to our car in future days, and then headed back to Lily Pond on the Beaver Creek trail. In the end, we had hiked 5.5 voluntary miles on this "rest" day!

Bridge on Beaver Creek trail

By this point, the sunny day had fully heated up -- I think the high was 81, the highest high so far on this trip. Back at the cabin, we each took a quick rinse under the solar shower, which was warm but not hot. A clean face and hands felt great after today's sweaty hikes.

We spent the afternoon sitting variously on the bridge or in the shade near the cabin, reading, and relaxing. Dinner, when it came, was a new one: Mountain House Pepperoni Pizza. I'll admit that I was skeptical of this one, but we have a rule: Try the mysterious new freeze-dried meals on days when we've worked hard -- meaning, days when we're willing to eat anything if it has calories. This mystery meal turned out to be remarkably good, easily earning an entry in the "Good enough" column of my backpacking spreadsheet (incidentally this is the highest category that freeze-dried meals can attain). Dessert consisted of freeze-dried cookie bites and some gorp, like always.

The evening was beautiful, sunny, and cooler. We both felt good enough to attempt another adventure: Canoeing out on Lily Pond. We have canoed at Mirror Lake before, and in a few non-Porkies locations, but never right here. In previous years, the cabin had one questionable canoe and a decrepit rowboat. This year, there were two brand new canoes sitting shiny down by the bridge. We headed out, carefully keeping away from the nesting swans, and enjoyed a pleasant tour around the lake. It was, if anything, smaller and more shallow than I expected. We didn't push too far upstream, since we could see a beaver lodge and dam not far beyond the boundaries of the pond.

Fiddleheads growing right in the Little Carp

To end the day, we opened up the can of hard cider that we'd backpacked all the way here with and shared it on the bridge. It was lovely.

Actually, that wasn't quite the end of the day. Once the sun had set -- after 9 pm, this far north -- we decided to go hang out on the bridge and do some stargazing. I always intend to watch the stars on these trips, but rarely stay up late enough to do it. This time would be different! We brought bug nets and wore long sleeves, but the bugs were still (mostly) not biting.

We sat on the bridge and looked at the quickly darkening sky, which was perfectly clear. Sarah pointed: There's a star! Then I pointed: There's another! Sarah: A third star! Then we waited... and waited... and suddenly we couldn't find the third star... then the second disappeared... and finally there were zero. High-level clouds had come in, for the first time all day, and completely obscured the sky. Even the bright, almost-full moon (which also made stars hard to see) was soon covered.

Nonetheless, we enjoyed sitting out on the bridge, chatting, laughing, and occasionally yelling to be heard above the noise of the frogs. Once again, they were loud -- so loud, right down here above their swampy home, that Sarah seriously suggested we should pack ear plugs. Above us, silent bats swooped and ate the (non-biting) bugs. We saw a few flashes that looked light distant lightening, but no storms ever came.

With the sky fully covered by clouds, we went back into the cabin for bed. I set up our mouse-blocking paddles again and we quickly got to sleep.

Next time: An unexpected adventure

Miles hiked: 5.5 (on a rest day!)

Total miles: 9.3

If you liked this post, check out this list of all of my backpacking blog posts.

Day 2's route is in green, Day 3 in yellow

Porkies 2026, Day 1: Intro, travel, and Section 17

This is the first of 6 posts about our backpacking trip to the Porcupine Mountains in May 2026. There's a link to the next one at the bottom of each post, or you can use the list below. This list will be updated as each is posted:

• Day 1: Introduction, travel, and hiking to Section 17 cabin (that's this one!)
• Days 2 & 3: Section 17 to Lily Pond, and a rest day
• Day 4: Lily Pond to Mirror Lake, and an unexpected hotel (coming soon!)
• Day 5: Big Carp (coming soon!)
• Day 6: Rest day at Big Carp (coming soon!)
• Day 7: Big Carp, Marquette, and home (coming soon!)

Lily Pond

Another year, another backpacking trip to the Porkies. At this point they've become almost routine, but still wonderful. The Porcupine Mountains, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is a wilderness state park and one of my favorite places in the world. Our backpacking trips there have always been unique due to the park's rustic cabins, which let us backpack from place to place and be sure of a roof over our heads, a wood stove, and an extremely uncomfortable bunk.

Sometimes though, we feel the need to change things up. At the end of last year's trip, Sarah and I decided that our next visit should be a "2-2-2" trip. That is, instead of backpacking from place to place and staying only one day at each, we wanted to stay at three different places for two days each. That would give us a rest day at three favorite locations. We have loved our (single) rest days on previous trips, and wanted to expand those.

Of course, things never quite work out the way you expect. When I made our reservations -- 6 months in advance, to the minute! -- we couldn't get two days in a row at any of our desired locations and dates.

Luckily, with a bit of shifting and adjusting, we found a way to make it work... sort-of. Here was our final plan:

• Day 1: A 1-mile hike to Section 17 cabin, an old favorite and addition to shift our schedule.
• Days 2 & 3: 4-ish miles to Lily Pond cabin plus a rest day, one of our goals for the "2-2-2".
• Day 4: 2 miles to Mirror Lake 4-bunk cabin, where we could only spend one night.
• Days 5 & 6: 7-ish miles to the Big Carp 4-bunk cabin plus a rest day. This was one of my favorites from my 2024 trip, and the last of the Big Carp cabins that Sarah hadn't stayed at. She was cautiously curious about this cabin and agreed that we could give it a try.

As you can see, we weren't planning on particularly long miles, and we still got two rest days (plus some very short hiking days). As time would show, even this plan would get significantly reworked, but that's for a future post.

We made very few updates to our well-established packing list. The only big change from last year was that Sarah finally upgraded her old, heavy Osprey pack to a brand new Superior Wilderness Designs Long Haul, cutting out a solid 2.5 pounds from her weight. She immediately replaced one of those pounds with her camping chair, a luxury that I had brought last year and she had left home -- and immensely regretted.

Confidential to Osprey advertising reps (and anyone who wants to enjoy a ridiculous story): Way back in 2021, I blogged about upgrading my own Osprey pack to SWD and saving 2+ pounds along the way. Last year, I got an email from an Osprey rep who somehow found that post, but apparently hadn't actually read it. That's because the rep asked me about adding a link to Osprey's website, in exchange for a link back to here. They must have paid no attention whatsoever to the contents of my comment about Osprey, and when I ignored their email, they kept bugging me about it. I finally had to point out that the SWD was a major upgrade, and that in fact I don't think Osprey's packs are worth the weight nor price any more. So Osprey rep, if you bug me again, I'll make my opinion from that last sentence even more explicit.

The Little Carp River

Thursday May 21, 2026: We did lots of practice hikes, spent time poring over our packing lists, filling up Kindles with books to read, all that usual stuff. I'm going to fast-forward past all of those and get straight to the fun.

On Thursday, we packed up and headed to the UP. We detoured to Gladstone to meet our 2-year-old niece (ok, and her parents too -- love you!) at the Castle Park. We had a lovely time playing on the slides and balance bars, shared a deli dinner, and then headed north to Marquette.

We checked in at the Superior Stay hotel, now a well-established favorite, and walked up 3rd Street to enjoy some more favorites. We shared a beer at Blackrocks, perused the storefronts (all closed, we were there too late), and then looked at each other and said "I'm still hungry!" Luckily, the local Main Street Pizza offers two slices of pizza at a very reasonable rate, an offer that we took them up on and thoroughly enjoyed.

Friday involved more favorites: coffee at the Crib, books at Snowbound, and a walk along the waterfront. We also found some new favorites: A take-out dinner from the newly founded Marquette Masala on Ore Dock brewing's new patio. Sarah discovered a new place called, literally, "Girly Pop" that sold incredibly expensive fancy pop (aka soda) drinks, and immediately fell in love. We also noticed a storefront with quarter-play pinball machines and had a fantastic time trying to play them (emphasis on trying).

In the evening, we assembled the last few parts of our packs: Peanut butter rice cake sandwiches for lunches (which are always best when made fresh) and gorp bags (consisting this year of almonds, peanut and peanut butter M&Ms, and sour gummy worms).

Starting out on our trip - head nets eventually proved unnecessary

Saturday May 23, 2026: Saturday was our first actual day of backpacking. We woke up in Marquette to the news that Whitetail cabin, one of the few Porkies cabins we've never stayed in, had burned to the ground overnight. This was the first Porkies cabin to ever burn down, despite the fact that each one has a wood stove, plus lots of candles left by campers. Luckily Whitetail wasn't on our trek, but the news cast a bit of a pall over us that morning.

We got some more coffee, did a quick spin through the farmer's market (featuring saxophone music, a lonely-looking state house rep sitting under his tent, and a guy with a typewriter promising to improvise poetry), and then headed out of town -- but not directly to the Porkies. We are now officially Bosio Biscuit Company groupies -- it's a biscuit-based restaurant south of Houghton, founded by an old college friend -- and we heard that they would be vending in Houghton that weekend. So, north to Houghton we went, under gray skies spitting occasional sprinkles of rain.

We found the Bosio Biscuit trailer parked along the Houghton waterfront, with a long line in front of it. The waterfront was taken over by "Locavore", some sort of local-stuff market that hadn't existed when I lived in Houghton. We got our biscuit-based meals, enjoyed them along the waterfront, took a quick walk through downtown Houghton, and then headed back out. The temperature varied wildly along our drive -- 80's inland, but 60's or even 50's near the shore.

By mid-afternoon, we pulled into the freshly repaved and expanded parking lot of the Porkies visitor center. The renovation of the parking lot was the cause of the center being closed for much of 2024. We walked in and marveled at the completely remodeled interior, which was the cause of its being closed for almost all of 2025. The visitor center, if you've never visited, is in a bizarre triangular building straight out of the 1970's, and until now, its interior was equally 70's. The new interior is light, airy, and modern. It has vastly better bathrooms, too. Nonetheless, it still has a bizarrely small gift shop (featuring, if anything, fewer good gifts). We also found it oddly empty, with lots of blank walls hopefully to be covered with art, and maybe a few more chairs or benches.

The ranger who checked us in had no news about Whitetail cabin. She did have news that all of the park's cabins are finally using codes for their locks. In previous years, a few of the more easily accessible yurts used numerical codes, while all of the interior cabins used good old fashioned keys. That's all changed as of 2026, and now every cabin has a number lock on it. Instead of clunky keys, we got a few slips of paper with codes on them. Well, that, and also an instruction not to worry about Section 17's code, because the previous renters had broken the lock and it wasn't replaced yet.

We took the long and scenic drive around the park to get to the Little Carp River road, our trailhead for our adventure. The margins of South Boundary Road will filled with trilliums in full bloom. In the parking lot, we did our last few checks, hitched up our packs, and headed out. Our hike was starting!

The short hike in to Section 17 cabin is always a little harder than I expect. This sequence of trails has a lot of small ups-and-downs, roots, rocks, boardwalks, and muddy sections. The muddy bits were especially muddy right now due to the long winter and wet spring, and we spent a fair bit of time carefully navigating them. We had head nets on, but there were very few bugs, and none that seemed to bite.

We soon passed Greenstone Falls cabin, the other Porkies cabin that once suffered a fire (but didn't burn down). The trail passes within feet of their front door, and the three inhabitants greeted us as they hung out around a smoky fire.

That's a lot of logs

Just a few yards later, we turned onto the spur that crosses the Little Carp River and brought us to Section 17 cabin. There's a long bridge across the river here, and there was a huge log jam piled up against its upstream side. While the bridge was clear enough to navigate, there were signs of lots of sawing and clearing -- this must have been an impressive snarl earlier in the spring.

As promised, Section 17 cabin had no lock whatsoever on the door. Inside, the first thing I noticed were mouse traps -- a lot of them, all set and loaded with a generous dab of peanut butter. Not a good sign.

Rain started shortly after we arrived, so after quickly getting some water to filter from the river,  we settled in to Section 17. This is a small and cozy cabin, much smaller than most other 4-bunk cabins. It's also dark: Despite having windows on all four walls, its deeply forested setting makes the cabin dim even at midday, much less on a cloudy and rainy afternoon.

Sarah pulled up the cabin's log book, skimming recent logs for helpful news or amusing stories. She read the best bits out loud, and we shared some good laughs (and eye-rolls). Sure enough, the log from immediately before us told a bizarre story. A family -- father and three kids -- had started hiking in to the cabin at 11 pm, ignoring the sign that reminded them to check in at the visitor center (which wouldn't have been possible at that time anyhow). They arrived at the cabin around 1 am and sure enough discovered that they needed a code for the lock. The kids tried to crawl in through a window that had been left open, while the father took a rock and broke open the lock. According to the log, they were hiking out the next day to get the rest of the lock codes from the rangers, and had left the loaded mouse traps to deal with an "infestation". Joy.

As usual, we hid all of our food and smellables in the cabin's cabinets. This has proved to be a foolproof way to avoid mouse problems. Nonetheless, I left the mouse traps set up, although I nudged them off to the sides a bit more -- there was no need for us to get caught in a mousetrap set right in the center of the floor!

As evening fell, we boiled up some freeze-dried Backpacker's Pantry Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken. It was a known winner, which we try to eat on days when we have less hiking (and therefore more capacity to care about the taste of our food). With evening came cooler temperatures, so we boiled some more water to make hot tea.

Even that wasn't quite enough to keep the chill off, so I started a small fire in the woodstove, using the meager supply of firewood left in the cabin. The small cabin warmed quickly, and we enjoyed a cozy evening of reading and chatting. Sarah turned on one of our new camping toys, a tiny solar lantern, which made the cabin look even more cozy in its warm light. Overall, the word of the night was: Cozy.

We were in bed early due to the rain, chill, and darkness. I spent some time reading on my Kindle and then rolled over.

A few hours later, I was awoken by the snap! of a mouse trap going off. I didn't hear anything more for the rest of the night.

Next time: To Lily Pond, then back, then to...

Miles hiked: 1

Total miles: 1

If you liked this post, check out this list of all of my backpacking blog posts.

Our route, such as it was, for the first day

Porkies 2025, Day 6: Lily Pond and home

Last time: Scaring an eagle -- Links to all of my adventures.

Lily Pond

Friday May 30, 2025: I woke up to the sound of rain on the Lily Pond cabin's metal roof. I stayed snuggled up under my quilt, listening as a roll of thunder turned the rain into a torrential downpour. A few minutes later the rain settled into merely heavy.

One consequence of my phone going nuts on the first day of this trip was that it became harder (but not impossible) to use our satellite messenger. Our main reason for having the messenger is for emergencies, but a secondary use is checking the weather forecast. This is easiest through a phone app that pairs with the messenger, although it's possible to get a very general idea of the weather through the device's tiny screen. We had done so, and it showed a 40% chance of "rain" today -- nothing to worry about. The tiny screen showed only the percentage, not any details about it. This was definitely rain, and then some.

I tried to roll over and go to sleep, but anxiety about the rain kept me awake. I had slept fitfully, as was my destiny on this trip. Now I'd also managed to wake up at 6:30 am, earlier than any other day, leaving me bleary and a bit irritable.

I got up and started making the day's first cup of tea. As I did, the rain died off, and was completely gone by 7:30 am.

Once Sarah was awake, we shared tea and our last batch of mush, er, oatmeal, along with dust, er, yes dust -- the very dregs of the freeze-dried raspberries.

Little Carp river just below Lily Pond

We were fully packed and out the door by 9 am. This was my third trip to Lily Pond cabin, and Sarah's second. We agreed that it was still beautiful, especially situated as it is next to both the pond and the river. Its bridge, and the bench in the middle of it, is another fantastic feature. The cabin is right on the trail, not my favorite feature, but that's not a big deal in the shoulder seasons. I'll definitely return.

The day had settled into gray but at least not rainy. There was even a hint of sunlight off to the east. It was mostly a bright spot in the clouds, but hopefully a sign of things to come.

The woods were misty and wet from the morning's rain. The mist seemed to make colors more intense, especially the bright green of spring leaves. It was magical.

I mentioned this -- yes, all of that previous paragraph -- to Sarah as we had just crossed the bridge. As the words left my mouth, thunder immediately crashed from off to our west. Uh oh.

Rain soon started falling. It was gentle at first, but then the thunder started up again. The rain increased. By the time we had turned onto Beaver Creek trail, the rain could reasonably be called "heavy" and the thunder was "frequent". Luckily, we were both decked out in full rain gear (and bug nets to boot).

This was the most exposed part of the trail. We hurried along the boardwalks. Then as we started to see flashes of lightening to go with the thunder, we positively raced across the bridge that crosses the river. Being caught backpacking in a thunderstorm is not a good idea, but if it happens, there's not a lot you can do except keep moving -- and we were now within a mile of our car, so it definitely wasn't worth trying to find a place to hole up.

Running from the thunderstorm

The hike up Summit Peak was hot and sweaty because of the uphill climb, the fact that we were moving as fast as we could with packs on our backs, and of course the effects of our "breathable" rain gear (always a lie). But, we made it. The rain remained heavy. The thunder and lightening skirted us to the south but was never directly over us. 

I have never been so happy to see our car. We tossed our packs into the back seat, ignoring the water running off them. We got into the car and looked at each other, with water draining off of our rain gear. Whew!

We drove around the park, back to the Ski Chalet, to drop off our keys. The ranger at the check-in desk asked how our trip had gone so I mentioned our exciting hike out in a thunderstorm, only to be met by blank looks. It hadn't even rained on this side of the park. We later learned that a very broken line of storms had crossed the western UP coming from the northwest, and we just happened to be hiking next to one small cell.

I left some maintenance notes with the rangers (Lake Superior cabin's super-sticky door, Section 17's total lack of a working saw). While we were at the chalet, we used real running water to wash our hands. It was both satisfying and disgusting to watch the brown water flow down the drain.

Back in our car, we headed east. We hadn't made any hotel reservations for the end of our trip, since we could have walked out of the woods on several different days. We decided to head for the Soo tonight and find a hotel there. That would also let us get big greasy hamburgers with big greasy onion rings at a favorite burger joint.

But first, Sarah said "I want some more biscuits for lunch", so we detoured to Bosio Biscuits up in Tapiola for another delicious meal, plus a box of biscuits to go. They've definitely become a permanent stop on our UP travels.

... ok, maybe it was finally food fantasy time.

We drove across the UP, got a spot at a cheap but perfectly adequate hotel (read: they had a shower), checked in, and took some serious showers. Then we immediately headed to West Pier, a tiny out-of-the way burger drive-in that (rightly, but oddly) claims to have the "second best burgers in Michigan". I got a side of onion rings, Sarah got a vanilla shake. We sat at a park and enjoyed them, even though the burgers were enormous and a gaggle of geese and seagulls took a strong interest in us. They were indeed delicious (the burgers, that is).

Another look at the Lake Superior trail

Saturday May 31, 2025: We slept very well. We got breakfast from an all-time Soo favorite, Penny's Kitchen, and took it with us to a park along the waterfront. Along the way, we saw a Viking cruise ship docked below the locks. Downtown was a zoo. The inhabitants of the cruise ship were out on shore leave, walking in carefully tended tour groups led by people holding large numbered signs. They were heading to the fudge and tourist shops, the locks, and who knows where else. Tour busses were heading in the direction of the casino.

At the park, we saw a second Viking cruise ship go past, presumably heading to the locks. This was definitely a good day not to be trying to get a beer in the Soo! Shortly afterward, a more traditional ore freighter came the other way. All the while the small and harried Sugar Island ferry kept zipping across the channel, dodging the boats. The park was filled with people there to watch the boats, including a tiny kid (at most 5 years old, probably less) doing his best to "honk" the freighter. It obliged, loudly and repeatedly.

The rest of the drive home was long, slow, and quiet. I finally managed to make a tiny bit of progress on my broken phone, figuring out how to get it to back up the photos I'd taken on the first day of the trip. It could only do one at a time, before I had to go through a bunch of restart loops. Slowly but surely, I got my photos back. I eventually ended up doing a factory reset, restoring from an (old) backup, and getting it working again.

And now a word from our host

Final thoughts: I don't have a whole lot to say about this trip that I haven't said many times before. Backpacking in the Porkies is one of my favorite things to do, and this time was no exception. The trails and cabins were lovely, as was Lake Superior itself. We lucked out with weather (except on the last day), mud, and bugs.

However, this trip was much more fun than last year's solo trip. That's because I was back to backpacking with my favorite hiking buddy, The Lovely Sarah. I do enjoy solo trips occasionally, but backpacking is better when it's shared.

We both really enjoyed our rest day at Lake Superior cabin, and the way it unlocked an interesting dayhike for me and extra relaxation for Sarah. This led us to discuss, at length, a "2-2-2" trip: Stay at three cabins, each for two consecutive days. Basically, a short trip with a rest day every other day, giving us time to enjoy each location that much more.

I'm looking forward to planning how to do this for next year's trip, which will most likely be right back to the Porkies again. It's my favorite backpacking place in the world for a reason.

Miles hiked: 2.0

Total miles: 23.0

If you liked this series, check out my many other backpacking blog posts.

Final map: A lot of back-and-forth. Day 1: Pink. Day 2: Green. Day 3: Yellow (dayhike). Day 4: Blue. Day 5: Orange (in two parts). Day 6: blue-gray.

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: We run out of good weather

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